Page 13 - Beverage Master February March 2020

Craft Beverage

Let’s say you were buying a car that was slightly out of your price
range. Would the first thing you ask them to do to cut costs is take
50 percent of the horsepower out of the engine? Of course not.
You need most of those horses just to pull the weight of the vehi-
cle efficiently. You’d likely find some features you like but could
live without. Or perhaps you cut other things in your personal
budget so you can afford the vehicle.

The brewhouse is the engine. You can only make as much beer
as your labor and equipment allow. If you need a 10-barrel bre-
whouse and to save money you cut it to five barrels, then double
your labor cost because you’re having to brew around the clock,
are you saving money? Of course not. You’ll pay back those “sav-
ings” in the form of labor, repairs on equipment needing mainte-
nance faster, etc.

I’m not suggesting you bust your budget. What I’m suggesting is
that a sound budget factors in the need for your company to pro-
duce product efficiently and at scale. So I’m all for saving money,
but this is one place where your revenue goals and your equip-
ment need to match. Don’t say you’re going to produce 1,000
barrels per year on a 2-barrel. If you need 1,000 barrels to make
money, then get the proper amount of horsepower to make your
business sustainable.

Don’t Treat Your
Taproom as an Afterthought

This is one of the more common mistakes seen in taproom-fo-
cused breweries around the nation. There’s so much focus on the
beermaking process, and what could make that process easier.
But reframe the mindset: What’s the use of spending thousands of
dollars on equipment that can speed up your brew day by 90 min-
utes … if no one is there to drink that beer?

Craft beer consumers delineate between quality, no question.
Don’t misread this as saying that quality doesn’t matter. It’s vital.
However, reaching a certain quality standard – and knowing that
yourself and at least a handful of your competitors will be in that
same zone – engaging customers with an exciting taproom and
fun vibe will produce more results for your business than that
extra equipment ever could.

At this moment in the craft beer movement, this fact is only
becoming more prevalent. Competition continues to saturate
markets all over the U.S. I wrote an entire chapter on making sure
every brewer and every brewery owner asks themselves “What
makes us different?” I would always include a large investment in
the taproom as one of the safest ways to create some uniqueness
in your market.

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