Building a Brewery - Part One - Checklist at the Ready!

So here we are in the first of our series of short articles ‘Checklist at the Ready!’

When trying to think about where to start these articles we though as good a place as any would be right at the start with our checklist. Yep, we started with a list. We love a good list see, it gives us focus on the task in hand and this was one BIG task.

So back in January 2023 once we’d decided this is what we wanted to do we got our heads together, grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge and put together a list. This was pretty tricky to be honest because though we had an idea of what we needed to do we didn’t know all the intricacies of each of the items. So, though we spent the evening thinking long and hard about what we needed to do we ended it with a brief list that pretty much looked like:

• Make some space in the garage

• Put some brewing kit in there

• Get some licences together

• Build a website

• Do a bit of social media

• Try and sell a can of beer

Now obviously we knew it would take a lot more than that to get going. Life is never quite that simple is it. We also knew that the list wasn’t nearly long enough. Was it a waste of time then? Well no absolutely not. It became the groundwork for what would eventually become ‘THE LIST’ and over the coming weeks and months the list steadily morphed into something that vaguely resembled this: 

• Clear a space in the (very full) garage for all this garage stuff

• To clear the space we need to create a space somewhere else for all this stuff in the garage

• Part board out the loft and chuck stuff up there? Seems as good a plan as any.

• Move all this garage stuff into the loft

• Plan the garage space

• Before we can plan garage space we need to know what brewing kit we’re getting

• Shop around for brewing kit

• WOW brewing kit is expensive!

• DOUBLE WOW – a chance listing on eBay selling loads of stuff we need within our silly little budget (yeah, it really happened!)

• Plan space based on eBay listing

• Go get eBay stuff  - we should wait but really this is too good not to buy now.

• Check planning and building regs

• Speak to council licensing dept

• Get a quote for electrical and plumbing work

• Get a cost list for all other items that you’re going to do yourself

• Order items required for building work your going to do yourself

• Attend personal licence course

• Do personal licence exam

• Apply for personal licence

• Apply for premises licence

• Apply for brewers licence

• Apply for AWRS to sell to B2B

• Start building work

• Confirm electricians and plumbers (the work we can afford anyway)

• Show electrician brewery control box bought off eBay

• Electrician scratches head at control box

• Decide to try figure out control box myself

• Stress out at control box

• Look at maybe just buying a new control box

• Quicky try to figure out control box again after seeing the price of a new one

• Jump for joy when get control box working myself

• See what electrical and plumbing work we can do ourselves (within regs!)

• Chase all licence applications

• Build ecommerce solution

• Once all electrical work completed put brewery space together and get everything in place

• DIY plumbing time

• Check for leaks

• Find leaks

• Fix leaks

• Order all the brewing bits you bloody forgot or didn’t realise you needed (that’s a lot of stuff that gets really expensive!)

• Connect everything up

• Clean absolutely everything

• Test

• Tweak

• Test again

• Tweak again

• Test – seems to be working fine.

• Chase licence applications AGAIN!

• Confirm all licences and permissions are in place

• Brew some beer up.

• Choose a launch date.

• There’s a lot to chew through there! Seriously, we knew our list would never stay static and we accepted that the further we went into the process the longer the list would get.

• I suppose though now having been through the process if we were to do the list again it would in short look at lot like this:

• Equipment planning – what do we need and how much will it cost

• Space planning – what space do we need and how much will it cost

• Works planning – what physical changes do we need to make to the space to make it work

• Bring in reinforcements – how much of the work can we do ourselves and what other support do we need from elsewhere – how much will that cost

• Legal requirements:

  • Company formation and costs

  • Bank accounts and costs

  • Licensing and costs

  • Planning permissions and costs

  • Training and qualifications and costs

• Timelines – how long will it take us to get up and running

• Financial planning – yeah - how much is this all going to cost and can we afford it

And from there the journey starts. But first you’ve got to make sure you’ve got the dosh to do it all, so next up in the series is ‘All About the Money, Money, Money’.