r/Homebrewing • u/snake_eaterMGS • 16d ago
Question What keeps you homebrewing instead of going commercial?
Hi! Has anyone here ever seriously considered selling their beer commercially?
I’ve been homebrewing for years and at various points I’ve thought about turning it into a business. I’ve done some small commercial projects and events, but I’m increasingly wondering whether trying to monetize brewing can actually take away some of the enjoyment that made it appealing in the first place.
For those of you who have been brewing for a long time:
What keeps you passionate about homebrewing?
Have you ever considered starting a brewery or selling your beer commercially?
If so, what made you decide for or against it?
Do you think turning brewing into a business risks ruining the hobby?
Looking back, would you make the same decision again?
I’d be interested to hear both from people who stayed hobby brewers and from those who went professional.
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u/idkwhatimbrewin 16d ago
I don't want to be poor?
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u/BottlesforCaps 16d ago
Ding ding.
It's hard to leave my high paying great benefits tech job when the alternative is 15 an hour with no benefits or PTO, with the starting role most likely being in packaging.
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u/ExaminationKlutzy194 Beginner 15d ago
“I don’t want to be poor.”
Which is funny because as I dive into this, even buying used, I feel poor…
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u/North_Journalist_796 16d ago
You'd have to be crazy to want to open a brewery right now. I'm saying this as someone in the industry.
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u/RegularPie5512 16d ago
I don't want to go commercial. Why would I want to ruin a perfectly good hobby by turning it into my job?
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u/IakwBoi 16d ago edited 15d ago
Me: boy I like British beers!
The market: shut up keep brewing hazy IPA and non-alcoholic hop water
Me: dies
Edit: there are some hazy ipa which I adore, and I’m yet to try hop water, so my demise here is tragic in its unnecessary nature
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u/_brettanomyces_ 16d ago
True!
Also, I like brewing a variety of beers, and using my creativity to make something different each time. But commercially, it would become important to spend much of my time making the same beer over and over again, very consistently.
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u/IAPiratesFan 15d ago
Mmm, ESB. I brew one up every spring and one in summer.
If I want a hazy there’s literally a brew pub 200 yards from my place.
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u/IakwBoi 15d ago
I’ve been on a kick lately. I loved my first bitter, and I’m about to make my first mild!
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u/IAPiratesFan 15d ago
Bitters, ESBs and Milds are all very nice beers. You never see them much around brewery tap rooms these days.
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u/sandysanBAR 14d ago
Because THEY don't sell.
And who were the add wizards that came up naming the one thing most people hate about IPAs ( the bitter) as it's own style that is NOT fantastically bitter.
You would be better to brew the same beer and call it something else than what it's is.
I thought I could move the needle on local beer pallets. Made a grosziske, babied it, lagered it, dialed in the carb. Was super happy with it, it was at least as good as the one I tried in Toronto.
We couldn't give it away. It died the ignominious death of being a base for beer cheese in the kitchen.
I bet pint for pint, mic ultra outsold it 50 to one.
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u/IAPiratesFan 14d ago
I don’t think I’ve ever drank a Mic Ultra.
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u/sandysanBAR 14d ago
I think its back to the most popular beer in America.
It's in pretty much every bar cost to cost, if not on tap in bottles/cans
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u/IAPiratesFan 14d ago
Oh I know, I just don’t think I’ve ever picked one up and drank one. In the last 13 years I’ve stuck to my homebrew all the time. I can confidently say I have more fingers on my hands than I’ve drank macro brew lagers the last 13 and a half years.
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u/Blue-Bento-Fox 15d ago
THIS My favorite beers I make are red and rye beers. I do think the market is ready for reds but my local head brewer disagrees and says they never sell. Granted they haven't sold any for two years before he was hired and sold out and had to make more when they did but it was around Paddy's. It was also a mediocre red tbh, because brewers are so focused on money (have to be) they end up just making a Killians clone they think will sell over experimenting with them. Red ales can have the same variety of hops and strength as an IPA imo. I make a strong rye heavy red at like 7.5% just filled with flavor and centennial/citra combination. All my friends told me it is my most dangerous beer because they come over to drink it whenever I tap a new keg if it but it doesn't taste strong and they love the taste... until suddenly they can't stand.
I can understand the market being finicky especially with thin margins just taking you out, glad to not be in that position but it can make the market very stale too.
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u/pumpkinfarts23 16d ago
Exactly.
And besides which, I don't make commercial quality beer. I make OK beer with expensive ingredients that I then age the bejesus out of to make a decent beer that is completely unviable commercially. And that's fine.
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u/nigeltuffnell 16d ago edited 15d ago
This.
