
So You Think You Want to Open a Brewery (2014) - Tomte
https://drinks.seriouseats.com/2014/03/challenges-of-opening-a-brewery-job-advice-beer-industry-collin-mcdonnell-henhouse.html
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walrus01
My personal taste complaint with a lot of people who open a brewery...
Everyone seems to think that more hops = better beer. There are so many other
possible flavors and types to a beer than some type of IPA that is absolutely
overloaded with hops. But that seems to be a very common type of thing to
brew. When I open something and am assaulted with the aroma of hops, it's not
appealing anymore.

It was interesting 7-8 years ago. Now it's just "oh here we go again".

I have a personal theory that the overwhelming aroma and taste of hops in a
beer can be used to mask many errors and missteps in the brewing process,
which might be more easily tasted by the customer if it were, for example, a
weissbier.

~~~
zwkrt
This is a west coast phenomenon, I’ve found the Midwest and east coast to have
a lot more variety. It feels in Seattle like beer bars have a “token” stout in
the same way that they have a single house wine. Hops must be what sells
though.

~~~
sithadmin
>Hops must be what sells though.

I'm increasingly suspicious that (typically) high relative ABV of high-IBU
beers is a significant factor in influencing consumer choice, perhaps moreso
than hops enthusiasts would like to admit.

~~~
ericmcer
I definitely do fast math of $ vs % alcohol and volume. It’s less that I want
to be drunk and more of a “super size me” feeling, like I’m getting a better
deal.

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cgriswald
Quoth the article:

> Being intimately aware of the financial health of your company might not be
> glamorous, but it is as important as monitoring your fermentations or
> selecting hops.

At the advice of a therapist, a friend of mine started looking for things
which bring him joy, with the phrasing, "I love $X. It brings me joy." We
started doing it together, and I've also started doing it on my own. I
realized that one of the things that brings me the most joy is a clean house;
but I hated to clean. Somehow, verbalizing that a clean house brings me joy
has made the process of cleaning... enjoyable. Cleaning went from something I
'had to' do for abstract (guilt from upbringing) or external reasons (friends
and clients coming to the house), to something I do, just for me. And again,
somehow, it has also made a clean house _more_ enjoyable to me.

There will always be the parts you love and the parts you don't want to have
to do. Selecting hops, especially for something that many people will
potentially enjoy, is super fun (in my imagination anyway). But it is only by
"being intimately aware of the financial health of your company" that you are
even in a position to do such a thing. Based on my experience, connecting
these two things in your psyche is the key to at least easing the burden, if
not making the entire process enjoyable.

~~~
wgerard
> I realized that one of the things that brings me the most joy is a clean
> house; but I hated to clean.

On the flip side, obviously only if it's something you can manage to do, this
is also a good litmus test for whether you should just hire someone to help
you out.

* If you don't care about having a clean house and don't enjoy cleaning: Don't worry about it.

* If you do care about having a clean house and don't enjoy cleaning: Learn to enjoy cleaning (as you have), or hire someone to help clean.

* If you do care about having a clean house and don't mind cleaning: Clean it yourself.

To bring it back to the topic at hand, I'm quite surprised to see the article
dismiss the idea of hiring an accountant to manage your books and give you a
general sense of your financial health/etc. I think it could be well worth the
money, especially if the most likely alternative is (as it is for most people
I would imagine) to just ignore it.

That doesn't mean you have to be ignorant of the financial health of your
company, in fact just the opposite: A good accountant will let you know about
problems you would've been ignorant of before they even arise.

------
legitster
I have a friend who dropped everything in his life to start homebrewing and
trying to enter the brewing industry. He's broke and miserable and doesn't
understand why the jobs are so bad. I'm trying to convince him that the fact
that people are willing to give up everything to take one of these jobs is why
you have to give up everything.

It's ironic as well, because the types of jobs he is running away from
(spreadsheets, sales, boredom) are even more pronounced in this industry.

