From my very first batch back in 2003 to even the shittiest shit I make today, based on the comments from many of the folks I share my beer with, I’d be rolling in the dough if only I’d start my own brewery. As I’m sure many would agree, the thought of being one’s own boss in an industry focused on everyone’s favorite beverage is supremely enticing! Who wouldn’t love to make, sell, and drink delicious beer every single day?

As I progressed in the hobby and immersed myself more in the insanely popular world of craft (indie?) beer, I learned more about what running a brewery actually entails, that it’s not as romantic as I assumed, and that my version of Brewmaster was far more fantasy than reality.

For this Brü’s Views, we give our unabashedly honest thoughts on a topic that runs deep in homebrewing circles. Please understand we’ve absolutely no collective interest in encouraging or discouraging people from following their dreams and we appreciate the fact many of the best commercial beers today are being made by those who cut their chops homebrewing. Folks just like our guest contributor who is known for making one of the world’s most popular beers, Pliny the Elder Double IPA. A huge thanks to Russian River Brewing Company’s Vinnie Cilurzo for sharing his perspectives on turning a hobby into a profession!

On Going Pro

| VINNIE CILURZO |

Going from homebrewing to professional brewing seems like, and in many cases is, a natural progression. Things are much different now though as compared to 1994 when I first started brewing professional, which was after 5 years of homebrewing. The market is much more competitive and if I were going from homebrewing to professional brewing present day, I’d get a brewing degree from an accredited, known brewing school. This will by far give the homebrewer an advantage over others when applying for a brewing job. The industry is very competitive, when we put a job posting up we often see up to 100 resumes, and sometimes more. Having a degree is very helpful and something we look for now.

The difference between brewing professionally and homebrewing is that at the professional level, one has to brew what the brewery is selling. Most breweries have a flagship brand and often that becomes the main beer brewed. For us at Russian River, that is Pliny the Elder, we brew it 65% of the time. Where this may deviate is at a brewpub, but even then, most breweries have a core group of beers they brew on a regular basis. We’ve found that our regulars at our brewpub drink the same beer day-in and day-out. Brewing is a long hours job with lots of time spent cleaning, that is just a part of the job.

Having a commitment to safety is one of, if not the, most important thing we look for in a candidate, it is critical. Without safety, there isn’t quality brewing. After safety, our world revolves around quality, everything we do is with an eye towards low dissolved oxygen! In my mind, you can never have low enough dissolved oxygen in your beer. Another part of quality is raw ingredient procurement. Start up breweries in particular have trouble the first couple years sometimes getting the hops that they want. In many cases, some hops are already contracted out for 3 to 5 years. This certainly takes the spontaneity out of brewing, sometimes when you have to know three years ago what hops you want now. Sure, it’s easy to forecast your core beers, but what if those change and what about one-off brews?

With safety and quality, we still need to be a profitable business, the key to business is turning your profits into cash, and knowing what your cost of goods are and how this relates to your profitability is critical. I know too well how important this is from previous breweries I was involved with a couple decades back…

In general, if I were a homebrewer now considering going pro, I would go to brewing school first. But I’d also take a good long look at whether you really want to go pro, the craft beer industry is packed right now. Yes, there are lots of breweries opening, but many will have their owners who opened the brewery brew their own beer. But, there are also a lot of great minds out in the homebrew community that would be a great fit in the commercial beer world.

| MARSHALL |

Up through early adolescence, I was in love with BMX. I blew through two VHS tapes of RAD, dreaming of one day doing the bicycle boogie with Becky from Full House and eventually winning Helltrack. I was on my shoddy Toys-R-Us bike as often as I could be. When a friend I made in Jr. High told me he worked in a bike shop his father owned, I experienced an envy like no other, envisioning weekends spent talking to dudes like Cru Jones about racing technique, test riding the latest and greatest bike models, and basically having an all around killer time. Naturally, I jumped at the offer to accompany my buddy to a Saturday at the shop, excited to turn my fantasy into reality.

