600l Brewery Gear For Sale

[Thirsty Boy]

So if you want to pay your bills and make a wage of say $50,000 a year... you will need a certain sized plant.

Using the $0.75 per litre of brewhouse capacity - Just the 50000 is 67,000 litres of production - so thats brewing once a week on a 1500L system, nearly twice a week on a 750 or in the system advertised - just more than two times a week. To pay a wage for one person. Before business costs. Christ knows how many brews you'd need to do to pay your sales department.

I mean, its possible to do the sums easily enough if you have the knowledge about overheads involved in a brewery - I just assumed that there would be a ball park figure that someone who had been through a business plan for a brewery might be able to provide to give us all a mental starting point. Its fairly obviously larger than 600L ...

 

[white.grant]

There's an interesting interview on basic brewing radio with Mike Dewey from Mount Carmel Brewing.

He uses a very small brewing system (I think about 10 barrels), but he talks a lot about his business plan, starting small to reduce overheads and debt, locating in a country town where land was cheap and how direct sales of his product from his own front door are more profitable to him than sales through other bars and pubs.

He was working like a dog, brewing every day, but by using a less capital intensive startup system, he could start a brewing business and not have to worry so much about huge monthly costs. It seemed to be working for him.

cheers

grant

 

[Ross]

Northern Rivers Brewing is operating with a 450L system here

They are planning to upgrade next year, but appear to have a nice little business running already.

cheers Ross

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

A lot of it is about overheads....

Costs for rent and equipment are the killer..especially when they have to be paid every week, regardless.

I you owned the land and building outright and could make your own equipment ( hard, but not impossible ) then you could get away with brewing far less than if you would have to rent commercial space and fork out for a fancy turnkey system...


Some have said that $200k would get you a very basic system.....and if you want a fully auto bottler included....then you better win lotto..

 

[dig]

Size depends on your business model. Doing draught only and selling it all across your own bar, I reckon you can make a living at 100,000 litres per annum (3 double brew days a week in a 6hl rig). If you want to make money selling pack through the major retail outlets as your principal revenue stream, you'd need to get your volumes up to a million litres. If you're small, you need your own retail outlet.

Mildura has certainly become the new AIB...

 

[Millet Man]

It's really a balance between size and brew frequency, setup costs and operating costs.

Our system is 36hl and currently only brew on average 3 times per month, but double that in the spring/summer period and all product is bottled atm. We can do this with a total of 2 people to cover all production/sales/business. But with some extra people and more tank space we could be brewing nearly every day so there's plenty of room for growth over the next few years.

If we only had a 6hl system we would be brewing nearly evey day of the year now and need a few extra production people with little or no room for expansion without upgrading.

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thanks guys, thats the sort of thing I was talking about - I did know that there wouldn't be a single "this is it" figure, but the parameters you talk about make a lot of sense.

Ross - the Northern Rivers example is more or less the sort of thing I was talking about - people manage to create a nice little business with smaller systems - but always seem to end up needing to upgrade. I was wondering what the line in the sand might be for a - "this one will do forever" system. As dig pointed out - its probably a lot easier to think in litres per annum production, then its a matter of how hard you need to work (and the costs involved in that too...) in order to get that out of your sized system.

How many litres is the system thats going into that new looking building I saw out the back of Giant Steps when I was in Healsville the other week dig?

Thanks again gents

Thirsty

 

[shonky]

What do the pro's out there think is the minimum "viable" size for a production brewery??

FWIW I asked Geoff Scharer (founder of the George at Picton of the TV show fame and former owner of the Australian in the Rocks, Sydney) the same question a couple of years ago and he was of the opinion that the minimum brew length to make a go of it would be about 20HL. I know there are plenty of brewers out there surviving with breweries alot smaller than that. How many of them wish they had started with breweries of around this size though?

I think this holds for the Aussie market conditions at the moment, in the UK it is a different story where small breweries get a great tax break thanks to years of lobbying by the CAMRA mob. Plenty of breweries of 3 to 5 barrels over there (about 5-8HL), many of them in sheds behind the pub.

Bring on smilar excise changes in Australia and watch the market explode - :beerbang:

 

[PostModern]

Bring on smilar excise changes in Australia and watch the market explode - :beerbang:

Y'see CAMRA has a historic and traditional English thing to protect with their actions. The opposite is true in Aus. There is no small business economy to protect, and reducing excise in the current temperance-rich political environment will lose votes hand over fist. It's a minefield. atm, I'm just happy to watch it blow over and enjoy my zero excise beer brewed at home.

 

[reviled]

This place operates a 600 litre capacity...