I appreciate having a job completely removed from my interests in life. And
I've found the inverse of the above axiom to be true: jobs that seem super
unappealing from the outside are often the most rewarding. Either the people
who do it really enjoy it, or get treated well to stay in their position.

For most of our history, humans have not had many if any choices about the
type of lives they live or the work they do. It would make sense that we are
ill equipped to handle making good choices.

~~~
Dumblydorr
Maybe he can use those skills to get into the industry...spreadsheets may be
less boring when they pertain to your passion.

~~~
strbean
Sure, but just like with game development - he will be doing similar (if less
boring) work for half the pay, while being treated like crap to boot.

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FernandoTN
Running a brewery ends up being more about running a business than actually
brewing...

Every corp ends up being much more intensive in the administrative side once
the process or product has been standardized or reached a stable version.
Isn't this the case for most businesses, including tech?

~~~
nostromo
This is definitely true for tech.

A lot of startup founders, including myself, fall in love with the idea of
building technology -- but quickly learn founders are usually required to be
great salespeople more than great technologists.

~~~
blhack
Can’t you hire a salesperson?

~~~
adambyrtek
It's not just about literally selling the product. It's more about selling the
company vision to employees, convincing investors, delivering talks and
arranging interviews, which are really just high-level sales pitches. For
example, Steve Jobs spent a huge amount of his time on preparing and
rehearsing his keynotes.

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asdff
Give me a brewery that isn't concrete floor, dark walls, and exposed ceiling,
and I'll be a regular like Barney Grumble. Every one I've been to in LA is
like this. All that hard surface makes it impossible to hear anyone without
yelling, and breweries are not clubs, they are places to have beer and talk to
your friends. Restaurants used to have carpeted floors and drapes for a
reason——actually hearing your friends.

~~~
NickBusey
Restaurants (and breweries) are purposely loud, as it leads to better sales.

[Source] [https://www.bonappetit.com/test-
kitchen/ingredients/article/...](https://www.bonappetit.com/test-
kitchen/ingredients/article/3-reasons-why-restaurants-are-so-loud)

------
tempsy
I wish there was a "Stripe Atlas" for brick and mortar businesses. 90% of the
work to start a restaurant, cafe, shop, etc., must be the near identical to
others colocated in the same city/state.

The rise of "ghost kitchens" tries to solve this in some way but I think
there's opportunity to go further.

~~~
petra
1\. I wonder why we are not seeing "cloud brewing"? The process, as they
describe it, seems very standard.

2\. For restaurants, it's either "ghost/cloud kitchens" or franchises. If you
go outside those, it's possible that restaurants require too much uniqueness
and too much risk to fit a standardized model.

~~~
stdbrouw
As others point out, contract brewing is definitely a thing, but a better
comparison than cloud computing would be shared hosting: you're stuck with
whatever stack they happen to have installed, no admin rights, and you get the
same dismal bandwidth as all other tenants. Or back to brewing: yup, the
process is fairly standard – and how could it not be – but great breweries
tend to be great not just because they have good recipes, but often because
they have mastered their gear and have perfected their processes across the
board. Only very few contract breweries are that good.

~~~
petra
Why are only few breweries that good ?

And is that something that can, with the right investment be scaled, and
offered affordably ?

Or is it inherently expensive ?

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neves
The world if full of people that like to eat/cook that open a restaurant, like
to travel and open a hostel, like to do X and open Y. They all later realize
it is a completely different endeavor.

~~~
wyck
and they become adults..

