Lurker > OudeGeuze

The_X_Dawg posted...

You didn't response to my first comment.

Your flagship beer and you can't keep up with 'demand'. Seems like you aren't cut out for this business.

I can make 10 kegs of it every 2 months. It sells faster than that and I need fermenter space for beers I can crank out in 2-3 weeks.

Re; inherit: that was a smaller, local brewery I agreed to oversee brewing ops and to make profitable last year that I no longer directly oversee but still advise from time to time.

The_X_Dawg posted...

Didn't you just literally 'inherit' this brewery a year ago? At least according to your posts.

And aren't you big on pilsners? If you can't sell a pilsner to a college crowd, sounds like that's a 'you' problem. I live in one of the more popular beer cities in America and pilsners still sell like fucking hotcakes even with all of the different sours and innovations happening.

My pilsner (when it's available) is my best selling beer, but where it takes 8 weeks to make I run out of it fairly often.

SaintArnold posted...

You mean you're only selling them in your brewery? Like how big are you guys? Do you mind if I can look up some of your stuff? Any Stouts you're practically proud of you've made? Honestly, you craft brewers are doing the lords work.

Not gonna doxx myself on CE. Very small productions. 15bbl translates to 30 kegs a week, which is a VERY small amount.

Flockaveli posted...

Out of how many.

No idea. Was pressed once in 2001 and that was it. I don't imagine very many tho tbh, vinyl was out the door as a format well before that, much less rap on vinyl.

MrKapowski posted...

Is that $500?

...for a record?

Not the most I've spent on a single record.

Gwynevere posted...

Can it not be done at a smaller scale, i.e. at home with a personal set up from your own funds, or do those beers have to be brewed at commercial scale?

Not a brewer so I'm legitimately curious

I got rid of my homebrew equipment. Last thing I wanna do on my day off is do what I do for a living.

Gwynevere posted...

I mean, is your passion in the craft or the sale? If you just like making beer, why not just make small batches of what you wanna make as a hobby. Does it really matter if people buy it?

Craft and yes, because it takes up fermenter space and material cost, not to mention a whole day devoted to just brewing it.

I have a 5bbl system and 12 2.5bbl fermenters, so a single brew takes up two fermenters, meaning I can have 6 beers rolling at any time. Doesn't make sense for 1/6 of my tanks to be occupied by something that basically only myself and brewer friends will drink.

Aridi posted...

Tell me that's pesos...

Nope

Flockaveli posted...

Hard. What's the pressing.

..... original? Black 2xLP

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/6/5/AAet7JAADxnh.jpg

SaintArnold posted...

OP can you answer my question? Also, do you guys distribute to Houston, TX?

I don't distro the anywhere, not profitable nor do I brew enough to make it worth it (I have a 5bbl system and brew about 15bbl a week).

As far as approaching accounts, having an actual sales team.

VirtuousWrath posted...

Maybe try offering some free pints

Illegal

MrWingnut posted...

What kind of traditional beers do you enjoy making TC?

Saison, mild, ESB

VirtuousWrath posted...

You know what I don't get, unless you're like barely scraping by, you should have some excess revenue to make one or two "fun" beers you try to sell alongside your normal money-makers.

I know local breweries here do that all the time.

I have the funds to do so, the issue is I end up pouring them down the drain because, as I've said a thousand times by now, it's not the type of beer this area wants. No point in making it when it doesn't sell.

bigblu89 posted...

So you basically thought it was a good idea to sell Michigan TShirts and Hats outside of Ohio Stadium because "no on was making what I wanted to make".

It's Collegetown USA. College kids want cheep beer that tastes like cheap beer, and costs the same as cheap beer.

My beer isn't cheap. I sell my sours for $8/pint because people buy it.

Side Project and Hill Farmstead have also been around much before the modern trends in craft beer took off and were able to carve out those niche markets when competition was significantly smaller. The amount of breweries in the US alone has more than doubled since Side Project first opened in 2013.

I opened 3 years ago when the pastry sour, stout and new england IPA craze really went full steam ahead. A new brewery focusing on traditional styles in 2022 has the odds heavily stacked against them.

