Brewery Size

What size brewery should you get?  There are a LOT of factors to consider.

What kind of brewery do you intend on opening? Production to retailers, taproom, brewpub...
How much volume do you need to produce?
What KIND of beer... do you intend on doing "strange" beers?  Lagers?
How much space do you have for your brewhouse?

We struggled with this question.  It's a big deal.  I mean-

• You don't want to undersize and run out of beer

• You don't want to oversize and spend too much money up front

• Is there room for the brewery of "X" size in your space?

• What kind/size fermenters are you using? (this affects a lot of things)

• What systems are available to you?

• How much money can you spend comfortably?

• Is the brewery a "showpiece" or is a down-and-dirty setup OK?

The best idea is to start from- how much do you plan on producing in a year?  This can be figured from the number of seats in your restaurant, or in the case of a production brewery, how many accounts you think you will have and how many kegs you think each one will sell.

In our case, we had thoughts of a 2 bbl, a 3 bbl, a 3.5 bbl, and a 7 bbl. 

The 7 bbl came into play for only a short (though critical) time because we got word that a local brewery was going to expand and would possibly have a 7 bbl available for sale.  Unfortunately, this didn't fit our timeline as they were buying a 15 from someone who was having a 30 built... with the delay between each brewer installing and then decommissioning their brewery, then shipping it, etc etc etc... it just didn't work.  Personally, I thought that was too big for us anyways.

The 2 bbl is the closest to a homebrew system.  The grain bills are relatively small, initial cost is the least.  There are "off the shelf" systems ready to ship.  Sabco makes a 2 bbl system.  I mean, it doesn't get more "homebrew" than that.

We went with a 3 bbl system.  It produces enough to take care of the pub, plus a few extra kegs for promos or select accounts.  It is a small enough system that "crazy" beers aren't using incredible resources and can rotate.  The brewpub is not going to have the "standard 5" taps.  Though we may do a pale ale, an IPA, a hef, a stout, and an amber... there isn't an expectation that any of these will be on "all the time".  IF we have a beer which guests want in regular rotation, then yes- we can do that.  The expectation is that there will be a constant stream of different beers available.  A 3 bbl allows this to happen.  I mean, with the constant push to innovate, 3 bbl is a good number to add strange ingredients- it's quite flexible.

A 3 bbl system can produce, with our fermentation space, considering every brew goes perfectly and we do no lagers, 675 bbl per year.  This is every fermenter full, every day of the year.  14 day brew cycles gives 25 cycles per fermenter per year.  3, 6 bbl fermenters, and 3, 3 bbl fermenters.  That's 9 brews every 2 weeks.  SO- don't really expect THAT to be the case. I will still have to clean the fermenters, keg the beer, and perform standard maintenance. BUT- if need be, the max amount we could do is 675 bbl.  That's a LOT of beer for a brewpub with 20 additional guest handles on.

The space is a bit limited in the area we have available.  It's beautiful- like a huge courtyard.  The brewing space, however, is in a 9' x 22' room.  The fermentation room is 9' x 11' and the grain mill room is 9' x 11'.  SO- we've got some storage issues, and we are going to have to build an additional area for keg cleaning and storage.  We're also building a 22' x 12' walk in cooler for keg storage since we are serving out of kegs and not "serving vessels", due to space limitations in the Keg cooler for the pub. The brewhouse will fit in the brew room comfortably.  The fermentation area will be tight. 

This is how we ended up with a 3 bbl system.

NOW- what is it you ask?  It's a BrewMation electric rig with LOTS of gizmos. Pretty "Cadillac" for a first time pro brewer, to be sure.

Some Press:
Mouth by Southwest Article