It was fucking miserable. My first task involved being instructed to use a four-foot bristled stick to remove dust from the shop floor. About six hours, zero bike rides, and a conversation with an elderly gentlemen about helmet mirrors later, I was released with a small amount of cash and a new perspective. I learned that day that being a bike shop customer was way more fun than being an employee.

This is how I’ve come to view professional brewing.

I’ve never worked in a professional brewery, but I’ve learned more than enough to know homebrewing is the way for me, where brew days consist of 3-4 hours of making something I don’t have to sell, and clean-up can be completed in about 15 minutes after a day of thoughtless imbibing. It’s not that I’m lazy, perhaps I am, but rather I’ve little desire to do everything it takes to actually run a commercial brewery, the bullshit required in addition to just making beer.

But that’s me, a dude who is convinced Sandwich Artists make a better sub purely by nature of the fact I didn’t have to clean up the resultant mess. I have great admiration for those with a different perspective who take all of the risks involved to jump into doing what they love so much. The problem arises, at least in my eyes, when the decision is motivated more by a dream than reality, as I’m absolutely convinced at the root of any successful business lies a person who was, above all else, prepared.

An unfortunate side-effect of the craft beer and homebrewing boom, which on its own is badass, is that people with little experience in either brewing or business assume that because their family said they enjoy their beer (saying and meaning are different things), they have what it takes to run an entire brewery operation involving production, distribution, accounting, and all the other stuff that goes into it. I certainly don’t mean to pass judgment, but to me this mentality epitomizes naiveté. Managing a business involves so much more than securing a lease, buying some tanks, and making beer. The notion that breweries that have failed due to a lack of adequate preparation ultimately end up negatively impacting the industry is one I accept.

So, you want to start a brewery, awesome, I’m in full support of you following your dreams. But for the sake of craft beer and especially your future, do yourself a solid and start with a reasonable plan. Explore all that goes into starting a business, build relationships with other brewers without expecting immediate advice in return, consult with bankers and real estate agents and financial advisers and your significant other before making any drastic decisions. I’m not usually one to dole out advice, and as someone who has never brewed professionally, it’s wholly possible what I’m saying is complete shit. But maybe not. Maybe proper preparation will increase one’s chances of turning a hobby into a successful career.

As for me, I’ll be in the garage!

| MATT |

After working with professional brewers for ten years, some bent on export and expansion, some trying to set up locally, and some just trying to get things off the ground, I’ve learned a few things that have informed the following pieces of advice:

There are two things (and even a third) that need to be looked at separately– Business and Brewing. You need the best brewer on the system and the best businesses person doing the books and marketing. And yes, that probably requires two people. Even Jim Koch, he of the iron liver and founder of Sam Adams, who was a Harvard graduate, knew there was a time to hire a brewer and focus on what he knew best– business. If you are doing a brewpub or a taproom, the honest, knowledgeable, front-of-house addition is a quick third place too. Nail that trifecta down and you’re ready to start thinking about the next point…

If you don’t like working long, long hours for a low wage in wet, cold/hot, slippery, industrial conditions, you will quickly tire of brewing. No matter how successful you are out of the gate, it will be a while until you’re making great money. Shore up your finances, tighten your belt, and come up for air once a year to see where you’re headed.

Plan, plan, and plan again. Review. Execute. Triple your cost estimates for location and equipment. Research suppliers and manufacturers and business service options until you are blue in the face and then review again. Your business plan, the partners you do/don’t take on and your ability to fall back on the “keel” to keep the whole ship moving forward in a straight line when things get too crazy are all a result of planning (and execution).

Skimping on equipment (cheap stainless, brewery layout & materials, etc.) has come back to bite in the ass every brewer I have seen try it. While you’re working hard on the planning, you might think you’re a genius for cutting some costs, only to have them come back and cost you triple to pull out and redo after codes can’t be met and product is bad. Same goes for business services (legal, accounting, contracts & marketing), you get what you pay for. Don’t pay for it twice.

Most importantly, you can do it. If you have the dedication, drive, capability, and have managed your expectations into real goals, you can make it. Pro brewers may be the rock stars of our hobby, but just like us, many started out with a brew bucket and a dream.

| GREG |

Dear Future Greg,

I know you want this. You crave it. The excitement, the glory, the money… and the insane volumes of delicious beer, of course. You want this more than anything. You want to open a brewery, and you have it all planned out. Every detail of this magical fun-filled journey of rainbows and inebriated unicorns.

