So, you want to be a professional brewer?
Friday, 16 December 2011. A long journey. Three years ago, when Mike and I decided to "go pro" and start our own nanobrewery, we decided we were going to take it slow. It's looks like we are on the four year plan. New York's State Liquor Authority has our paperwork and it's in their hands now. We thought we would be opening for business in the summer of 2009. Then when that deadline came and went, we were just sure that the summer of 2010 would be magic. That didn't happen, and the summer of 2011 looked like a sure thing. Now, we're keeping our fingers crossed for the summer of 2012.
It doesn't have to take four years to start your own nanobrewery. Part of what took so long for us was that we had (have) no money. Neither of us are rich. We're just average working guys who can scrape together a few extra pennies a month to try to make our dream a reality. In those four years we've put tens of thousands into building our brewery, but because we saved up and paid out over time, we have no debt. No loans. The Man doesn't own us. Our nanobrewery is ours.
My plan back in the summer of 2008 was to tell our story. Being a writer, I have a natural compulsion for storytelling, but more than telling our story, I wanted to show other brewers just how easy it was (with a little determination) to open your own nanobrewery. I posted a bunch of articles on my beer blog over the years, but it's time that I started gathering together all that information into one place and put it on a single page so that you don't have to go searching all my web pages to get the information you want and need.
So here it is, my guide to starting your own nanobrewery. I'll start with the first post I made on 22 August 2008 and then fill you in on each of the steps.
starting a nanobrewery
Fri, 22 Aug 2008Mike and I have finally started the ball rolling on launching our own nanobrewery, what we are presently calling Rocky Point Artisan Brewers. Our plan is to make top quality beer in small batches for a few taprooms on Long Island. Since we will be doing production and distribution ourselves, we won't be "trucking" the beer very far from Rocky Point.
The process for starting a brewery is one that Mike and I will learn as we go along, but we'll have some help from our friends. Paul Dlugokencky of Blind Bat has been forthcoming with advice; he's already gone through the process and is poised to release his first batch of beer in the coming months.
In the spirit of cooperation, I would like to encourage others to seriously think about launching their own nanobreweries. I'll likely be writing about the process quiet a bit over the coming months (years?).
The first step Mike and I took was to form a corporation. You'll need a name for the corporation and a mailing address (could be your home). Filing the corporation papers in New York requires name approval and $300. Once you have formed your corporation you'll need to engage the services of an accountant. (More about that later.)
Paul put Mike and I on the right track by pointing us to the "TTB", the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Their brewery information web site is where you need to start. The opening paragraph starts: "You've decided to become a brewer? You must first qualify with TTB and apply for an operating permit, or Brewer's Notice." You'd better like filling out forms.
Business or Hobby?
After a year of operating our nanobrewery as a homebrewing collective, I got this question on my blog:
what's taking so long?
19 July 2009Hey, what happened?? You've been "dark" for almost a year... how'd your nanobrewery turn out??
Here's my reply:
The nanobrewery is up and running. We're still debating on whether it makes sense to apply for the "liquor" license. The economics of small scale production means that no money will be made here, so we will be operating at a loss (covering our material costs, but working in the brewery for free). Our time is worth money, so until we have that worked out, we aren't exactly chomping at the bit to try to sell our beer.
Basically, we had a good thing going. We had a few friends who like to brew with us. Brew days were enjoyable, social affairs. None of us was going broke chipping in each month to cover the operating costs. And the fact that we got inexpensive beer in the end actually made the model work. My monthly beer cost went down because I didn't have to purchase commercial craft beer from the store.
A Community Supported Brewery
Then I invented a new business model based on CSA or Community Supported Agriculture.
The Feds
In August 2010, two years after form RPAB we finally agreed that getting the license was the right thing to do. Mike mailed the application for our Federal Brewer's Notice the week before we went to the 2010 North Fork Craft Beer Fest.
starting somewhere in the middle
Fri, 13 Aug 2010Tomorrow, Mike, Yuri, and I will take the RPAB road show to Martha Clare Vineyards for the North Fork Craft Beer Fest. It's our favorite festival of the year on Long Island. We've been attending the festival under the Long Island Beer and Malt Enthusiasts banner for the last couple of years, now it's time to go as Rocky Point Artisan Brewers -- the time has come for us to take the next step.
The next obvious step for us is to complete the licensing process for our brewery. That process has been in the works for a while now. It's a formality that legitimizes our brewing activity with the powers that be. It really has nothing to do with the brewery or the quality of our beer. Filing paperwork is all about taxes and trade. It's not the pretty side of brewing.
What I'd like to do is tell our story, the story of three guys and a nanobrewery. It's a story worth telling because we think it's a little different and it might help people to stop and think about what's really important to them: family, community, simple living, and giving.
Mike, Yuri, and I are probably the most unlikely crew assembled to start a business. Well, in truth, we don't even think of what we are trying to do as a business, but our society doesn't really offer very many other models of sharing a good thing. In the US if you are going to make beer and put that beer out there for people to drink, you gotta play by the Man's rules.
Mike's the driving force behind RPAB. It was his idea, his dream, his vision. About three years ago, Mike asked me if I wanted to help out and be a part of making that idea a reality. I'm a bit of a dreamer myself, so it was an easy decision to make. "I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be, but sure! I'm in!" I said (enthusiastically). After a year or so, Mike and I invited our neighbor and brewing buddy, Yuri, to join officially. And since then the three of us have come up with some pretty good beers and we think it's time to put those beers out there for folks in our community to try and enjoy.
All three of us are brewers. We've been making our own beer at home for years. I started brewing in 1997, Mike started before that, and Yuri got hooked on the hobby after moving to the US a few years ago. Making beer has always been more of a hobby, a passion for us -- something to do on the weekends for our own entertainment and that of our friends. When we decided to create RPAB we didn't want to lose the passion for the beer and for the craft. That's why we pledged to keep RPAB small and to self-distribute our beers only to places that are close to home.
"We aren't in this to make money," I said to a reporter recently who had dropped by our brewery to see the small but capable system we've put together.
"But you'll want to get big right? Sell your beer nationwide someday?" The reporter was sure that we'd swallowed the American Dream hook, line, and sinker.
I shook my head. "Nope. We're going to keep it small."
We're committed to the small. A few decades ago E.F. Schumacher showed the world that small is beautiful. We plan to carry on in that tradition of keeping it small and keeping it beautiful.
The State
We were told that the Feds would only take 3 months. It took them a year. We are told that the State will take a minimum of 6 months. We'll see.
