Counting the Costs: What You Need to Know Before Launching Your Brewery

The past decade has been significant for the world of craft beer. With four ingredients — water, malt, hops, and yeast — and a trip to your local beer equipment store, almost anyone can start brewing their beer. Brewery hopping and craft beer trading have become a hobby, drawing legions of beer connoisseurs to breweries around the world to sample exclusive batches.

As long as they keep brewing beer, people will continue to flock to breweries to share drinks with their friends and family. For budding brewers, that means now is a great time to start laying the groundwork for opening their brewery. Here’s how much it will cost to realize your brewery dreams, and the business planning skills you’ll need to attract a thirsty crowd.

average cost of opening a brewery

Likewise, the cost of opening a brewery will vary depending on the above factors, but there is one major difference – it also includes all the brewery equipment needed to make, mash, boil, ferment and package beer. Even a microbrewery or small business needs at least $250,000 to open. For larger breweries offering more craft beer, start-up costs can run as high as $2 million. On average, it costs between $500,000 and $1.5 million to start a brewery.

brewery opening costs

Due to the oversized nature of brewery equipment, you’ll need to find a space large enough to run your brewery – especially if you decide to open a bar so customers can enjoy your beers on-site.

Whether you’re building from the ground up, converting a different type of restaurant or retail space into a brewery, or renting out a vacant old brewery, you can expect to be in the $10-$30 per square foot range. As a final step, use a restaurant opening calculator to more estimate all the costs you will encounter, and all the different factors your business will incorporate.

Estimating the cost of brewery equipemnt？

Breweries can vary enormously in size, from the smallest microbrewery to the largest multinational brewing corporation. The diversity of processes is likewise diverse, being largely dependent on the type of beer produced and the degree of automation desired.
For example, a larger brewery is more likely to be composed of distinct sections such that each is dedicated to a specific phase of the brewing process.
At the other extreme, a microbrewery is more likely to consist of a single room, where the entire brewing process is performed.

beer equipment

Equipment is usually the largest cost you will encounter when opening a brewery. Small-capacity brewing equipment (1 barrel, which produces 320 barrels of 12-ounce beer) can often be purchased new or used for $100,000 or less. But, you can expect to pay up to $1 million for a larger 30-barrel brewing system that can produce 9,600 12-ounce bottles.

Whether you buy new or used, typical equipment needed to start brewing your beer includes:

Fermentation tanks, boiling equipment, and brewing kettles
Test strips, meters, pots, and part scales
walk-in refrigerator for keg storage
Bottling and packaging tools, including growers and beverage shippers
Bulking, dispensing, and serving equipment
Safety Devices and Equipment

If you are starting a microbrewery now with plans to expand in the next few years, micet craft can help. And we will develop perfect beer equipment solutions and professional technical support for you.

Marketing, Branding and PR

U.S. brewers spend about $1.6 billion a year on advertising. Best of all, only the top five brewing companies are spending 93 cents of every dollar of that $1.6 billion.

With the beer world getting more crowded every year, new and emerging breweries need to rank marketing and branding strategies to stand out in a crowded field of breweries.

Here are some brewery marketing tips:

Develop a clear brand identity that is unique and exciting
Create original branded items such as keychains
Run engaging social media marketing campaigns
Invest in marketing strategies such as paid digital advertising, creating a website, and email marketing
Partner with local businesses

professional service

Opening your brewery is a lot of work. Also to overseeing the brewing and packaging of beer, you’ll also need to market your brewery, apply for permits and licenses, hire staff, and make sure you’re operating within local and state brewery regulations at all times.
To help handle all these tasks at the same time, many brewery owners choose to outsource the responsibility to third-party F&B experts such as accountants, lawyers, marketing specialists, and brewery consultants.

If you are considering starting from scratch, renting a location, doing the build out and properly outfitting it, be prepared for a long process, if not in actual time, but complexity.

Get a turnkey brewery

If you are in earnest about starting your own brewing operation, please contact us. We have the skills to get you set up right. MICET CRAFT provides you with professional technical services and customized solutions. Check the Professional Brewing Consulting Services we offer.

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