Brown Ale Recipe For Commercial Use

[Parks]

I reckon you'll want a recipe or style which has a fair amount of leeway in the bitterness. I have heard scaling from homebrew to commercial is an art form which to me suggests you would have most fun with your hop additions (and cooling 10,000L of wort).

I think Nev at Gryphon Brewing has a 200L Braumeister which may be of help in working out some scaling differences. Even asking him for advice may be a good idea assuming you are close to him geographically.

 

[WarmBeer]

... 200 kegs is the smallest run that is actually viable, from a financial point of view, to brew...

However, now you have to sell 200 kegs worth of beer into a fickle market that is becoming saturated with brands.

Beer, even in the keg, is not stable long term, not only will you have a lot of money tied up in stock, you may have to write a fair proportion of it off if you're unable to sell it within a reasonable timeframe. Nobody's going to go back for another pot/pint/schooner of stale beer.

Best of luck, but consider organic growth as a business model. It's worked for Mountain Goat, S&W, Murray's, etc.

 

[benno1973]

What bars BB? I'm sure a lot of us Perthies will happily support a new craft beer enterprise...

 

[Feldon]

Hi Mitch,

Like Parks said, go see the 200L Bruameister. Its not cheap but maybe you could hire use of one on an as-needs basis. Its a compact system that might offer considerable advantages.

Smaller volume runs means you are not stuck with many kegs of beer if they don't sell well at first. You can engage your customers in a feedback process and tweak the recipe batch by batch until you hit their sweet spot. Smaller batches also mean you can perhaps have two of three different beers available.

Costs might be comparable to contracting out for a large volume brew and paying for storage until sold.

Saying 'brewed by us', or better still 'brewed on premises', will draw in customers you would not otherwise get.

You also get to badge yourself 'Head Brewer' !

Best of luck with your venture.

 

[tiprya]

Perhaps you could post up your homebrew recipe you aren't happy with, and we could suggest some improvements?

A brown ale is a good starting point I think, approachable (besides the colour that can put some off) and not really any regular Browns being brewed in Australia at the moment.

 

[yum beer]

I support the smale scale brewery idea, ie braumeister or even a small pilot system.
200 kegs is a lot of capital tied up. Smaller batches allow scope for easier improving/tweaking of brews and more variety.
Certainly agree that being able to say that your product is brewed on site is a major selling point in today's market, given sustainablity and footprints and such bullshit.
Maybe grab a few recipes and throw them together on a small rig and play until you get the one your happy with then step up the scale a bit.

 

[Lodan]

Perhaps consider smaller scale batches to make for your own bars. Get the recipe(s) out there with a catchy name to test the water first

 

[DeGarre]

To brew a decent brown ale: tweak your bitter recipe by adding chocolate and black malt to adjust the colour, then drop your ibus slightly and go easy on the late hop additions. Bob's your uncle.