------
every
OK, add brewery to the list of bed and breakfast, bar, restaurant, movie
theater and book store. All things people fantasize about owning yet know
nothing of how grindingly difficult and prone to failure they are. Dream on...

~~~
schnevets
They're all "Richard Scarry" jobs where you can still make a living being the
"best" in a small area. Few people aspire to become a butcher or carpenter or
farmer any more because different aspects of modern living have removed the
ownership of these roles (or rendered them completely obsolete).

Brewing (alongside baking) is one of a few jobs to actually resurrect itself
as a luxury good where it is lucrative to stay small.

------
01100011
From what I've read and from talking to friends in the industry, there isn't a
ton of money to be made making suds unless you get bought out for your brand.
That said, I think it's a fun business for the right kind of person.

Running a brewery is generally far easier than running any other kind of
alcoholic establishment. The permits are often easier and the hours are
limited. One successful approach I've seen is to locate cheap light industrial
space around well paying businesses in areas with horrible traffic. You'll
capture a well behaved, affluent clientele and only need to open from 4-9pm.
Even in towns with a saturated brewery market (San Diego...), there are areas
which still need breweries because of the effects of traffic. Many folks would
much rather wait for traffic to die down with a beer in their hands, and maybe
grab a quick food truck dinner.

------
jerrysievert
I've done a bit of consulting work for breweries and beer bars over the last
couple of decades, nothing in the brewing process directly (mostly bespoke
hardware and software solutions), but have had a great view into craft
brewing.

it seems like there hasn't been any real technological progress in craft
brewing since the 90's. in the 90's, there were unix based control systems,
with X11 interfaces, for larger craft breweries, while smaller breweries were
using notebooks and pens.

now, there are spreadsheets.

it seems like there's a lot of room for the booming craft beer industry to
have a shake up in software.

~~~
jcomis
Hmm, this is not really true. There are a number of apps/software for brewing
and I would wager nearly every brewery is using one and not using
paper/pen/manual spreadsheets. BeerSmith, Ekos, Fermentable are a few.

~~~
hyperbovine
BeerSmith is fine and I've seen it used at a number of different craft
breweries, but ultimately it is indeed a glorified spreadsheet.

I think OP is right, brewing remains pretty low tech. The process is
ultimately not that complicated, as befits an 8000-year old craft! The step
that is most difficult/error-prone, malting, has been outsourced to a few
large industrial producers. The rest is essentially just making tea and
letting it sit around.

~~~
jcomis
"craft" malting is becoming a thing now too with smaller producers showing up:
[https://www.rootshootmalting.com/home](https://www.rootshootmalting.com/home)
and [https://coloradomaltingcompany.com/](https://coloradomaltingcompany.com/)

------
pwarner
Tony Macgee of Lagunitas has a full on book on this. Fun read. Henhouse and
Lagunitas are basically across the street from each other and both have great
beer. Bonus they are next to my office!

[https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Start-Brewery-
Lagunitas/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Start-Brewery-
Lagunitas/dp/1556525621)

------
trollied
Discussion from 6 years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7375043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7375043)

------
throw0101a
If anyone wants to experiment at home, the folks at Penny Arcade have a weekly
stream where they create 'D&D-theme' beers:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v_dJC0AKD8&list=PLjZRIC6PME...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v_dJC0AKD8&list=PLjZRIC6PMEFlJgsGXgiBWC_7wvENmr2TC)

Names of previous concoctions:

* War Priest

* Long Rest

* Bardic Inspiration

* Little Dagger

They go into detail about what each ingredient will/should add to the final
taste.

------
analog31
Something I'm noticing is the emergence of contract breweries who will take a
recipe and a label, and brew up a batch of beer. Mostly over-hopped. I think
that this kind of custom brewing with economies of scale will strongly affect
the "craft" beer market. It might make some people think twice about setting
up their own brewing operation.

------
markdown
Why is there a completely unrelated video playing constantly on the right
margin and using up my data?

------
munificent
I live in Seattle where the IPA thing is just out of hand.

My uncharitable pet theory is this: A certain class of men (sometimes women,
but it's almost always men) get interested in something and then desire to
make it part of their identity. That in turn means they want to convey that
they are _more_ into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as
_competition._

Most people that aren't really into beer don't like hops and bitterness. It is
very much an acquired taste. So liking hoppy beers is a good signal that "look
how much _more_ into beer I am than _you! "_ Even better — and this is always
a good signal that bros have shown up to suck the fun out of your hobby —
there is a _number_ you can use to measure it. Menus show IBUs so a table full
of dudes can pick their poison and show how hardcore they are.

I like some amount of hops, but I've had beers that literally just taste like
hop tea. The flavor just dominates everything else and leaves little room to
enjoy all of the fun nuances you can get from the actual brew.

Before IPAs it was porters with the darker the better. Or Belgian beers with
competitions to see who can handle the highest ABV. It's always about getting
the best score and not just, you know, enjoying some beer.

My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do
where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus
women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word.

See also: Riding bicycles, listening to music (ugh audiophiles), metal
guitarists playing 64th note scales, etc. I can't wait for the day that bros
discover knitting and it becomes nothing but a race to see who can make the
longest scarves.

~~~
ljm
It feels a little cynical. You can enjoy beer and music and stuff without
getting into a dick measuring contest. If all they want to do is one-up you
then they’re not your friend. Find someone who listens to you.

If that’s their way of enjoying things, then what’s so bad about it? They
presumably dislike a lot of the hobbies you enjoy, they’re not out there to
‘mentrify’ them. (Why this gendered insulting is okay when it’s aimed against
men, I don’t know.)

~~~
munificent
_> You can enjoy beer and music and stuff without getting into a dick
measuring contest._

Sure, and most do, across genders.

 _> If that’s their way of enjoying things, then what’s so bad about it?_

Every act tends to have social/economic implications that affect how others
participate, even if unintentional. Walk into a bar now, and often eight out
of the ten taps are high IBU IPAs. Fewer choices for people that aren't into
the hops competition.

Some people will be rude to others who don't want to play the competitive
game.

 _> (Why this gendered insulting is okay when it’s aimed against men, I don’t
know.) _

Men collectively have enough power to handle a funny critical term without
risk of being marginalized.

~~~
CDSlice
>> (Why this gendered insulting is okay when it’s aimed against men, I don’t
know.)

> Men collectively have enough power to handle a funny critical term without
> risk of being marginalized.

What does men collectively have enough power even mean? It's not like all the
men in the world work together to decide the fate of all the poor, powerless
women. Where is black men's power? Where is the homeless white men's power?
And why should risk of being marginalized factor into it? Insulting a very
large fraction of humanity for the actions of a small subset shouldn't be OK
no matter who it is. Would insulting all Muslims for the actions of a few
fringe sects be OK? I mean, they should collectively have enough power to
handle it, they even run whole countries!

Decry the actions of bros all you want, but why expand that to saying all men
do this as "mentrification" implies? Doing so is both inaccurate and hurtful
to many people for no reason other than feeling smug that some man (who most
likely isn't very privileged) finally got their comeuppance.

~~~
vict00ms
I don't think it implies that all men do this at all. It also seems like a
much more palatable expression/term than "dick-measuring contest".

~~~
larnmar
But it seems to collectively place the blame on all men, rather than the
minority who are interested in dick-measuring contests.

And not only is this unfair, it’s silly. Brewing has always been an almost
exclusively male hobby, the rise of the hop nerd is nothing to do with sex at
all, contrary to what the word might imply.

~~~
mumblemumble
I would also be willing to believe that the, for lack of a better term, dick-
measuring, isn't something that men inherently do more; we're just primed to
see it that way due to sexist stereotypes. And/or they get away with it more
easily 'cuz hegemony.

Evidences:

At quilting shows, numeric boasting is also common - number of hours, number
of pieces, number of spools of thread, I've even seen a count of the number of
broken quilting needles.

Carbon fiber knitting needles are a thing. I own some. The packaging talks
about how carbon fiber is also used in aerospace. (In case, I dunno, you need
to get those puppies moving through the air really fast, maybe?)

My grandmother's approach to baking Christmas cookies.

(That said, MENTRIFICATION is a hilarious term, I chuckled out loud, and I
will be using it in the future, with only moderate fear that doing so will
emasculate me or invert the patriarchy, and minor hope that people who like to
complain about political correctness will be offended on political grounds.)

