Man, that's about the best thing anyone has ever said to me. BTW, I read your posts on FB and I think we are twins when it comes to what we find funny! Way before breweries when I was a young restaurant manager I dreamed of opening a coffeehouse/news stand, like I saw in Santa Fe. They are still there. I did eventually open a coffee house, and my first book I ever wrote was on how to open one. That was 25 years ago, and though it still sells, I think it's out of date. I think coffee is the way to go, just keep it small with no debt and a great oyster. You are very smart with your money. Those dollar bills work 24/7 and you never have to hire or fire an employee. Yes sir, very smart.
glad to see I'm not the only senior brewer. As you put your system together make getting a proper jacketed fermenter your number one purchase. If I can help with suggestion let me know.
Thank you for this article. My “delayed gratification” story:
I got into homebrewing while in college back around 2005. Only a few batches in I thought about one day having my own brewery. 2005-2012 I was home brewing almost every weekend, reading every single book and watching every single video on YouTube related to brewing beer while working in the corporate world after college. Late 2012 while scrolling on Probrewer I come across a post you made about a book you just wrote called “Brewery Operations Manual”. I immediately purchased your book and read it at least 3 times in the first week! I was absolutely blown away by it and how my dream could actually be achieved. Prior to reading your book I was convinced that the only way to start a brewery was needing $2+ million dollars and a high tech name brand 20bbl brew system. My wife and I are “savers” and we had our financial advisor set up a mutual fund with a few thousand dollars we were able to spare to start saving towards opening a brewery like Colorado Boy. Our goal was to keep saving and putting cash in this mutual fund we all called “The Brewery Fund”. Our target amount was to achieve $100k cash. Well, life happened: our daughter was born, we moved and both my wife and I had to do career changes. I kept homebrewing and we kept saving into “The Brewery Fund”. Through delayed gratification, consistent saving and the power of compound interest in late 2019 we had achieved almost double our original $100k target. It was “go time” to start the brewery, finally! I went to go see my first commercial property in late December 2019. I was on cloud 9, so excited that it was going to be a reality of starting my brewery. Well, COVID hits the world in a few weeks and everything shuts down. This leads to about a 1-2 year pause of pursuing opening a brewery but we still kept saving into the “brewery fund” even though we had surpassed the original goal. Covid finally calms down but unfortunately the cost of commercial real estate in my area to purchase or lease insanely skyrocketed out of my reach after Covid. We however still kept saving into that “brewery” mutual fund. Fast forward to today and that mutual fund has ballooned nicely over time with compound interest and it has been making the same, if not more, than I expected to earn from running my brewery. Also sadly I now find I really can’t drink beer without feeling kind of yucky the next day (oh the joys of growing older). I wanted to write all of this out because I wanted to share how much our life benefited financially all because I saw your 2012 Probrewer post advertising your Brewery Operations Manual. While I don’t see opening a brewery in my future anymore our financial advisor likes to say “Your brewery had a very profitable year!” when he shows us just how much money that “brewery” mutual fund we started back in 2012 makes each year. My wife and I still practice delayed gratification with this “brewery fund” and do not take a salary from it. We roll over all the annual profit from it back into it and let compounded interest work it’s magic for us. Thank you Tom for all that you do. Online I have followed Colorado Boy, all the breweries that you have helped open and I own every single book you have written regarding brewing and running a business. You have not only made a postive impact in our lives but you have done the same to so many other people. Thank you sir! On a side note, I have gotten into coffee roasting and dream of one day opening a coffee roastery that also serves fresh made beignets (I’m originally from New Orleans). Maybe one day!
Im a Bicentennial graduate as well. I brewed pro for a year for a brewpub that went belly up. Ive been homebrewing for 36 years. And now the opportunity to brew pro has come again. This time its a labor of love. Im adding beer to an existing meadery's product line. No brand new stainless steel 10 barrel system. It's cobbled up from homemade equipment, plastic bag lined fermenters and experience. Just 2.5 barrels. And I'm trying to not sink money into it. Pay as we go. Looking for deals wherever. Its so tempting to buy a complete used small system. But after 2 months and 3 batches in, we dont have any real sales history yet. Wait and see how it pans out.
