East Durham Brewery Project

[geetee]

The Brewlab Uni at Sunderland do a range of courses from 1- 4 days on start up brewing covering all aspects of marketing, finance tax legislation etc.
Its a few hundred quid but may stop you putting in loads of hours only to find its not viable. That would be my first port of call.

I am booked on their 10 week course mainly cos I was am being made redundant.
I have been brewing for more than 10 years and am hoping the course will enable me to make the same decision you are after, is it worth it.
Even if I cannot make it pay then I have had the benefit of a very enjoyable course , hands on experience and visits to lots of local brewers.

My course starts at end of June so here's hoping

PS would be good if you could find a "local" pub that might want a brewery in the cellar. This gives you a good outlet with minimal sales activity and you can sell any excess to other pubs.

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

The Brewlab Uni at Sunderland do a range of courses from 1- 4 days on start up brewing covering all aspects of marketing, finance tax legislation etc.
Its a few hundred quid but may stop you putting in loads of hours only to find its not viable. That would be my first port of call.

I am booked on their 10 week course mainly cos I was am being made redundant.
I have been brewing for more than 10 years and am hoping the course will enable me to make the same decision you are after, is it worth it.
Even if I cannot make it pay then I have had the benefit of a very enjoyable course , hands on experience and visits to lots of local brewers.

My course starts at end of June so here's hoping

PS would be good if you could find a "local" pub that might want a brewery in the cellar. This gives you a good outlet with minimal sales activity and you can sell any excess to other pubs.

I've read a bit about the place in Sunderland. Sounds like it might come in handy for me - I live just down the road too, handily.

It would be great to "get friendly" with a local pub or two before I step from amateur to pro. I was thinking about free samples as a way to get a foot in the door.

Still trying to work out what I'm going to do to be different. At the moment, I'm giving thought to "live" bottled beer.

Right now though, I'm still in painting-hell. Re-painted all the damp repaired masonry today, but it needs another coat and doesn't dry quickly. So one night this week I'll get a second coat on, and that's the last of the white paint. Just a second coat of the floor to go then - that's a horrible job though, with the state of this floor.

 

[geetee]

There are a lot of options on how to package beer nowadays even disposal kegs which are pub friendly and cuts out the cost of buying very expensive kegs.
Bottling is very labour intensive and shipping out 200 bottles will take a lot more effort than 3 or 4 kegs.

As for a "difference" look at something in your area, East Durham heritage that you can build your beers around For example If I was close to Bishop Auckland I would be looking to develop some ancient medieval recipes to tie in with their developm. I am sure some of the other brewers have this in mind but it's just an example of a "theme" you can build around.

My intial thoughts will be a standard session bitter, a hoppy IPA or blonde and a Porter then maybe expand on this for seasonal events

Good luck and keep updating

 

[Wilfy]

Brewlab students used to sell some of their beers in the Museum Vaults in Sunderland. Dunno if they still do.

 

[mickthetrick]

tried a few they had on a meet the brewer night in fitzgerald's in sunderland a few months back. beer was merrr but the talk the lecturer gave was pretty good especially his bit on yeast. the beer was made by some of the student that were from usa, south america to name a few places.

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

My intial thoughts will be a standard session bitter, a hoppy IPA or blonde and a Porter then maybe expand on this for seasonal events

Good luck and keep updating

As a portfolio, I think that's a good place to start. I could never get away with porter, but Bitter, Blond, Golden and IPA are what I drink.

Maybe one day I'll brew beer that I don't like myself - but not from day 1 :)

I noticed Camra want to push proper live beer again - bottle conditioned. If I understand correctly, all the ales that I buy in bottles are filtered and carbonated before bottling these days. Could there be a gap for proper bottle conditioned beer again?


Haven't had much time to work on this lately - but did get round last night and re-painted everywhere that I had to do the damp repair. Just a 2nd coat on the floor, then I can order everything and start on the joinery work that needs doing.
I'd really like to be brewing by the start of July.

 

[geetee]

I think most of the beer in bottles now is filtered and is sold as Craft beer . I used to buy Coniston's Bluebird with yeast in the bottle but now it's filtered.
Camra say it should have yeast in but Camra don't buy all of the beer that you produce. You have to go with what customers want and increasingly this is bottles without live yeast. I am still happy to drink my own homebrew with live yeast but when it comes to selling I would probably think again

I am not a Porter drinker but at Christmas I made a bitter, Hoppy pale ale and attempted a Chocolate Porter just to see if I can do it. It came out a bit thin, not too chocolatey but it's a start. I now have some idea of how to make it if there is a market for it. I intend to explore several other beer styles that I would not normally drink myself (Amber, Mild, Ruby Wheat) cos you never know when people might want them

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

Coniston's Bluebird - I was up there last year for a weekend. Lovely beer.

The never ending saga of painting is still ongoing. Got a covering on the floor, and also re-painted all the damp repaired surfaces. The paint stripper is finally making a dent in thick gloss green on the lintel too.
Quick rolled coat to go on the floor, then I'm done.

Latest pic, not much change, but a lot of time has elapsed.

IMG_20150614_165137 by Peter Richardson, on Flickr

 

[GlentoranMark]

Belfast's first brewpub: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/l...-growing-thirst-for-craft-beers-31298800.html

I'll give it a visit even though it's not in my neck of the woods.

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

Thank goodness for that. The last of the painting is done.

Well, except for the lintel, which is on its 87th coat of paint stripper to get the 88 coats of green gloss off it before it gets painted a normal colour!