But for God’s sake, man, don’t do it. Don’t go pro.

Deep down we both know the truth, that going pro is a terrible idea, and that there are a thousand bulletproof arguments against it. But since you’re teetering on the edge of the worst decision of your adult life, let’s recap…

Do you have a million dollars laying around? Because you’re going to need it. If somehow you are able to scrounge up the cash, good luck making it back. Brewery margins are paper thin, so it’s extremely unlikely you’ll be profitable for at least the first few years.

If starting your own brewery still sounds like a good idea, go outside and throw a rock in any direction. Chances are it will hit a brewery. The market is already over-saturated and continues to experience unsustainable growth. Reasonable people have argued that the industry is currently in a bubble. Do you really think now is a good time to go pro?

Now consider what the actual day-to-day labor required for operating a brewery– cleaning, heavy lifting, cleaning, paperwork, late nights cleaning, early mornings cleaning, weekends cleaning, and yes, even more cleaning. Does that sound like fun? If you really want to experience the joys of professional brewing, go spend the day cleaning steel pots with dangerous chemicals in awkward positions.

Despite all of these obstacles, you’re probably still thinking that combining your favorite hobby with your occupation would make this foolhardy idea worthwhile. Do what you love and never work a day in your life, right? Well, I hope you haven’t forgotten your college summers spent QA testing video games. Getting paid to play video games seemed like a dream come true. It didn’t take long for you to realize that playing the same god awful unfinished levels for 100+ hours a week absolutely SUCKS! You stopped playing video games for years after that job! Game testing completely burnt you out because it was so horribly boring and repetitive, and professional brewing would only be worse. Do you really want history to repeat itself and utterly demolish your love of brewing?

I implore you, future Greg, please don’t try to go pro. Ignore everyone who stroked your ego by telling you the free beer you gave them was the most amazing thing they’ve ever tasted and you should totally sell it and make millions of dollars. Don’t do it, you know better. At least I hope you do. Unfortunately, I realize that despite my best efforts, there’s a non-zero chance that someday you’ll say “what the hell” and make an impulsive and irresponsible endeavor into brewing professionally. If you do, all I can say is good luck, and may Ninkasi have mercy on your soul.

Sincerely,

Past Greg

| RAY |

With sports, there is an obvious progression– from novice to competitive amateur to professional, the caliber of play required escalating with each step up the ladder. And so many brewers view brewing– from extract to all-grain to professional. Hell, it seems some people begin their professional aspirations just a few extract batches into homebrewing! To me, there’s a disconnect. In the clear, 3-step process, two have to do with homebrewing and one does not.

My personal aspiration has always been to make great beer. To really understand brewing, beer styles, and the ingredients. I’ve never looked at homebrewing as “training camp” for professional brewing, that’s never been on my radar as a goal, nor do I think professional brewing is inherently a “step up” or graduation from homebrewing.

It should come as no surprise that most breweries are, however, started by homebrewers who decide beer and brewing could become a career, though I am often disappointed by the quality of the beer many breweries are selling. This is perhaps tainted by my habit of honing recipes to my personal preferences, therefore biasing my tastes towards my own beer. Furthermore, I drink homebrew from others that is absolutely up to, or above, the quality of many professional examples. This adds to my disdain for the notion of opening a brewery as a “step up” from homebrewing.

That being said, I absolutely understand how homebrewers can have this dream-– “I love beer and brewing, I wish I could brew and share beer for a living!” And I get it! I love beer, brewing, and sharing beer too! But it isn’t for me. Brewing is clearly hard work, and unless you start with a very large brewhouse and a lot of capital, it is hard work for low wages while the business grows. That’s the part that doesn’t interest me. With a family to support, long hours for low pay just isn’t a tradeoff I am able to consider.