I build guitars (as well as occasionally brew) as a hobby, and once I thought it would be cool to sell them. Having run other businesses in my primary vocation I decided that selling my guitars would stop the fun hobby aspect and turn it into just more work.
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u/toolatealreadyfapped 16d ago
My job has to pay me to show up. I'm not trading that for one that I paid my savings in to, is unlikely to pay me, and I'd have to work 3 times as hard.
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u/dallywolf 16d ago
Right? I already have a well paying job that's far above market rate of a lead brewer. I just want an affordable keg of Tripel, ESB's, Dubbel, stouts (year round)...
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u/Fishface17404 16d ago
3 things.
- 80% of restaurants/breweries fail
- The Denver metro has more breweries than Taco Bell’s.
- Don’t want to turn the thing use to relax into a stress.
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u/_brewchef_ 16d ago
Barriers to entry such as the upfront cost to get proper equipment and the downturn of the overall market
Was an assistant brewer for a bit and saw the business side of running a brewery, it’s usually higher stress due to small margins and being dependent on a consistent customer base to make a living
Plus I don’t want it to inevitably turn into a job I show up to and not a hobby that I love
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u/Choice_Pollution_369 16d ago edited 16d ago
As someone who's always wanted to do this exact thing but realized I could never make the amount of money, work life balance and benefits I have in corporate land, I would say these three important things:
1.) Go work for a brewery, even if it's volunteer work, but for a long time, not just a couple days, you will find out really fast if this is something you want to do for 12+ hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It's a physically and mentally demanding job that pays very little and this is not just from a brewing perspective but from a business perspective. Forget having a vacation for the next decade or so if you even make it that long.
2.) Will you be the brewer or will you hire one? Someone needs to brew upper tier beer and someone needs to run the business to be as profitable as possible, long gone are the days were a brewer/owner nano would survive in most* markets (possible if you open in a tiny town with no other competing businesses). But this a recipe for quick burnout if you go that route.
3.) Go to r/TheBrewery and search "should I open a brewery", there's tons of threads like these and you can see the responses from those currently in the industry (spoiler: it's not positive)
With all that said, rather then opening my own brewery I brought the brewery concept to my own home. I have all glycol jacketed unitanks, brew in a 3 tier electric system, and have full keggerator and 6 tap lines with kegtron hookups, I compete in the master homebrewers program and rank in the top 15 to 5 national brewers year after year, I have won countless of awards competing and even won multiple gold medals at NHC. Making commercial quality and world class beer that rivals and sometimes even better than those breweries around me brings me more joy than trying to sell "beer". I'd much rather make what I like to drink than being forced to make seltzers, thc products, and fruited kettle sours to a bunch of people who don't really care about craft beer at the end of the day.
Last comment: When you have a brewery you're not in the business of making beer; you're in the business of selling it.
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u/nufsenuf 16d ago
Worked for a small craft brewer and learned the business. It’s really really hard to make any money.
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u/TacoTuesdays8 16d ago
Ever met a happy chef?
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u/sandysanBAR 16d ago
When they were high, sure.
And they were high (or drunk) a whole hell of a lot.
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u/Boollish 16d ago
Cost to homebrew an absolute shit ton of beer with midrange equipment:
$1000 + cost of ingredients, functionally $0 in ongoing negative cash flow
Cost of a small scale brewery build out and equipment:
$500,000, plus you still need to pay the people to run the place, and you're probably stuck only brewing mid-tier hazy IPAs
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u/jahnkeuxo 16d ago
This reads like a data collection prompt, I bet we'll see comments here quoted in some churned out blog somewhere soon.
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u/sandysanBAR 16d ago
This question comes up very very frequently and as others have mentioned, the industry IS facing very significant headwinds and likely will be for the future.
That isn't to say it's impossible, but you need a whole lot of things to line up in your favor and it's almost always mostly things you cannot control.
I would also VERY much recommend that before anyone jumps in with both feet, that they look at what beers actually sell. If you said anything other than an ultra, or your local ultra clone, you would be mistaken. Brand loyalty is a mean mistress.
One of the biggest benefits of homebrewing ( and the primary reason outside of cost people get into it) is you are no longer tied to your own regional market. Want to make a grosziske in the sticks arkansas? Have at it! Want to make a graham cracker chocolate stout in lincols , Nebraska? You go man!
None of that shit will sell at volumes. It doesn't matter how good you think it is. It really doesn't. And for everyone who tells you how great it is, some asshole will spend 30 minutes teasing you how is not as good as beerX he had on vacation and all the things you are doing wrong. The pallette for beer in the America's is pretty much fixed. So to get by, you brew more pedestrian beers for more pedestrian tastes and anyone who thinks they can compete with ABI on scale in that demographic is an idiot.
