Two weeks in the life of our tiny little brewery. So, what do we know?

Time to get honest now folks! How many of you out there thought 'these guys will jack this in as soon as they realise how hard it is!'?

Holding down two full on full time jobs and raising a 6 year old and having 2 dogs should probably be plenty for us without throwing in a part time nano brewery into the mix too. We know that and we also know we must be nuts.

The problem we have though is we just can't sit still. We also had enough time to think about all that and enough time to back out of it before we took the plunge, so if we're feeling tired now we've really only got ourselves to blame. We're in this now and we've gotta suck it up and get on with it!

So how are things looking after two weeks in the life of our tiny little brewery?

Thankfully, as the below picture shows, we are still smiling! We can't deny it, the first couple of weeks have been pretty full on. It's been overwhelmingly busy at points and worryingly quiet at others. Weighing the first couple of weeks up as a whole though it's fair to say we're pretty happy with where we're at.

Oli's all smiles on brew day.

First and foremost we've got actual customers which, silly as it sounds, wasn't an absolute guarantee at the outset!

Not just that but those customers (most probably you if you're reading this!) have bought more than just a couple of beers! Our first weekend was so busy we worked out we'd be sold out of beer completely in four weekends if we carried on at that rate. That stock took us two months to build up!

Secondly we've actually had some really lovely feedback, not just about the beer but about the service and what we're trying to do. General 'you go guys' vibes all around from friends, family and total strangers too.

The strength of our start has given us confidence to kick on. Kick on planning rebrews and new brews, getting the beer store stocked with some ace guest beers to complement our own and think about what else we can do to sell some more beer.

Watch this space for market stalls, Christmas gift ideas and more! More of that to come in due course though. Anyway, so far so bloody positive right? We'd like to think so!

Orders orders and more orders.

Saying that we can't pretend that once the dust had settled on a busy first weekend things got pretty quiet. It didn't grind to a halt but nevertheless it was in stark contrast to our first few days. We guess there is a limit as to how many family, friends and locals you can sell beer to before you run out of options! Suddenly all that beer you were going to sell out of in a few weeks could be hanging around for a bit longer!

Maybe that's the point that many new 'lil business owners throw in the towel? Especially these online ones. We can't really blame them. You throw so much at it to get it going both mentally and financially that we guess most people just think it will fly from day one. Wrong! Once you get over the 'oh what's this shiny new thing? I'll have to give that a go' rush over your first few days the slog of winning new customers really begins and by jingo the expense and the fatigue does not go away. We suppose that's where we're at right now. So brewing the beer suddenly becomes the easy bit (it's NOT easy!) and actually selling the stuff? A whole new ball game mate. We must really really love this then if we're in no mood to stop just yet. Still working full time too? Yeah course we are.

Line 'em up! Lotsa Borderlines beers.

For us the run in from now until Christmas is going to be a really interesting time. It's busy with work, it's busy on the personal side of life and it should be one of the busiest times of year for the brewery. The problem we have though is we're trading as an online only business from home so we don't have that all important shop front, something that people pass everyday until eventually they dip their heads in. We're pretty confident in what we're doing but as we're primarily a locally focussed business trading only online staying in peoples minds when they are choosing those all important Christmas gifts and drinkies is going to be a real challenge.

Right now that challenge is really exciting though. It's all still really new and we're still full of motivation to plough on and make this daft little project the best it could possibly be. We really don't know what direction it's going to take. Perhaps our strategy will change, perhaps you will be able to buy our beers from actual shops, perhaps we will look at a physical presence somewhere locally, perhaps this whole thing will fall flat on it's arse quicker than is started. The not knowing is what makes it so much fun. For now we will keep brewing beer, keep shouting about it as loud as we can and keep giving all them lovely folk who buy the good stuff from us the best experience we can.

Then we'll see what happens and in January we will take stock and just see what crazy direction this is all headed next.

Oli & Azzie x