I dont mean to show off but, Big Shiny Things

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Nice looking kit there and I wish you all the best with your venture. Critch has got it right, kegs kegs and more kegs, you can't have too many. I've had to dump a brew once and it was gutting believe me. We now have a barcode system for our kegs and SWMBO has employed her brother to collect them. He's not long been out of The Spanish Foreign Legion and is an evil *******, but that helps when dealing with wily bar owners.
 
I feel like an infant that's just wandered into the big school by mistake...... :D

Great reads...... I wish you all good luck
 
Brewery is making beer now! some bugs to sort out but its going pretty well, this is a photo of the first brew day, it was a bit manic to say the least!
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I have also been at a few more markets, it seems even at the quietest smallest markets im taking about £200 quid, biggest problem is keeping up the stock.

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Absolutely cracking presentation :thumb:
Did you have the wooden crates made to order?
I'm try to work out my marketing & pricing at the moment ready for a launch next month.
Farmers markets seem like hard work - are they really worth the effort?
 
the first few were kind of hard work, trying out building tables as a stand like everyone els then using a full blown market stall and all with loads of ugly plastic boxes, then i got wise and got a friend to make these crates for me out of old pallets, now its easy because all i do is take x amount of boxes from the store room load the van unload the boxes and kinda stack them as scruffy as you can in a artistic manner :) take a sign along and some glasses, bobs your auntie! as long as your can be happy to passers by its pretty easy to sell the beer as long as they like their sample, it does to a point sell itself, i enjoy them now but make sure you choose a good market to sell at you want as many people to walk past you as possible, its your job to stop them, (everyone stops for a sip of beer) if they like, they buy!

one difficulty is bottle conditioned beer, lots of people dont realise what this means so you should explain withouts scaring them off, say it like its a good thing, but i had to work bloody hard to make sure there is as little yeast left in bottle as possible so make sure its very clear before you bottle.

as far as pricing goes i sell at £10 for a box of 4 and let the customer mix ant match, it works out more profitable than cask sales but you still have to push as many casks as possible because its almost a completely different market and youl just sell more beer. Im selling it £1 50 a bottle to shops a box of 24 minimum order.

best of luck, let me know if i can help in any way
 
Stone Cold said:
i have enough casks to cover a full length brew of 15 firkins, not as many as i would like and they are not all new to me, we are ready to place the order for 30 stainless casks as soon as we get the next grant of 50% that brings the cost down to £30.50 per stainless cask :) I will be selling off my plastic firkins then.

Hi Stone Cold,

The 50% grant sounds good! Where does it come from?

Regards,

Simon.
 
we got a like for like grant that i think is called 'farm diversification grant' or similar that paid for half the renovation of the building. we had a grant that may only be available for Powys county that was again a like for like grant called business start up and now we are going for business growth grant that from the same people
find out if you have a free council or government business advice centre of sort, we used one called ANTIR local to me.
 
Thanks Stone Cold, that's helpful.

Can I PM you to pick your brains some time?

Simon.
 
Wow I'm amazed at your dedication, I want my own business soon just lack the mastery of anything, I'm what people call jack of all trades master of none!

Seriously, I'm proud of you. Not many people have the vision, dedication and umph to make it!
 
Thank you everyone for your support!

I have made enough money for 28 firkins and 8 pins to go along side 8 plastics. slowly getting there! vans almost fixed swell we have had the gearbox out and changed the broken bearing ourselves to put more money into brewery and not this ******* van!
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Stone Cold said:
got these 2 650l fermenters arrived today from ajp hereford they also jacketed them for me with copper pipe to regulate temp, apparently i got mates rates for some unknown reason but i aint complaining, £720 each. I feel like SWMBO just had twins :)

Powys-20130221-00202_zps0a87ba94.jpg

hello all, firstly thank you all for taking an interest in my brewery story.
like i said here I got a deal on these fermenters as these were the first conversion AJP had done with these tanks, if i was to go order another one I would be looking at double the cost. so remember that before you take a copy of my photo and email AJP expecting the same fermenters at this cost it is not going to happen.

I do highly recommend these guys their work is second to none and im fairly sure their normal rates are still cheaper than anyone els on the market as far as my endless research resulted in. but if your asking about prices and haggling over 30 quid here and 10 quid there then it is likely you will be pushed to the way side because there are people out there with the money waiting wanting things made now and without endless emails going back and forth over tiny details.

I say this after having a conversation with AJP

Best of luck all those trying to go bigger, remember its never going to be cheap
 
Would love to see more photos of your setup there.

Out of interest, did you take a look into any of the one way keg systems, such as KeyKeg? How did you source your metal kegs, and (if you don't mind me asking) how much did they set you back, without grants or anything? It's one area of the whole brewing industry that I've never been able to find out prices on!
 
ollyb said:
How did you source your metal kegs, and (if you don't mind me asking) how much did they set you back, without grants or anything? It's one area of the whole brewing industry that I've never been able to find out prices on!

They're about 65-70 quid excluding VAT, plenty of suppliers. Hereford Casks, Kammac, Soverign, Crusader, etc.
 

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