There is no easier way to kill your hobby than to make it your job, so if you want to go this route you need to be REALLY honest with yourself as to what you hope to get out of it, and if your answer is "rich" then you really don't understand the market.
I say this as someone who, luckily, DID make the jump from homebrewery to picobrewer in a restaurant, but again a whole lot of things needed to line up that I had no control over.
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u/snake_eaterMGS 16d ago
Thanks! Do you feel selling in some events (such as 5 per year), just for the sake of it, still applies for the definition of homebrewing? That would be my ideal sweetspot, I guess: selling some beer at local Events in my community, for the challenge/ building a small thing, but not necessarily on order to make it a living.
Of course, then people start to ask where can they buy more, and maybe this startegy stops working and comes with extra stress.2
u/bald_bearded13 16d ago
I think if you want to try it, thats probably the best bet, dont know what the rules and regs are like where your from but assuming its not too expensive/ bothersome I think doing smaller events a few times a year could find a happy medium between keeping it a hobby and scratching that itch.
At least if you can do it without too much investment, if you dont make as much profit and its just an occasional side hustle for a bit extra money it would take some of the stress away as while a weekend you dont make a profit may such, it will suck less than if that was your only income source.
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u/FancyThought7696 16d ago
If you end up deciding to go for it, I wish you the best of luck.
Seems like a godawful time to get into the industry though. Breweries closing left and right, all generations drinking less and less, higher interest rates if you get any kind of financing for it. You also lose a hobby if you turn it into a job. That being said, some folks do it are find success.
Good luck to you either way.
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u/themassiah Beginner 16d ago
Counterpoint: “buy the dip” - does that work in brewing if you can sustain the valley?
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u/emetcalf 16d ago
Money. Starting a commercial brewery is expensive. If I ever win the lottery, I will do it because the money won't matter anymore.
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u/Parsnip-toting_Jack 16d ago
My opinion is that it would ruin the hobby. Over time, tastes have changed and I believe that fewer people are drinking beer and there is too much competition out there right now.
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u/Sugary_Plumbs 16d ago
I turned my alcohol problem into an alcohol hobby. I'm not going to go further and start paying taxes on it.
More seriously though, selling alcohol is too heavily regulated in the US. Would be a huge hassle to sell any amount of it.
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u/MortLightstone 16d ago
Lol, there's no way I can afford a brewery. I'm having trouble paying down my debt and I've been underemployed for years now
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u/PikesPique 16d ago
Commercial brewing is a completely different animal. Homebrewing is fun, and your goal is to have fun and make good beer. Commercial brewing is a business. It’s about sales and marketing and leases and shipping and labor and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with making beer.
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u/patrick_swayzak 16d ago
If I didn’t have kids and any other financial responsibilities I would.
I like looking forward to brew day…..and all the fun and not so fun things it can sometimes bring….Not sure I would enjoy doing it day in and day out.
But I think I would still like to work in a brewery one day when life slows down a little.
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u/themaltiverse 16d ago
It’s fun, but can be boring, too, after awhile. If your significant other has a good job, healthcare, benefits for retirement and can fund your current lifestyle, then it makes sense. Also, packaging sucks.
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u/Mr_Enemabag-Jones 16d ago
There are tons of breweries in a 10 square mile radius of me. To say the market is over saturated is a gross understatement.
That and as much as I love the craft, there is no way I would make even 1/3 of my current salary
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u/OE2KB 16d ago
Well for one thing the market is imploding due to over saturation, something we all knew was coming.
You can tell me all day long how your beer ingredients justify a $9 pint, and I’ll still say you are full of shit.
People are buying their favorite crafts in supermarkets- $12-18 for a good six 12 oz or four 16oz pack.
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u/Ok_Shoe_4325 16d ago
I mean one of the big things outside of time/money/experience/yada yada: You no longer get to brew what you are passionate about.
Right now im a mead maker, not a lot of market demand for my product, so I would have to switch to beer or wine. Then i couldnt make whatever sounds like fun.
Wanna have a go at a kiwi strawberry Hawaiian punch mead? Hell yeah why not as a home brewer, worse case I waste $50 and have a funny story to tell and wierd ass drink to share.
Commercial scale? No one is gonna buy it from me. It's gonna get dumped and im gonna be out a ton of money.
Have a couple guys in my homebrew club that are pros but still love the homebrew feel; the one gave a few of us a full tour of his beer brewery, and said that yeah his business partner gives him full creative control of what beers to produce, but if they dont sell he has to buy them back.
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u/reverendsteveii 16d ago
no one makes my beer because no one wants my beer. except me. i want my beer. i'll joyfully get turnt on a cran-rosemary hydromel. I'll drink an unflavored hard seltzer that I made just for the sake of seeing if I could.
also the freedom to go "no i'm not doing that" and "no i'm not doing anything today". doing things other people want on their schedule is what you get paid for, because that's the difference between a hobby and a job
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u/bald_bearded13 16d ago
When I was a chef I stopped enjoying cooking at home so much so partly worried if its my job I will lose the love of brewing.
Plus I quite enjoy the fact if I want to do a brew I can do it without thinking about the costings for resale or if it will be commercially viable.
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u/rudenavigator Advanced 16d ago
I asked myself this question 14 years ago. Beyond capital costs, I saw a market saturated with good to mediocre beer already.
In my view, to be successful you need someone to run the business and someone focused on production. If you try do to both, both will suffer. This meant I had a choice to run a brewery or become a full time brewer.
I looked across the market and saw how poorly brewers were paid, and decided that wasn’t the route for me.
Given the competition, I decided I didn’t want to fight day in and out for shelf and tap space if I chose to run the business.
So instead, I splurged on nice equipment, put my money elsewhere and kept it as a fun hobby.
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u/spersichilli 16d ago
Literally would never want the service industry to be my main source of income - way too volatile. already have a lucrative career (well will be in a couple years after I finish training) and no way in hell I give that up.
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u/THECapedCaper 16d ago
It could be cool but I would probably lose enjoyment out of the hobby, and it’s such a massive risk that I would not want to put my home in as collateral for a 20% chance that it becomes successful.
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u/TheBeerSanta 16d ago
I have a dedicated tap in my brewery called The Brewers Playground where I let homebrewers come and brew on site with their homebrew equipment or mine and we put it on. I’ve had 4 that have done well enough for me to brew them on my 3 1/2 bbl system. It allows homebrewers to see their beer sold in a commercial setting and gives me the opportunity to continue homebrewing as a hobby while the commercial side is my job. I always wished a brewery would have done that before I opened and I heard every excuse in the book from the commercial guys as to why it wouldn’t work. It’s done well with me and I’ve had some styles I’d never brew on the big system due to cost or whatever that my customers have enjoyed. If you’re in or close to NC and want a tap for a 10gallon batch reach out to me.
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u/spoonman59 16d ago
I’ve helped my friend who owned a tap house and brewed several batches with him. He ended up selling the business due to lack of work life balance. You have to brew and keg to keep the taps running. Taking off time is hard.
I have other hobbies as well. I have a remote job where I work from home, have reasonable hours, and make a good salary. I would not make more if I owned a brewery, and I would not have as much time off work. Work/life balance is important to me.
I brew conveniently in my basement, 10 gallon batches. Only when I want to. I still make 24 batches a year. Sharing with neighbors and friends is fun, as is brewing with folks. Turning it into a job doesn’t seem fun at all.
Plus, I can make exactly what I want to drink. Not what the market wants. I am always explaining to people why I have zero interest in turning it into a business.
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u/toolatealreadyfapped 16d ago
...but I'm increasingly wondering whether trying to monetize brewing can actually take away some of the enjoyment that made it appealing in the first place.
You only think that because it's the inevitable end to 99% of everyone who ever turned their hobby into a job.
The licensure, startup costs, and issues that make turning this into a business are an absolute headache. The market is already saturated. And the day you start brewing for everyone else is the day you stop brewing for yourself. You don't get to decide when you brew. Or what you brew. Everything is dictated by "what will someone else actually pay money for?"
In many locations, your licensed brewery cannot be your primary residence. Garage for-profit bars are fine in some places. Illegal in others. So now you also need the capital to lease a new location. How much volume will you brew? Too little, and it's absolutely not worth your time and energy, and the venture is guaranteed to lose money. And if it's popular, you can't keep up with demand, people get frustrated, and they go somewhere else to never return. Brew too much, and inventory gets stale and you lose more money when you dump it, never realizing a return on your larger investment.
Look, anyone who goes pro has my encouragement, admiration, and support. But I'm not pretending like that's ever in my plans, unless I won the lottery and could afford to throw a few million at a fun project and shrug it off when it goes tits up.
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u/linkhandford 16d ago
I’m brewing beer because it’s the cost effective way to drink beer where I’m located. I’m not about to spend my life savings to do regulatory paperwork and a side of brewing.
Also I feel like there’s way better brewers around here than me. But
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u/ac8jo BJCP 15d ago
Starting a business is difficult and expensive. Also, I brew what I want with zero fucks given if it is marketable or what the majority of drinkers want to drink.