Man, that's about the best thing anyone has ever said to me. BTW, I read your posts on FB and I think we are twins when it comes to what we find funny! Way before breweries when I was a young restaurant manager I dreamed of opening a coffeehouse/news stand, like I saw in Santa Fe. They are still there. I did eventually open a coffee house, and my first book I ever wrote was on how to open one. That was 25 years ago, and though it still sells, I think it's out of date. I think coffee is the way to go, just keep it small with no debt and a great oyster. You are very smart with your money. Those dollar bills work 24/7 and you never have to hire or fire an employee. Yes sir, very smart.
glad to see I'm not the only senior brewer. As you put your system together make getting a proper jacketed fermenter your number one purchase. If I can help with suggestion let me know.
Thank you for this article. My “delayed gratification” story:
I got into homebrewing while in college back around 2005. Only a few batches in I thought about one day having my own brewery. 2005-2012 I was home brewing almost every weekend, reading every single book and watching every single video on YouTube related to brewing beer while working in the corporate world after college. Late 2012 while scrolling on Probrewer I come across a post you made about a book you just wrote called “Brewery Operations Manual”. I immediately purchased your book and read it at least 3 times in the first week! I was absolutely blown away by it and how my dream could actually be achieved. Prior to reading your book I was convinced that the only way to start a brewery was needing $2+ million dollars and a high tech name brand 20bbl brew system. My wife and I are “savers” and we had our financial advisor set up a mutual fund with a few thousand dollars we were able to spare to start saving towards opening a brewery like Colorado Boy. Our goal was to keep saving and putting cash in this mutual fund we all called “The Brewery Fund”. Our target amount was to achieve $100k cash. Well, life happened: our daughter was born, we moved and both my wife and I had to do career changes. I kept homebrewing and we kept saving into “The Brewery Fund”. Through delayed gratification, consistent saving and the power of compound interest in late 2019 we had achieved almost double our original $100k target. It was “go time” to start the brewery, finally! I went to go see my first commercial property in late December 2019. I was on cloud 9, so excited that it was going to be a reality of starting my brewery. Well, COVID hits the world in a few weeks and everything shuts down. This leads to about a 1-2 year pause of pursuing opening a brewery but we still kept saving into the “brewery fund” even though we had surpassed the original goal. Covid finally calms down but unfortunately the cost of commercial real estate in my area to purchase or lease insanely skyrocketed out of my reach after Covid. We however still kept saving into that “brewery” mutual fund. Fast forward to today and that mutual fund has ballooned nicely over time with compound interest and it has been making the same, if not more, than I expected to earn from running my brewery. Also sadly I now find I really can’t drink beer without feeling kind of yucky the next day (oh the joys of growing older). I wanted to write all of this out because I wanted to share how much our life benefited financially all because I saw your 2012 Probrewer post advertising your Brewery Operations Manual. While I don’t see opening a brewery in my future anymore our financial advisor likes to say “Your brewery had a very profitable year!” when he shows us just how much money that “brewery” mutual fund we started back in 2012 makes each year. My wife and I still practice delayed gratification with this “brewery fund” and do not take a salary from it. We roll over all the annual profit from it back into it and let compounded interest work it’s magic for us. Thank you Tom for all that you do. Online I have followed Colorado Boy, all the breweries that you have helped open and I own every single book you have written regarding brewing and running a business. You have not only made a postive impact in our lives but you have done the same to so many other people. Thank you sir! On a side note, I have gotten into coffee roasting and dream of one day opening a coffee roastery that also serves fresh made beignets (I’m originally from New Orleans). Maybe one day!
Thank you again 😊
Im a Bicentennial graduate as well. I brewed pro for a year for a brewpub that went belly up. Ive been homebrewing for 36 years. And now the opportunity to brew pro has come again. This time its a labor of love. Im adding beer to an existing meadery's product line. No brand new stainless steel 10 barrel system. It's cobbled up from homemade equipment, plastic bag lined fermenters and experience. Just 2.5 barrels. And I'm trying to not sink money into it. Pay as we go. Looking for deals wherever. Its so tempting to buy a complete used small system. But after 2 months and 3 batches in, we dont have any real sales history yet. Wait and see how it pans out.