A good friend of mine that's an extremely talented brewery opened his brewery in 2020 (oof), originally focusing solely on mixed fermentation and barrel beers that are honestly some of the best I've had in the US (his festival invitations alone speak volumes). But he still has to churn out hazy IPAs because that's what keeps his doors open in the market he's in.

TheGoldenEel posted...

hill farmstead is in the middle of fucking nowhere

people interested in this type of beer seek out their product because it is good. There is no consistency between the markets those successful breweries are in, the common thread is they make great beer that people want to drink

people wont buy my beers unless I dump pure into them doesnt speak highly of the quality of your product, tbh

i dont see why you couldnt use the stuff people want to buy to fund your passion projects, and then if that stuff is actually good you can make a name for your brewery as a place that makes good traditional styles

if its not good, if people dont want to drink it, then its back to the drawing board imo.

As I've said a gajillion times now, my customer base that comes in day in day out does not want those beers. It doesn't matter how well I make them, people aren't ordering them because it's not what the market here wants. Word of mouth can't go out if people don't buy them. There's not a single brewery in my region that specializes in those beers because the market here does not want it.

Interstella5555 posted...

Then why did you open one there? It really seems like you're trying to do some sort of bizarre flex but really just comes across as you being bad at your job and having little to no business skills.

Because the beer landscape has radically changed in the last few years. When I first opened the spot there was nobody making what I wanted to make here, so I wanted to capitalize on that. Unfortunately, day in day out people didnt want classic styles or farmhouse beers, they wanted trendy beers and nothing but. It was either close and try to sell my equipment and find a new job or reluctantly adapt. I chose to reluctantly adapt to the scene and have been very successful as a result of it but do not enjoy it, which is part of the reason why I hired a head Brewer so I could be hands off in the actual beer process and instead just worry about running the business.

TheGoldenEel posted...

I mean, TCs premise is that people dont want the types of beers he wants to make, which is patently untrue.

its more of a niche market, but there are breweries that are successful, at least successful enough to stay afloat, making those types of beers

fact is beer is a crowded market and if your product doesnt stand out for whatever reason, the brewery isnt going to stay open

if tc wants to make obscure beers for a niche market, his product needs to be good enough to bring in people who want that niche product

I think of Side Project brewing, which is a national destination brewery that basically exclusively makes the beers TC says they want to make. People travel from across the US for Side Projects saisons. The market is there

Side Project is an outlier and is not in a college market. Same for Hill Farmstead, SARA or whatever other brewery you want to use as an example.

The market I am in does not want that type of product. I would know this, because I have been in this area for a decade and watch how it grows.

BuzzKilljoy posted...

Saint Arnold is pretty decent as far as Texas beer goes.

I'd love to know where TC is, I know a couple of brewers in central VA/Charlottesville/Nelson County area.

East Coast

Smashingpmkns posted...

Not sure why you were met with so much vitriol in the comments lol how did you get into brewing?

Back when I first 21 back in 2010 I tried Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for the first time and it was a love affair. I slowly got into homebrewing and learning beer history. In 2016 I took my first cellar gig at a brewery in Virginia, worked there for 3 years and opened my own spot back in 2019. Since then I've accepted a position on the board of directors for the state level brewing guild and have been invited to give lectures on wood aging and microbes along with teaching brew classes at one of the local brewing and distilling schools in the region.

The first year I was open I focused mostly on traditional beers and Belgian style beers but quickly found out that wasn't sustainable, so I started making pastry sours and diabetes stouts instead.

DespondentDeity posted...

I think that sounds so frustrating, but I cant say at all Im surprised that CE is reacting like this.

It is and the gold mine comments are funny. My business makes a decent amount of money but I'm not rolling in cash lol. Material costs (grain, hops) are rapidly rising and I actually pay my employees decent wages (my bar staff makes $8/hr on top of about $300 in tips/night) and my brewers make $60k each.

I'm probably going to raise my bar hourly to $10/hr because of inflation.

