Are you considering opening a brewery as a retirement project (like us) or as an exciting business venture with several business partners that are ready to take the brewing industry by storm? Here at Hopshire we love this industry and want to do all we can to help it grow, especially in New York State. For this reason our owner and brewer Randy has been giving talks at various conferences since we have opened trying to help people like you get a jump start on their dream business. Some of these talks have valuable information beyond just the context in which they were given so we have posted the presentations here so that they are accessible to anyone with the gumption to download them.
This first presentation was given at the December 2012 annual meeting of the Northeast Hops Alliance (NEHA) and focuses on the lessons learned from the initial concept all the way to the final construction steps of the brewery including licensing, site choice and development, equipment install, ect.
NEHA 2012 – From Farm to Foam: Lessons Learned in Starting a Farm Brewery
This next presentation was given at the NEHA 2013 December meeting and focused on several different brewery business plan cases based on size, target audience and number of other factors which go into a developing brewery. It includes some basics such as cost per barrel metrics, net income and projected sales.
Hi, We are in Rhode Island and looking to start our own hops farm. We have 7 acres and are currently looking at a five year three acre plan. Any thoughts?????
Hello Michael,
Definitely getting into hops is a great way to get into the beer industry and a ton of places in the Northeast (outside of NY) are starting up farms and trying to get locally grown ingredients. I would say the most important aspects are to make sure you are getting healthy rhizomes for your starter plants and taking great care of them in the early season. One of the best resources available to you would be the Northeast Hops Alliance (NEHA) and you may even find a grower close to you that you can get additional information from. We will be documenting what goes into our field and how we care for the plants this season so stay tuned for more info from us as well.
Could you please explain where some of the numbers in the case study are coming from? I know this was a presentation so I probably missed something. For Case 1 of a 2bbl nano it says income is $6900 but going by the previous cart it looks like the max would be $1500/bbl so $3000. Also the cost says $7800 but the chart says $220/bbl so $440. Im sure Im missing something or not understanding.
Also thank you very much for posting these