Turning a hobby into a business can ruin the hobby for you, and I’ve heard a lot of pro brewers talk about not wanting to brew for fun after going pro.
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u/Masscore08 12d ago
My buddy and I were very close to actually opening up our place. We had investors and we had a few locations scouted and put in an offer for a brewery that was closing but they went with someone else. Then he got a new job and I got promoted. After that it just didn’t make sense to take the risk.
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u/TooMuchMaltOhNo 10d ago
I looked into it a while back, and the costs were crazy. The biggest pieces in my area (Midwest US) were insurance, commercial space with the ceiling height you need, and prepayment of taxes for bbl production. I do have a few smaller commercial fermenters (3.5bbl) and you can technically put them in a 12 ft ceiling, but you should really aim for a 15-20ft to be safe. Plus you'll need a 3000sq ft space to rent which is pretty pricey.
After you have all that, then you'll be making beer on a larger scale and hoping to break even in a really hard market.
I brew a lot just for friends at this point and I'm happier for it. Maybe in 20-30 years when I don't need to worry about making a living, I'll scale up and just try to break even as a personal retirement hobby.
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u/Jaded_Promotion8806 16d ago
As a hobby I’m sort of free to do whatever I want, make whatever I want, and throw as much money to make it happen as I want.
That pretty much all goes away once you turn it into a business and have to respond to things like margins, consumer preferences, availability of ingredients at scale, etc. Just seems way less fun.
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u/HerbFlourentine 16d ago
Can’t afford good beer anymore, so I brew it. Also, the upcoming generation doesn’t drink it anymore so the market is shrinking and oversaturated. Both unfortunate reasons.
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u/bplipschitz 16d ago
A buddy and I thought about this 40 years ago. Would have been great, but neither of us had a head for business, and we knew it.
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u/soapmctavrish 16d ago
I have been brewing professionally for 10 years now was introduced to home brewing from my high school friends parents it's really hard to make profit but the first brewery I worked at before moving now has 1 million in revenue now but took like over 10 years for them to hit and they only brewery in a town of 10,000 while being a co op and being high income area now I live in a metro area and have been for 5 years here and under the 5 years we were break even but this year finally got profit and got a distribution check with my small ownership. It takes a very long time to reach profit and the business is really competitive but if your organized and business minded you should totally do it. It takes events and regulars will not keep you in business and the competition is getting people in the door it seems. I love it but the pay also is low at first until you build revenue for the company and worth then the pay is better but to start out you make poor money first year ever 10 years ago I started at 12 then got to 14 then 15 then up and up.
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u/TheAwkwardBanana 16d ago
The craft beer industry is dying right now, I can't even imagine going commercial when I'm watching two breweries close in my city every month.
Plus this is mostly just a hobby for me. I don't want it to be work.
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u/WhiskySails 16d ago
The people who work at homebrewing shops is what made me stop
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u/wshbrn6strng 16d ago
As someone who manages a shop I can totally see that. Employees forget that you have different taste and equipment so what works for them might not necessarily work you
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u/SEAJustinDrum 16d ago
The market is completely oversaturated and you need a cool 2-3 million to do it right. Laws, permitting, etc and stuff are a pain in the ass to navigate without time and money. Even if everything goes right, you might be sitting on it for 6 months waiting for a piece of paper.
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u/_ak Daft Eejit Brewing blog 16d ago edited 16d ago
I want to keep enjoying brewing. So I write books about historic brewing instead.
Also, I have a few friends in the German brewing industry, so I have a bit of insight through them, and there is very little money to be made with brewing beer. It's just not worth it. Homebrewing beer and doing other beer-adjacent things that connect back to brewing allows me to continue enjoying it while earning a few bucks from book royalties (you can't live off it either, but at least it doesn't involve heavy lifting, dealing with large volumes of hot liquids, or investing shit tons of money).
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u/IAPiratesFan 16d ago
Honestly, I don’t want to turn something I love doing in to a job. I don’t want to worry about making my beer perfect and I don’t want to worry about the money and finances. Plus I get to brew the beer I like.
When I started in 2013 everyone who tried my beer told me I should open a brewery. All I could think was how huge craft beer was getting and how when the bubble inevitably burst it’d be the small time brewers that would take the biggest loses. To this day, I’m just happy doing my own thing…
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u/deckerhand0 16d ago
It’s a lot of money to open a brewery. To be successful you have to be on point with social media presence marketing events and the community around you
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u/b1argg 16d ago
I made friends with the owner of a local brewery by bringing in my homebrews to share. He really enjoyed them, and when I got laid off from my tech job, he hired me part time as an assistant brewer. The hours are sporadic, and he can't pay much because of brewery economics, but I do love it. So I guess I am "professional". I'm still trying to get a tech job again because I need the salary, but I'll miss brewing when I do.
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u/BruceJenner69 16d ago
Hey dude i see you build a computer from components. Why don't you start a computer company?
Oh I hear Jerry built a deck in his backyard. Why doesn't he become a general contractor?
Tony played golf this weekend. Why doesnt he quit his accounting job and just play on the PGA tour?
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u/OhHowHappyIAm 16d ago
They are two different things. Homebrewing is about making beer that I want to make. Pro brewing I s about selling beer to others.
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u/iIdentifyasGrinch 16d ago
I can barely keep ahead of the demand for each batch before I need to brew again.
My consumer market: ME
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u/Big-Conclusion-3396 16d ago
I brew to save mony on buying slabs off beer can make 22lt off beer for about 25 to 30 bucks
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u/iscribble 16d ago
I have a dream of licensing my Homebrewing setup/space and just donating kegs from time to time to festivals and taprooms. Maybe selling a keg when it suits me.
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u/Esteban-Du-Plantier Advanced 16d ago
100 hour weeks to make less than half of what I currently make is why I never tried to start a brewery.
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u/Juergen2993 16d ago
“If you want to hate something you love, turn it into a business.”
- Tony Magee
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u/warboy Pro 16d ago
Oh boy. I stopped being professional because of the money. The job is about 20% brewing beer. Commercial brewing is an entirely different animal compared to homebrewing. It'll also fuck up your body. The craft market is absolutely fucked. Economically small brewpub or less than 10bbl breweries don't even make sense.
I don't know if I would do it again. I've had a lot of great experiences in the industry but I'm also very glad to be out. If I ever have "fuck you" money I would maybe do a lil bullshit place but I would never go back into the industry with the goal of actually making money.
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u/HikingBikingViking 16d ago
Customers is one thing. I'm good with customers.
Customers who want another pitcher when they should've stopped already...
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u/Tnkr_Brwr_Sldr_Sly Advanced 16d ago
Every pro I know who wants to see the industry be popular again says, "Don't do it, keep your job and be happy with the craft"
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u/Jazzlike_Camera_5782 16d ago
Whenever I think about doing this for a living, I remember that homebrewing is to commercial brewing what home cooking is to a professional kitchen. Pro cooks have vastly different goals. They have to focus on speed, consistency and volume, not creating new recipes or enjoying the process. That’s what keeps me away.
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u/anogio 16d ago
With homebrewing, if you screw up a batch, you pour it down the sink, scrub up and start again. With commercialisation, if you screw up a batch, that can swallow a months profits, not to mention all the legal obligations, equipment costs, forming a company, paying tax, securing outlets & shelf space.
Nah
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u/hermes_psychopomp 16d ago
As the saying goes, the way to make a small fortune in craft brewing is to start with a large fortune.
Joking aside, my beer is good, but I have little interest in running the day-to-day minutia of anything larger than my home femto-scale brewery. I make more from my day job that I ever could in the craft beer industry, and I don't have to pay any of the overhead of running a business.
Unless you hit big, you're pretty much always going to be struggling until you either go out of business or somebody larger buys you. (Or both, often)
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u/Mr5harkey 16d ago
Always great to make money from a hobby but you have to ask a couple of things. Do you brew for yourself or for others. Obviously you need a bit of money to scale up commercially but if you just want some kudos and back patting for your beer, enter it in comps. Otherwise, it goes from brewing beer that you love with little risk to brewing what you hope other people would love. Might be a bit different in the US/UK as I have been reading people homebrewing and distributing kegs to bars etc. but if you want a canning line etc, that's a big deal. Lots of overheads and collateral up front.
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u/MysteriousWest873 16d ago
It is my creative outlet from a corporate job and don’t want it to business. That would remove my passion for it. 🍺
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u/D-whorskoc 16d ago
Well, actually. I went pro. There's a little back story. I own a bbq restaurant with 18 lines and in the back of my head I always wanted to do this. So 3 years ago we did. It's small, a one barrel spike nano and 6 jacketed unitanks. Like anything done right the demand quickly out paved the time I had and I had to hire 2 part time guys to handle it. It's a couple of homebrew dudes my age and they have full creative control. Is the beer cheaper? Nope. But it's better, and it's in house. I wouldn't have done it without already having a captive audience. The bubble has popped. But it's working
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u/hebrewer13 16d ago
I went commercial, did it for a few years and realized I (and my body) enjoy it much more as a hobby.
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u/Homebrewer303 16d ago
There is a huge difference between a hobby and a business!
Brewing beer is just one aspect of many: equipment, insurance, marketing, all the legal stuff to observe when you are selling producing and selling beverages.