 

[shonky]

Y'see CAMRA has a historic and traditional English thing to protect with their actions. The opposite is true in Aus. There is no small business economy to protect, and reducing excise in the current temperance-rich political environment will lose votes hand over fist. It's a minefield. atm, I'm just happy to watch it blow over and enjoy my zero excise beer brewed at home.

:icon_offtopic: I agree to a point however at the time when CAMRA was really getting momentum up in the 80's there were hardly any microbreweries in the UK to protect. The industry was basically 6 big players that controlled about half the beer serverd and the vast majority of the rest of the beer was brewed by the big regional breweries such as Wadworths, Arkells etc (the ones near where I grew up) that were slowly and steadily being bought out by the big 6.

The recent legislation in the UK (I believe it was 2002) doesn't affect these mid-size breweries as it is aimed at breweries less than 500,000lt a year (although you still get some rebate up to 3mil lt). This has encouraged around 70-80 breweries a year to open in the Uk and created am industry that basically wasn't there at all 20 years ago..

There are now more breweries in the Uk than there has been for a couple of hundred years at least.

I hear what you are saying about it being politically unlikley at the moment, but problems with binge drinking and microbrewed beer are not bed-fellows IMO.

Cheers

 

[gibbocore]

Continuing in the off topicness...

Is there any economic sense in giving excise breaks to smaller breweries, i thought faor trading likes as many players in an industry as possible, more competition, higher standards and all that, i don't see who they are loosing votes from, unless the suggestion is that by making way for more breweries, more beer will be drunk, thats just silly, people can only afford to drink what they currently can, it would just mean they would drink a wider variety. Just food for thought, and i'd like someone to play devils advocate on this one as i gather many of us here will be slighty one eyed on the matter.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Giving excise breaks to smaller breweries, is tacit approval for the consumption of alcohol - a vile and contemptible drug of addiction who's evils have been proven time and time again in research and anecdotal evidence in our binge drinking wracked society.

Any move by the federal government to offer tax breaks to alcohol producers of any description, simply proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they dont care in the least for those vulnerable portions of society who's families are being torn apart by the ravages of alcohol abuse.......

or something to that effect.

If possible, insert the word "family" "abuse" "binge drinking" and youth, children, society, etc etc even more times and more emotively

 

[gibbocore]

haha, thanks Anna Corren :lol:

 

[ham2k]

Logically, if an excise break increases the number of producers then there must be either an increase in the consumption of alcohol (a big social no-no as pointed out above) or reduced purchases from the mega breweries.

The mega breweries would try to make it not happen in the first place as they have siginificant influence i imagine. Added to this, these units of alcohol (that are produced under an excise break) are an effective subsidy from the Federal Government meaning the tax take is less and they get adverse publicity for doing so (again, as pointed out above). Not good incentives to make it happen.

Also, given the current government stance on alcopops (irrespective of whether it is right or wrong) I can't see them now giving an excise break to any alcohol producer. Otherwise they will get an absolute hammering for inconsistency.

It is a very disappointed state of affairs when I read about the craft brewing scene in the US and elsewhere. I believe the model the craftbrewers industry should follow in Australia is the wine making one, and hopefully obtain the same concessions as the wine industry (the WET excise i believe?). If craft brewers can sidle up to the wine industry and become strongly associated with them at trade shows, in tourist areas, in restaurants and, crucially, in people's minds then I hope it would be a naturally progressive step to be being treated in the same manner by the taxman.

bokra fil mish mish

 

[Gnome]

has this gone slightly off topic?
does anyone want to buy it or not?

 

[winkle]

has this gone slightly off topic?
does anyone want to buy it or not?

Yes.
Just waiting for those lotto numbers.....

 

[benno1973]

has this gone slightly off topic?
does anyone want to buy it or not?

Buy what?

 

[brettprevans]

has this gone slightly off topic?
does anyone want to buy it or not?

by the sounds of it TB was trying to assertain whether it was a viable option out there for anyone considering a business move and buying the setup. If it wasnt viable then why by it. I for one would be thankful for TB asking the question if I was considering buying the setup.

:icon_offtopic:
So TB looking to give the bigboys the arse and move into brewing? some of your 'outside the square' beers are awsome.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Not me - the "big boys" pay very well indeed and dont require me to work particularly hard in return.

I love beer and would love to be a brewer - but I just cant see any micros out there paying me 70+G a year and letting me work a 35hr week. I have tentative plans for semi retirement into micro brewing - after macro brewing has provided me with enough super so I never actually have to rely on the micro version to pay the bills.

For my purposes, that 600L litre rig is not only 15 years too early, its about 300L too big.......