Pop up Brewery

[mudd]

Hi all, something I've been thinking about is whether it is possible to set up a brewery to make a single batch of beer and turn a profit.
Bear with me on this, my intent is this is a bit of a social experiment - partly because I think there are way too many hoops to jump through and up front costs for commercial brewing. And let's face it half of us here want to go pro.

So these are the parameters;
1. Must be a new commercial brewery (contract brewing and the like are out, as is leasing or borrowing an existing commercial brewery).
2. Must turn a profit of at least AU$1 on the first batch. This is to be declared on income tax return.
3. Must provide commercial sale of alcoholic beer of at least 330ml (no maximum size). To be of commercial quality.
4. Must be completely above board and all licences/excises etc paid
5. Must be allgrain brewed.
6. Can use existing arsenal of equipment and can use donated or borrowed equipment/location etc only if it is what would normally be available to a humble homebrewer. ie borrowing a ute is OK, someone donating use of a crane would be out.
7. Trading for beer is OK to get the project up and running.
8. Sweat equity is OK (ie I or anyone else who gets on board can work without being paid)
9. Doesn't need to be an ongoing concern.
10. Can't break the bank ie I'm not mortgaging the house on this one.

?
Cheers Mudd

BTW I know I'm dreaming.

 

[Yob]

Start with the council you want to operate in and find out their requirements..

Then go to the ATO and sort them out...

 

[mudd]

Changing a few laws if necessary may or may not be in the scope.

 

[MastersBrewery]

Start with the council you want to operate in and find out their requirements..

Then go to the ATO and sort them out...

How would you go if the entire rig was mobile? Like one of those mobile food vans, except maybe a 10 ton truck. One of those 3bbl psycho breweries would fit easy with enough space for fermentors and maybe even a bright. Great for swap days too!

 

[Yob]

I expect it would be complex and involve the state government..

 

[Feldon]

These sort of questions about going pro pop up quite often, and I've pondered a work-around that might make it possible, and legal.

The main thrust of the law is that if you make beer for sale you come under the federal excise laws, as well as local and state laws and regs concerning effluent discharge, health & safety etc. But the biggie is the federal excise law that is administered by the ATO.

So, instead of selling beer, why not sell wort instead as well as your services as a brewer to make it into beer.

It would work something like this: Get your beer drinking customers to pay up front for the ingredients, power, water etc - all the things needed to make the wort - and a fee for your skills in mashing and boiling it to produce the wort. There's nothing illegal about making wort for a fee. Because its not beer, yet.

I'd ask one or more of my customers to be physically present to pitch the yeast. This is the point in the process when you are turning wort into beer, and you want to make sure its not you that is making the beer. If asked by the ATO what you're up to, you can honestly say "I'm didn't make the beer my customers did. I just made the wort and supervised their fermentation as a contracted brewery hand".

When the beers ready to drink your customers can come to you (or you to them) for their share of the beer according to their investment in the operation.

I think this approach just might work.

Flame away.

 

[northernbrewer]

The approach suggested by Felton sounds very similar to the one that a certain franchise followed in WA (All be it in a smaller scale).

So these are the parameters;
1. Must be a new commercial brewery (contract brewing and the like are out, as is leasing or borrowing an existing commercial brewery).
Lease a building already set up? Such as a commercial kitchen or juice/wine manufacturing place. Would greatly lower council hurtles. Many of these places would also be able to offer temp controlled fridges and decent power supplies.
2. Must turn a profit of at least AU$1 on the first batch. This is to be declared on income tax return.
3. Must provide commercial sale of alcoholic beer of at least 330ml (no maximum size). To be of commercial quality.
Why not just fill personal growlers and kegs? Or buy growlers to sell your beer in and charge for the cost of the growler too?
4. Must be completely above board and all licences/excises etc paid
Probably the hardest part of the exercise, between local, state and federal setting up wouldn't be cheap. Don't know a lot about this part myself
5. Must be allgrain brewed.

6. Can use existing arsenal of equipment and can use donated or borrowed equipment/location etc only if it is what would normally be available to a humble homebrewer. ie borrowing a ute is OK, someone donating use of a crane would be out.

7. Trading for beer is OK to get the project up and running.
Maybe trade for space at aforementioned places. Or get initial investments for promise of beer (Kickstarter style)
8. Sweat equity is OK (ie I or anyone else who gets on board can work without being paid)
9. Doesn't need to be an ongoing concern.
Worst thing would be vessels (Maybe those wineries have vats they don't use all year?)
10. Can't break the bank ie I'm not mortgaging the house on this one.

Maybe, just maybe, selling it as a pledge system you could get away without a liquor license.... But you would need some fancy wording in it. Someway to separate the beer from the money, then you'd effectively be giving the beer away and hence no tax?

 

[mudd]

Needs to be selling beer not wort. There are plenty of HB shops already doing that.

If I only made 1 batch ever what would the cost be for item 4? Then I can work out what minimum batch size it would take to recover this cost.

 

[adryargument]

Excise rates.

Read this the other year, should still apply.
Not going to copy and paste as its not me that did all the legwork.

 

[mudd]

Excise rates.

Read this the other year, should still apply.
Not going to copy and paste as its not me that did all the legwork.

Interesting summary. ATO would list the current rates. What it doesn't say is you also need a producers licence, so not sure what that would set me back. From what I can understand the measurements required to meet ATO requirements (in order to calculate excise)are a little more exact than normally used to homebrew.
Hmmm if I was to produce beer less than 1.15% ABV I wouldn't need to collect excise. Perhaps wouldn't sell much either.

 

[adryargument]

Perhaps wouldn't sell much either.

:lol: