Potton Brewing Co. New Brewery, eventually...

[Greenhorn]

My ventures in homebrew were always intended as a potential launch pad to a change in career. And after doing it for 18 months, reading everything I can get my hands on, visiting a few breweries and talking to many more I'm taking the plunge.

Yes, I know there's far too many breweries already, but thankfully in my local area, there's actually a bit of a dearth. Plan is to start small (2.5BBL) and do it a few days a week whilst maintaining my current job part time. That way I'll not have all my financial eggs in one basket to begin with.

I currently have a planning application for a lovely little Victorian industrial unit just behind the market square, which would be the perfect location for towns folk to pop by and see whats going on.

For anyone who's interested, I've got a progress blog up and running.

www.pottonbrewingcompany.com

 

[Bigjas]

Best of British luck to you!!

Nice blog btw

 

[Flixonbrews]

My ventures in homebrew were always intended as a potential launch pad to a change in career. And after doing it for 18 months, reading everything I can get my hands on, visiting a few breweries and talking to many more I'm taking the plunge.

Yes, I know there's far too many breweries already, but thankfully in my local area, there's actually a bit of a dearth. Plan is to start small (2.5BBL) and do it a few days a week whilst maintaining my current job part time. That way I'll not have all my financial eggs in one basket to begin with.

I currently have a planning application for a lovely little Victorian industrial unit just behind the market square, which would be the perfect location for towns folk to pop by and see whats going on.

For anyone who's interested, I've got a progress blog up and running.

www.pottonbrewingcompany.com

Flixon Breweries wish you all the best of luck in your new venture.

 

[Thumper]

Best of luck Greenhorn! No such thing as too many breweries.

Bedfordshire isn't that far from me, maybe I'll pop over and have a nose once you're up and running.

 

[thewelshwizard1]

My ventures in homebrew were always intended as a potential launch pad to a change in career. And after doing it for 18 months, reading everything I can get my hands on, visiting a few breweries and talking to many more I'm taking the plunge.

Yes, I know there's far too many breweries already, but thankfully in my local area, there's actually a bit of a dearth. Plan is to start small (2.5BBL) and do it a few days a week whilst maintaining my current job part time. That way I'll not have all my financial eggs in one basket to begin with.

I currently have a planning application for a lovely little Victorian industrial unit just behind the market square, which would be the perfect location for towns folk to pop by and see whats going on.

For anyone who's interested, I've got a progress blog up and running.

www.pottonbrewingcompany.com

All the best, yes great blog - attach some progress pics ?

 

[strange-steve]

Very nice blog, all the best with your venture, I'm sure it's something all HBers have dreamt of at some point.

 

[MyQul]

Good luck! :thumb:

 

[Leon103]

Good luck!!!

 

[Cwrw666]

Best of luck Greenhorn, hope it goes well for you. My family have been badgering me to do the same, but I don't know, lot of competition round here. (10 microbreweries locally!)

 

[Dr_Unkenly]

Mate, that looks amazing. You're living the dream.

 

[IainM]

Amazing. Not too far from me so I hope I can pop down to Potton for a pint of Republic soon! Good on you for having the balls to make a go of it. Best of luck.

 

[Clint]

Exciting times! I like the fact you're going to keep your old job....for now! Twenty years ago (!) my Mrs decided she was going to start a business,get a shop etc.....so she did! Found premises,locally, sorted all the relevant. ..and packed her job in within a month. Ten years later she announced she had found a different location ( to buy)..gulp says I...but went for a look to put her off....it was a "doer upper",but cheap....my initial thoughts were "NO!" She can be very persuasive. ...builder in for a quote...electricians, plumber..fixtures and fittings.....damn her,the sums added up! Working shifts myself I had the enviable task of pulling all this together while she kept the other place going. I worked days and nights and in between laboured for the on site tradesmen. ..the 8 week deadline was in with 2 days to spare...
Was it worth it? 110%!
Looking back I realise what a massive task it was but the devil is in the detail....plan, plan,plan....check it 100 times...do it once!
Quite funny some things that happened...like endless phone calls to the electric company trying to convince them that there actually was a supply to the building and we needed to set up an account! Such fun!

Seriously good luck to you !

Cheers

Clint

 

[Greenhorn]

Cheers everyone. Anyone who wants to pop by will be more than welcome.

I'll post updates so you can see how it's coming, although the blog will be the best way of keeping up to date.

 

[Leon103]

Just caught up on the blog. Well written. Looking forward to reading the progress.

 

[Simonh82]

I wish you really good luck with this. I'm sure it will be hard work but if you can make a go of it, it will be worth it.

This may be in the blog, which I will read when I'm not at work but do you plan on having a particular focus to your brewery? Are you doing traditional English Ales, US types or anything else more exotic?

 

[Greenhorn]

I wish you really good luck with this. I'm sure it will be hard work but if you can make a go of it, it will be worth it.

This may be in the blog, which I will read when I'm not at work but do you plan on having a particular focus to your brewery? Are you doing traditional English Ales, US types or anything else more exotic?

Thanks.

I'll be producing beers from across the range really. I'm intending to keep the brewery really local (10 mile radius max) and so can't be too focused in my range as there just isn't the population to keep me going with a limited range.

My initial core will be:

A pale IPA, hoppy, but not at silly brewdog levels.

A best with big british hop additions.

A porter, brewed on the malty side.

An american red, dry as hell and pretty hoppy.


In addition I'll be doing seasonals including a blackberry version of the porter, a wild hopped american IPA and I'll probably succumb to the siren call of a golden ale as well. I'd like to do more exotic beers, but a lot of them might prove not to be commercially viable. I've done a couple of really nice sour saisons which I'd love to produce, but I'm not sure there is the market locally. Maybe I'll experiment with doing single cask runs of some of these for beer festivals and see how they go down.

 

[Simonh82]

Thanks.

I'll be producing beers from across the range really. I'm intending to keep the brewery really local (10 mile radius max) and so can't be too focused in my range as there just isn't the population to keep me going with a limited range.

My initial core will be:

A pale IPA, hoppy, but not at silly brewdog levels.

A best with big british hop additions.

A porter, brewed on the malty side.

An american red, dry as hell and pretty hoppy.


In addition I'll be doing seasonals including a blackberry version of the porter, a wild hopped american IPA and I'll probably succumb to the siren call of a golden ale as well. I'd like to do more exotic beers, but a lot of them might prove not to be commercially viable. I've done a couple of really nice sour saisons which I'd love to produce, but I'm not sure there is the market locally. Maybe I'll experiment with doing single cask runs of some of these for beer festivals and see how they go down.

I love a good golden ale. One of my best beers was a ~4.5% golden ale with Maris Otter and loads of First Gold and Brewers Gold Hops.

 

[shepp]

I think a New World IPA and a British IPA are both worth doing.

 

[treebeard]

Good luck with the venture. Nice blog; I have bookmarked it so I can keep up with the progress. :thumb:

 

[DoctorMick]

Good luck with it...there are plenty of breweries but not all produce great beer, nail that bit and I'm sure you'll do well. :thumb: