Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

OK, I know the idea of starting a nano brewery, micro, or brewpub has probably crossed the minds of nearly every home brewer. I also know that normally that might be an insane idea. Long odds and all that.

But the question was recently put forth to me by a restaurant owner. He thought it would be great to have a brewery on site, and it turns out there is space available next to the restaurant. I need to talk to them further about this, but they sounded serious.

So obviously I'm no where near ready for for this on my own. I just want to throw this out there to see if there is anyone interested in possibly developing or throwing around some ideas. I'd love to help see this happen and be involved at some level.

What restaurant?

Matt,
It's a new restaurant that will be opening this summer. It's going to be located in the New Bohemia district, right across from the new indoor market the City is building.

I've been seeing more and more articles on small scale, or nano, breweries and I'd like to explore if that kind of approach could work. We're only looking at supply for a small restaurant and beer room, not distribution. My thoughts for the beer room would cater towards "beer geeks", not a full scale bar etc. I'd want to do a rotating schedule of beers, with something new all the time, and maybe one big or just something really different available all the time. In other words, not just another brew pub. No offense meant.

I'm open to any and all ideas. The owners are pretty serious, and have done most of the research for this already. They wanted to open a brew pub a couple of years ago but the economics of the site they were looking at then just didn't make sense. They have all the legal pieces pretty much ready to go and have a corporation set up. This has been in the works for around 8 years or so. These are people who know what they are doing, restaurant wise.

This could be a 1 or 2 person show or a group effort. Right now I'm just trying to determine if any of the more experienced brewers in the group are interested in tossing around some ideas.

I do like the idea, the only really problem is the supply line when it comes to small scale brewing for this type of concept. When you see 5 gallons it looks like a lot, however, when the math is done on this it really is only 2.2 cases of beer. Which could easily be dispensed in one night. When you look at the fermentation times as well as aging. That provides problems as it takes a month to brew even light stuff for 1 night worth of consumption. I would think about the smallest you could get away with for this type of concept would be 25 to 50 gallons. Just something that should be considered.

Also would like to point out that I think almost anyone in the club would be willing to consult with the individuals thinking of this as we are all in support of good beer and would like to see more of this type of stuff in our area.

So if there is anything I can do, please let me know.

Yeah, I was thinking of somewhere between 20-30 gallon batches to start. I was looking at systems like the Brew Magic (which is how Dog Fish Head got started), but that only really does 10 gallon batches. You can, however, be mashing at the same time as boiling, so you could run several of the same recipe and then combine them. The reason I like this is that it's computer controlled so you can get consistency.

I comes down to investment. A 3-7 bbl system would be better, but the initial capital is much greater.

BrewHound wrote:Also would like to point out that I think almost anyone in the club would be willing to consult with the individuals thinking of this as we are all in support of good beer and would like to see more of this type of stuff in our area.

That's basically what I'm looking for at this point. I'm need some people with more experience than me to help with some ideas, then see where it goes from there. On that note: they want to meet mid next week, so if anyone wants to be a part of this I need at least a "show of hands" by the weekend. If you can't get away to meet at least let me know you have some interest. We'll probably meet at the location, which is east of downtown, I can work out times once I know the who's.

Randy, a lot of whether a meet is possible for a lot of people boils down to a day and time. You know how it is with work and families. As stated I would be willing to meet with them and share thoughts about logistics and so forth depending on the day and time of the meeting.

The whole issue w/ nano-scale commercial brewing is that when it becomes a job, how much is your time worth? Some folks start out (and a few stay on) Sabco systems, but I think they're probably best at proving a concept before getting a bank loan for a bigger system, aside from using as a pilot system to test out recipes. If I were to try to piece together a small system on the cheap-ish, I'd probably go w/ a 1bbl system from either Blichmann kettles or 55-gallon stainless barrels. If you want something off the shelf, then a morebeer 20 gallon system would be a potential. Making 5 or 10 gallons of homebrew as a hobby is fun - doing it every day to pay the bills would get old quick, and probably wouldn't pay the bills.

Little 'T' brews a lot bigger then even 50 gallons and he brews almost every day, just to keep up with consumption.

Especially if you get a reputation for good beer then your demand would be even higher then Little 'T''s. However, I do not want to discourage your friends from trying to make a go of this. Even then, this does have its place. It is a way to start brewing for your customers and providing postivie cash flow for an eventual loan for a bigger system as well as gaining a reputation for your beers, so you have enough market share when you move up.

However, this is something that can be discussed when a meeting with them is held.

I brew on average two times a week.   But Jeremy drinks it all  :-)  Your gonna need a shit ton of fermentation vessels. If I had more tanks I would be brewing closer to every day.   And the money sucks!  And I don't even pay the bills!   But I would very much like some other place to go for a good beer. So Open Up Already!  Exclamation Points!

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 11:06 AM, BrewHound <brew-members@crbeernuts.org (brew-members@crbeernuts.org)> wrote:

Little 'T' brews a lot bigger then even 50 gallons and he brews almost every day, just to keep up with consumption.

Especially if you get a reputation for good beer then your demand would be even higher then Little 'T''s. However, I do not want to discourage your friends from trying to make a go of this. Even then, this does have its place. It is a way to start brewing for your customers and providing postivie cash flow for an eventual loan for a bigger system as well as gaining a reputation for your beers, so you have enough market share when you move up.

However, this is something that can be discussed when a meeting with them is held.

--
Prost!
Travis Scheidecker
Head Brewer
Third Base Brewery
500 Blairs Ferry Rd NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402
Tel.  319-378-9090  Fax:  319-378-9697
http://twitter.com/3rdBaseBrewery

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Thanks for the input guys. These are very much along the lines I'm thinking about. I think there are two ways they can go with this: all in and sink the money into a 3-7bbl system minimum with full time staff, or look at it as a pilot "proof of concept". You can always find a way to grow from there.

With the growing options we now have available for craft beers, my thought is the to have the "regulars" be good craft beers that no, or very few at least, places in town now sell. The "house" beers would start out as specialties and on a first come, first served basis. I think you could create a draw with that. If I had a place to go where there was something new to try all the time I'd really dig that. I just don't know if I can sell them on the idea, as it runs a little counter to the way most places are run.