It isn’t that I’d never want to brew for a living, just that the starting conditions that would get me to do it are so unlikely that it isn’t remotely realistic. Sure, I occasionally daydream about what life would look like if someone dumped a big pile of cash on me to open a brewery, big enough that I could take home a handsome salary, that I could have others to shovel out mash tuns for me, do the uninteresting stuff, freeing me up to chat beer with people, work on recipes, research, learn, experiment on process, and run pilot batches. You know… act like a homebrewer.

| MALCOLM |

When this subject was proposed, I was hesitant to contribute. I’ve been fairly busy the last few weeks with three friends opening breweries, two expanding, and also entertaining offers of maybe joining the fray at some level. In fact, the afternoon prior to my writing of this piece, two of my good friends were receiving delivery of their brew system in a half finished building with a ¾ poured floor. Reality.

This is full honesty mode, please give me some leeway for my less than sunshine and rainbows viewpoint. Firstly, there are so many people opening breweries right now, see BA for most recent stats (1.5 to 2.0 per day?). Beer fans expect a very good to great lineup right out of the gate, so getting by on being the neato local place while you figure it out is not as much of an option as it used be. Secondly, winning a medal in a homebrew competition or two, or having friends and family pump your tires, does not mean you know how to make great beer, even on the small batch level, let alone the big scale version. Making 7 to 20 bbls is not as easy as taking your homebrew recipes and multiplying everything by 90. Utilities for business are far different than those for a household.

What else doesn’t scale? Insurance, cost of employees, mortgage/ rent, contracts, cost of a mistake? If you make decent beer, i.e. no major faults with decent recipes and you can medal in some local competitions, big whoop! Friends and family, or some guys at a few parties, are less inclined to give a detailed analysis or recognize even basic QA issues, so you may not have a realistic outside assessment of your ability. If you cannot reliably self-assess, you should seriously consider your role in a brewing project.

So, let’s consider that role. Did you envision yourself as a brewer? An administrator? A manager? You either need to address your deficiency as a brewer, on business, on people management, distribution, managing a taproom, quality management, etc., or you need to correct them. Have you considered schooling or training through a recognized establishment? Perhaps training in judging or evaluation via the BJCP or Cicerone program? In order to improve your chances of success and do right by yourself, your investors, and the beer community, you need to either be great, become great, or hire greatness. Good is accepted less and less as each new brewery opens.

Finally, I ask– why? Take the high school guidance counselor route for yourself. Maybe elicit the help of a trusted partner or friend. Have them play Dr. Phil and help you get to the root of your desire to open or work at a brewery. If you can replace beer with another widget and decide that you just want to be part of something, your own thing, no matter how big or small, and build a business as an entrepreneur, then drill deeper and ask if beer is the the only widget. On the other side, if you just want to be part of the brewing scene, perhaps there are other ways. Writing, blogging, photography, education, judging, getting more involved in the local craft beer scene or local clubs or competitions. The AHA, BJCP, or any number of online forums need educated and dedicated members to contribute in a variety of ways. Local homebrew clubs need committee members or officers and so on.

Any of the aforementioned options may fill a yearning that, in the loosely borrowed words of Denny Conn, “will not ruin yet another perfectly fine hobby by making it a job.” I suggest these alternatives in earnest, even as I myself contemplate the future. I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a dock, staring at the ocean, a fine job, a supportive family, and security behind me, with an unknown future, the beckoning of the dreams of my 18-20 year-old self (okay, 18-38 really), and delusions of self-governance in front of me.

There it is, the opinions of 1 experienced professional and 5 homebrewers who have thought long and hard about the idea of brewing beer on a professional level. Reading through these brief pieces, I couldn’t help but notice a common focus on preparation, whether financially, educationally, or mentally. This suggests to me at least some agreement that operating a commercial brewery is not the same as making beer in the garage. Yelp and Untappd are more critical than friends and family, dumping 15 bbls hurts more than pouring 5 gallons down the drain, and that Citra/Amarillo/Simcoe/Denali hopped DIPA may not be possible to the novice pro due to contracts.

A hearty cheers to those who forge ahead with a solid plan and end up making fantastic beer as well as the homebrewers who choose to keep the act of beer making a hobby!

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