Brewery start-up costs

[KarrHeel03]

Anyone have good a good source or first hand knowledge of the financials of starting a brewery?  Specifically, what amount of capital would be needed to start a warehouse based, small batch brewery?  What kind of a monthly operating budget would one expect?

Thanks!

[hopalong]

No idea.  You might need to drop in on some local brewers and see what they have to say, assuming they're willing to share that sort of info.  Might want to offer to buy a nice lunch or dinner...

Have you tried doing a web search?

[ncbeerbrewer]

Anyone have good a good source or first hand knowledge of the financials of starting a brewery?  Specifically, what amount of capital would be needed to start a warehouse based, small batch brewery?  What kind of a monthly operating budget would one expect?

Thanks!

KarrHeel,
The answer to your question really depends on a lot of factors that yourself as an owner and brewery starter need to decide.  If you wanna start a 2 or 3BBL brewery that will be a lot cheaper to get set up than say 10 or 15BBL. Just based on equipment alone.  The costs involved are going to be based on what size and type of brewery you wanna start.  I am figuring you wanna start a production brewery and not a brewpub which is really a restaurant with a brewery (much more startup $$$ needed.)  The long and the short is that basically the more capital you can attain/provide or gather the better your chances for successes.  There is no set definition on how much $$$ you need.  I understand some local breweries started on 100 Grand and some on as much as 1 Million dollars.  Lots of factors and decisions.  If you can't cover all the aspects of a brewery and business brewing/sales/marketing/fianancials I would say go out and look for others that can reasonably dictate those aspects and your success could easily improve and go well. 
I am one year into starting BillyGoat Brewing Company here in the area www.billygoatbrewingco.com    Check us out we will be opening around summer/fall of this year.  I will be brewing and my partners the rest of the business puzzle.  If you want more direction let me know.  I would be happy to help.

Cheers,
Mike Sulyi
https://www.facebook.com/pages/BillyGoat-Brewing-Co/144637455579077?ref=ts

[dmwcpa]

^ Have you decided on a location?

[ncbeerbrewer]

^ Have you decided on a location?

We have our sights set on a good location in Holly Springs.  We should be finalizing that pretty soon too.  Thanks for asking!

[hopalong]

Wow, breweries per capita in Holly Springs will be astonomical! 

[KarrHeel03]

Mike: Thanks for the thoughtful response and all the best of luck with BillyGoat.  We're still obviously in the fact-finding stage at this point, but it's something I'd love to do eventually... as I'm sure many of us that frequent this site would.  Kudos to you for making it happen.

Since you said you've been at it for a year already, do you still work part- or full-time at your "day job" or is that something you've had to let go to get BillyGoat up and running?  If so, at what point did you make that call?

I'm going to try to get out to the Grand Opening of the Beer Dispensary tomorrow while you guys are there.  Hopefully, I'll get a chance to introduce myself in person.

Cheers,
T.J.

[dmwcpa]

There are many here in Wendell including the Mayor who would really appreciate a brewery / pub close by.

We are thirsty for a place that is not 20 miles away.