Also, built a frame for the sink unit I was given. See pic. Need to do a little plumbing on that to create a hose to the nearby road-drain

IMG_20150621_132642 by Peter Richardson, on Flickr

 

[cornyandy]

I'm going to weigh in a bit to try to help here. "The Wold Top" Brewery is now one of the finest micro breweries in the East Riding of Yorkshire and pretty much, they started very small with the odd cask at the local pub and selling bottled beer from the local farmers markets. They started with one beer (Wold Top Bitter) and expanded to three and a special and now to this

http://www.woldtopbrewery.co.uk/

It has to be noted that they started with giving locals what they wanted a high quality quaffing slightly stronger than session bitter and now are able (because people know the brand and will try their ales out) to play. I would try to link up with one local free house to get the odd cask in there. Real ale is still king Once you are going then play to your hearts content but get the customer base first. Your issue now is the plethora of micro breweries and in house breweries it is almost passe now you are going into a saturated market (not a bad thing) and have a huge amount of competition.

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

I'm going to weigh in a bit to try to help here. "The Wold Top" Brewery is now one of the finest micro breweries in the East Riding of Yorkshire and pretty much, they started very small with the odd cask at the local pub and selling bottled beer from the local farmers markets. They started with one beer (Wold Top Bitter) and expanded to three and a special and now to this

http://www.woldtopbrewery.co.uk/

It has to be noted that they started with giving locals what they wanted a high quality quaffing slightly stronger than session bitter and now are able (because people know the brand and will try their ales out) to play. I would try to link up with one local free house to get the odd cask in there. Real ale is still king Once you are going then play to your hearts content but get the customer base first. Your issue now is the plethora of micro breweries and in house breweries it is almost passe now you are going into a saturated market (not a bad thing) and have a huge amount of competition.

I'll give that a look.

Oddly, East Durham seems to have missed the resurgence of real ales and craft beer.
I don't know of any micro, except a unit on a local industrial estate that brews lager to licence.

There isn't a brew pub here for certain, and the ones that have linked to breweries are doing to over 10-25 miles away (Maxims for example, which is hardly micro - they've done very very well with their Vaux-reboot)


I agree though - my first brew will be a standard bitter. Free samples until I get it right to friends and family. Then maybe some freebie kegs to local pubs to build up a name.
I'm still working, so I can fund it until decision time.

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

My kit is arriving now. On target to start brewing in early July.

 

[terrym]

I'm still working, so I can fund it until decision time.

Just a thought ...if you intend to go commercial, unless you have already set something up, you could consider setting up a company for your business, even at this early stage when you are operating at a loss. There might be tax advantages in doing this even if its just reclaiming VAT for the time being. You can set up a company online. Even if you don't I would keep receipts of your set-up costs for later on since you may be able to get something back from HMRC.
It may be worth getting professional advice on this to see if its worthwhile, or someone on this forum may have direct experience of this to offer help.

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

Just a thought ...if you intend to go commercial, unless you have already set something up, you could consider setting up a company for your business, even at this early stage when you are operating at a loss. There might be tax advantages in doing this even if its just reclaiming VAT for the time being. You can set up a company online. Even if you don't I would keep receipts of your set-up costs for later on since you may be able to get something back from HMRC.
It may be worth getting professional advice on this to see if its worthwhile, or someone on this forum may have direct experience of this to offer help.

Its a good point. For now, the costs are very low. The main spend was the garage door, and that was done by a friend of a friend...

But if I do decide to make the leap, I will look into that for sure.

I already have a limited company for the job I do now (IT Contractor), so I'm reasonably aware of how that stuff works & I have an accountant for the rest :)

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

After what seems like forever, I'm finally ordering ingredients and the final bits of kit I need.

I bet half the people reading this thought I'd practically given up eh?
Not a bit of it!!

Timeline is:
No free time this weekend (baby stuff)
Next Sunday free - Set up everything and see what I've missed - bound to be something
Weekend after - Shakedown testing, boiling water, transferring - get that "new" taste out of everything.
And maybe, just maybe, my first brew.

Excited now :-)

 

[T.E.D.B.P]

Excited now :-)

Just when you think things are going well......

My first batch of ingredients arrived, and I was supposed to be setting everything up over the weekend.

But last week, I got a call about another business that will take every moment of my spare time for the next 1-3 months.

Absolutely gutted, I was 99% ready to start. Looks like September now

:sad:

 

[mickthetrick]

hi .
was just wondering if you did manage to get your first brew on?

 

[stevej]

Think not :wha:

 

[Leon103]

Hi everyone,
Just signed up today as I understand this is the biggest and best homebrew forum out there.

So, 7 days ago I had a thought - Why not open a Micro Brewery?

Seriously.

I love beer, I enjoy making homebrew and I have been looking for an excuse to start a business of my own for 10 years. And if that business makes brilliant beer, then is just perfect.

But first thing is first - Brewing beer kits in my kitchen is a world apart from brewing a range of beers that people would ever think of handing over their money for.

I've secured a indefinite lease on a brewing premise - my mate's garage! From here, I have as long as I need to learn how to make great beer before opening the real brewery.

I have my initial draft plans - is there a correct board to post it and make a start on this thing? 7 days of thinking and planning has me itching to make a start - but the only thing I know for sure right now is that I don't even know enough to understand how much I have to learn.

And so, I come to you for help.

Anyone up for helping me get started?

Thanks in advance,
Peter
:

Lots of replies that I haven't read but have you considered doing a brew labs course?