Dreepapult posted...

Damn that's like my dream job. Well maybe not owning. Not sure if I'd want the extra headaches of owning a business. But making beer for a living.

It's 90% cleaning 10% making beer. It's not nearly as fun as people thinks it is. Hope you enjoy researching cleaning solutions and procedures. It's also one of the most underpaid professions in America (brewing, not owning).

ElatedVenusaur posted...

hard seltzer, which I will never fucking understand

All market research and my own personal sales data suggests you're leaving money on the table if you aren't. My sales are up 21% this year, with seltzer making up up 8%. I only started making them in March too.

TaylorHeinicke posted...

then sell and leave. this all sounds self-inflicted

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Itp: you'll be a slave to capitalism and you'll like it

TheGoldenEel posted...

I would also suggest that maybe if you arent able to make a name for yourself doing the more interesting beers, maybe youre not as good a brewer as you think

there are multiple successful breweries near me, in a college town, that near exclusively brew traditional styles

There's only two breweries in town that thrive off traditional beer styles. One is an authentic German brewery owned by actual Germans with a ton of investors, the other is a neighborhood brewery about 20 minutes away from campus.

PoopPotato posted...

Can you get smaller capacity equipment to do small batches of stuff you want people to try?
Have you reached out to restaurants in the next town over to see if they would be willing to tap some of your more traditional stuff?

No space for a smaller brew system.

Don't distribute because I make significantly more money in house on my product. I tried distributing more traditional styles for half a year and most places within an hour/hour and a half drive from me didnt want traditional beer because trendy beer turns taps faster.

TheGoldenEel posted...

Sounds like youre able to fund your niche passion products by making things that are popular

sounds like living the dream imo

Nope because I usually have to dump them out via age because they aren't being drank.

Smackems posted...

What would you offer me, a man that quit drinking 7 years ago

Water

RenescoStCewl posted...

Do you only make sours?

The majority of my taplist is sour, seltzer and IPA because that's all this market drinks. When I've tried making traditional, classic styles (outside of lager) nobody drinks them other than your rare actual beer nerd.

Things like Saison, English milds, ESB, Baltic Porter, biere de garde, etc are not profitable for me to make despite being actual beer and not fruit puree/lactose bombs.

AloneIBreak posted...

Whats an example of a beer that tastes like anything but beer?

https://450northbeerrelease.com/collections/5-28-beer-release/products/ big-slush-slushy-xxxl

Had to break it up, remove the space before big-slush

TheGoldenEel posted...

you mean to tell me every city in america can support 2 dozen breweries that all sell the same thing?

Works fine for the wine and cider industry

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I got into this industry to learn and make high quality beverages, not dump hundreds of pounds of fruit puree into a "sour" and make what's essentially canned cocktails instead.

Etna posted...

Do you shit out 10$ a can IPAs with a name referencing some pop culture thing?

No, our IPA 4pks vary between $14-$18

TheGoldenEel posted...

The only reason so many breweries are able to exist is people want to drink beer that tastes like things other than beer

This is objectively not true.

TaylorHeinicke posted...

who cares, the profitability has to be insane

Doesn't matter

90% of the shit I make I wouldn't drink because the average drinker around here wants beer that tastes like anything but beer.

Tipping fucking sucks. I pay my bartenders $8/hr to make up for people that don't tip for shit, which iirc is the 2nd highest in my area.

What

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/2/3/AAet7JAADvoT.jpg

DipDipDiver posted...

This topic has a certain charm

Agreed

BloodMoon7 posted...

It does. I didn't get horny once while playing it. That takes real craftsmanship. Bayonetta was made with love.

No

BloodMoon7 posted...

I just finished Bayonetta 1. I think it has a certain charm.

It doesn't

this is literally true

FaultyCircuitry posted...

Would you mind naming them? I'm mostly curious who

Shab and aidsbeam are the two biggest

Tbh the MIBs actions are 100% in character.

Smashingpmkns posted...

Was it better than 2 and 3? Cuz i really regret watching both of those and have been holding off.

Until the finale