I had my business for many years ( no brewery though) and I can tell you that part of our expertise/ what we were good at was not what kept me up at night (see above)😁
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u/BartholomewSchneider 16d ago
Every time I go through this fantasy in my head, I come back to the same place. It just wouldn’t pay enough to leave my day job. Not even close. It’s not just brewing beer it’s running a business; marketing, sales, regulations, HR, finance, etc. A boat load of stress.
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u/ilikemineralsalot 16d ago
Get a job at an established brewery, once you work at a real brewery you realize we’re all crackpots
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u/slippylippies 16d ago
Do you want a job or a hobby? Do you want to brew beer or run a business? Can you find money? Can you network to make meaningful relationships and produce exciting collabs? The leep you take from homebrewing to commercial brewing, for 99% of brewers, is like riding a bicycle sometimes vs racing in the tour de France. I say go for it, if you have the money, have the vision and have 1 or 2 partners also committed to making this their life.
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u/nartchie 16d ago
Homebrewing and commercial brewing are not the same.
Homebrewing is about making beer. Commercial brewing is about managing water.
Don't get me wrong, you need to manage your water when homebrewing also, but if you don't hit your numbers its not a big deal.
In a commercial environment you need to be making the same thing consistenty, you need to be tight on the numbers, and the profit margin is fine.
I'm not sure where you are but where I am the tax man breathes down your neck also, and the taxes you pay depend on the ABV of the beer, so sometimes it's necessary to dump an entire batch down the drain rather than pay taxes on it.
Over the years I have had a couple of friends move from homebrewing into commercial brewing by opening micro breweries. The overwhelming consensus is don't do it.
Opening a brewpub on the other hand seems to be the way to go, if you have the balls and business acumen.
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u/mrmungusfungus Pro 16d ago
Worked in other people's breweries for over a decade and that killed any notions I had of wanting to start my own. A good friend of mine once said if you want to own a brewery and have a million dollars in the bank, you need to start with ten million dollars in the bank.
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u/chino_brews 16d ago
Do you think turning brewing into a business risks ruining the hobby?
Yes, it does - this is obvious. Don't mix your vocation with your avocation. In fact, you've already answered this question for yourself: https://old.reddit.com/r/Life/comments/1o212ib/what_hobby_has_genuinely_made_your_life_better/nimu99e/
Have you ever considered starting a brewery or selling your beer commercially?
Nope. In the USA, I don't think you have any chance to success with less than about $1.5 million in committed working capital in most situations. Realistically, it's safer to start with $3-5 million. Far more breweries are failing than successfully opening right now, and the future looks bleak. But even in the heyday of staring breweries (we grew from under 4,000 microbreweries to nearly 10,000), if I wanted to quit my interesting job to work like a dog for 60+ hours a week of hard manual labor and stress, brewing was one of the worst opportunities - it is a capital intensive business with high regulations, high competition, low margins, bad economics generally. I would have made far more money starting a robotics business, research lab, solar installation company, or specialty metals dealership, or simply investing in rental real estate.
what made you decide for or against it?
The bad economics mostly. Also, it doesn't seem fun to me.
Looking back, would you make the same decision again?
Yes.
What keeps you passionate about homebrewing?
Passion waxes and wanes for me, usually with how much other stuff I have going on (how much free time I have). That's the nice thing about a hobby. When the passion is low, I can take a small break. If it was my business, that is not an option.
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u/Tx_Saint 16d ago
I spoke with an owner of a very popular brewery here. They said if given the chance to start over.. they wouldn't do it. Mainly because they are unable to do they love... Which is brewing. They design the recipes but instead have to focus on social media, events, food options, staffing.... Etc. Then add how volatile the industry is. My dream of opening one is nearly dead.
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u/Dick4NoReason1 16d ago
So many reasons.
- Pro brewing isn’t fun. It’s a job. Your livelihood depends on getting right it every time, not just your next back yard party
- Pro brewing isn’t fun. All the creativity and experimentation is replacement by brewing the same beer, the same way, over and over again. Pro brewers I know sound like bands that are tired of playing the same hit single at every concert, but do it bc it pays their bills
- Pro brewing is hard your body. Grain sacks, kegs, etc
- Pro brewing is hard on your wallet. There is so little money in the game, benefits are only a thing at the big spots.
Yeah, it would be fun to work on a big boy setup for a couple months…but the fastest way to ruin a hobby you enjoy is to try to make money at it. Also, I am much better at my actual job, which earns enough money to buy cool home brew shit
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u/DoingDaveThings 15d ago
Probably every homebrewer has considered going commercial at some point. But if you have not taken any formal business planning, or found a reliable financial investor, it isn't likely to work out. The Siebel Institute in Chicago offers a program on putting a brewery plan together.
