Are you familiar with the brew on premise (BOP) businesses? These are places that usually have several large kettles where you can go and brew a batch of homebrew. The advantage is they have all the equipment, ingredients and know how to make beer. All the while you mess up their place and not your own kitchen. It’s a fun way to spend a couple hours with friends learning about brewing and seeing what goes into making an extract batch of beer. John and I have been to a couple of these types of places locally to us, and we’ve had a good time there. We recommend trying one out in your area if you are unsure about making the commitment to brewing at home.
Many homebrewers have dreams of turning their hobby into a full time job. One obvious way to make that happen is to become a pro-brewer; brewing beer for a commercial brewery or brew pub. But what if long hours in someone else’s brewery isn’t exactly your cup of tea. One idea would be to get a job where you can really share your passion for homebrewing (not just brewing) with more like minded people. We see two ways that can make this happen: 1. Open a Brew on Premise or 2. Open a local homebrew shop in your area.
Avoiding a lengthy conversation about the pros and cons of each one individually; I pose a new idea. What about a combined BOP and and homebrew shop? The profit margin on either type of business seems like it would be really tight. I’ve often wondered how would combining these two businesses do. For every new brewer you create at the BOP, you’d be able to sell them equipment and ingredients for making the transition to true homebrewing. For every homebrewer that doesn’t want some of the limitations that BOPs create, you’d be offering lower cost ingredients through the homebrew shop side because you’d be buying more ingredients than a solo homebrew shop.
All in all, you could create an environment where you get to physically demonstrate the brewing process to people, you get to share your knowledge with new brewers (and hopefully learn something from experienced brewers) and your business would have two different types of revenue streams; one supporting the other. (Coupling the brew shop with an aggressive mail order business as well would potentially add yet a third way to generate revenue to the store. I personally believe this is really the future for homebrew shops that want to be competitive and stay in business.)
What do you think of this type of approach? Are there any places like this in your area? We’d love to hear about them and any feedback or perceptions you have about their business offerings and success/failures.
Drop us a few comments on your thoughts.
BREW ON!
John
I like the idea of building a homebrewing mecca… Certainly you need to rent more space to do both and that would add to costs.
You could run a homebrew course. Would newbies pay a small amount to get hands-on instructions on how to homebrew?
Adam
Hmmm….I like the way you think.
Jason
I like the idea, and the local BOP to me in Natick, MA http://www.barleycorn.com does just that. He has 6 (i think) steam fired copper kettles and a staff of very knowledgable people. he also sells home brew supplies at reasonable prices. It’s nice that if I’m in a pinch and I need something, I can walk down the street and he’ll have it in stock!
Cheers,
Jason
Jason
Oh….they also do guest brewer series where brewers from local breweries come in a brew their recipes on his system, with the customers help of course, and you get to take some home. Very cool!
Nathan
I work at the aforementioned BOP/Homebrew shop (Barleycorns), and it’s true that some of the people who come in to brew adopt the practice at home and return for homebrew supplies, the overall problem seems to be the seasonallity. While people love drinking beer in the summer, fewer people want to stand over a hot kettle in 80 degree+humid summer days of Boston. That being said the store has been around for over 10 years, and while not everybody takes up homebrewing, we get a lot of repeat buisness for the BOP aspect.
Imakewort (steve)
I am think of opening a BOP and Store in my area but using a RIMS system and all grain or extract, And using temp controlled conicals for fermentation. This would showcase our systems for sale. I notice that everyone is using a extract system why?
John
Not sure why people are using extract systems.
Mike
The Brewer’s Apprentice in Freehold NJ has been doing BOP since ’97 and homebrew equip and supplies since about 2001. Check us out, we were first in NJ and currently the only full-service BOP and homebrew supply store in the state.
We do partial mash on over 1500 batches a year, partly because the grain load on a 15gallon batch would require larger kettles (or multistages), and also because it creates a pretty good amount of spent grains. Although there are lots of farms in the area, storage of 15-20 cu. yards of spent grain would present both a space and pest-elimination problem.
By the way, since we cater to both BOP’ers and homebrewers, our selection of grains, extracts, and hops is pretty extensive, and we currently have over 150 recipes….most created by us, others from customers, and a couple from published sources.
I don’t work there, but I know everyone who does, and they know their stuff!
Imakewort (steve)
i would like to learn more about your BOP equipment and insurance requirements. Right now i am working overseas and might have my son call the brewers apprentice with some questions about your operation