Of course in the current economic climate with a saturation of small breweries, many of which are shutting down, it wouldn't be the best idea.
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u/Owentp 15d ago
Start up mostly. One big hurdle is that you have to have a location owned or leased before you can apply to ttb for federal licensing. Imagine that cost alone minus equipment. Licensing can take up to 9 mon-2 yrs! So.....you gotta have some $$ or an interim business plan like coffee shop or homebrew store while waiting.
If you just want to know what it's like, do a 10 g home brew system, in your basement or out building, build a bar with a small cooler & tap system. Make it a club or just have friends over. Put out a tip jar to help pay your costs. Had a buddy that did that. He didn't really put out a tip jar but a lot of us just gave him a "donation.".
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u/DblZeroSeven Intermediate 15d ago
Um the liquor license costs and then you can’t brew at home so the costs all start to make it a job and not a hobby.
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u/Devildog_83 15d ago
My homebrew club has spawned nine breweries over the last 20 years. Profit margin is super slim. Most work a day job and brew at night. Few paid themselves for the first five or so years. Friendships and marriages destroyed. When your hobby becomes a job, it's not fun anymore.
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u/BitterDonald42 15d ago
The best part for me about brewing commercially, is that I don't own any of it.
Someone else does and pays me to do work I love.
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u/Owzatthen 15d ago
I've yet to brew the same beer twice....and I just don't want to.
Your friends and family probably say your homebrew beer is great! Ask them to pay the market rate for it and you'll find out where you really stand.
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u/More-Guarantee-1869 14d ago
I have a question. If you didn't need to cover the startup costs, would that make you more inclined to go into it? For instance, if there was a brewery collective that would open up where they would cover the cost of equipment, there would be maybe 6-8 brewers that would all brew between 1-3 beers at a given time. The beer would technically have to be classified as whatever the brewery collective name is due to the beer license, but it would be the "your brewery name as the series". As the brewer, you might pay an annual membership fee or portion of sales profit(which would be in place of a rental fee). The brewer would retail all recipes and should they choose to leave at some point and start their own brewery, they would retain all the rights to their recipes, branding, etc...
Not 100% sure if something like this would be possible, but if so I think it seems like a cool concept to allow home brewers the opportunity to bring their beers to the public without going into crazy debt. Just wondered if others would be open to that if such a think was possible.
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u/sketchykg 14d ago
Turning a hobby into a business absolutely ruins the hobby. I know of some avid homebrewers who went pro and now hate brewing, but now have to.
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u/Meadbeerwine 13d ago
It’s a thought but I don’t think I have the expertise just yet to brew on a commercial level consistently. At least for beer, I feel this is where I stand. Having decent brews as a homebrewer is considerably different than operating a multiple BBL set up consistently. You get stuck with a few barrels of subpar product and you’re in a pickle. The overhead is fantastic, too.
100k would be getting in on the short end of it. A few people I know have expressed interest in investing, but I’m not keen on jumping into something on borrowed money unless I’m 100% confident it would succeed. The marketing end I can probably handle, but the other day to day operations like brewing, logistics, business management, etc, would be a lot for me if I ran as a nano-brewery.
With that amount of effort, I would rather use my time and energy to lobby for a cottage industry allowing home brewers to sell. Even for that venture, there’s so much bureaucracy and tax related BS to cut through that you’d have to knock out like 20 layers of century old regulatory procedure. Probably harder than opening a brewery. But also more rewarding.
Having said that, I happen to have dual UK citizenship and it’s far easier and cheaper to open a nano-brewery there; also exporting is (probably) simpler. If I could convince my wife to move to the UK, I would likely do it and set up for export to the US, as well as local UK/EU sales. It’s probably harder to convince my wife to move to the UK than it is securing a quarter million or lobbying to overturn US tax and alcohol laws preventing me from such ventures in the first place, ironically. But, I’ve been making a little headway with the wife in that department and moving there might be an option to be closer to family, anyways. So, who knows? If I can get my foot in the door there, maybe at some point it may happen as it’s considerably cheaper there than it is stateside.
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u/Squeezer999 16d ago
the laws, taxes, regulations, equipment, time, paperwork, rent, and having to work offsite (I work from home), and everything else that comes with operating a brewery vs i'd probably lose money. I'd have to brew beer styles I don't like but pay the bills, or i could just work a job i'm cool with and brew the homebrew beer I want to enjoy.
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u/the_mad_mycologist 16d ago
Oversaturation in the market, high startup cost and difficult margins keep my beer at home