Frankenbrew as Philosophy

There's More to Frankenbrew than brewing equipment

Coffee House in Lauterbrunen, Switzerland

First off, thanks to Scott Dufrechou for coming up with this newsletter topic!

When I built my first brewery in 1993 I wasn’t sure what to call the type of system I cobbled together out of dairy and old Grundy tanks. People would ask me where I got my equipment and I would just say “It’s a Frankenstein system”. When I decided to to make a video (VHS) on how to build these systems I changed the name to Frankenbrew, and that is how that started.

Basically I define Frankenbrew as something you come up with through your imagination that is not “store-bought”. But it’s more than just brewing equipment, it is anything in your brewery.

A quote I’ve repeated often from a book by Paul Hawking, called Growing a Business says - and I’m probably paraphrasing - “Money follows imagination, imagination doesn’t follow money”. What he means by this is when you start your first business, you most likely have zilch for money. So you wind up using your imagination in your designs and equipment purchases. In that way, you have incurred very little debt and with low overhead you are more profitable. Then you move on to your second location except this time you have loads of cash, so you hire designers, great architects, and buy are really nice copper brew system. Your sales are great, but low and behold, you are making less money than your first place because your overhead is much higher.

To Frankenbrew your brewery, (other than the actual equipment), it’s best to start with asking yourself this question; “What kind of brewery is this?” In other words, if I met you at a beer festival and you told me you just opened a brewery and I asked what kind of brewery, how could you answer me in a sentence or two? If you said, “It’s an airplane theme because I love to fly”, or, “It’s a German style Lagerhouse”.

With a clear idea of what your brewery is about you can chew on that thought and come up with decoration ideas that fit into your theme. I mention the airplane theme because we just had a student who is building his brewery around that idea. We had fun coming up with ideas around flying. Like an old airplane wing that becomes a bar top. Some of the doors could be could be the oval riveted doors as well. The ceiling fans are a no-brainer.

Repurposing things into new uses not only costs less but makes your atmosphere more fun. I was in a coffee house in Switzerland and their hanging lights over the tables were just glass jars with a yellow rubber ducky in them. Why? I have no idea but I still remember it, and they obviously didn’t spent very little on it.

This would make a statement

When we did our first pizzeria in Albuquerque, we wanted a large pole out front and found a light post that someone had hit. We got it for free, sanded it down, coated it and our large exclamation point made the front of the building pop!

IL Vicino

There is no end to how you can set up your taps and tap handles also, limited only by what you can dream up. Speaking of which, I saw a tap set up as a water feature. Cool.

When I travel, if I see a small idea that a restaurant has used, I take a picture of it and I’m not ashamed to say I will steal the idea, or at least modify it.

This just touches the surface. It would be fun if you sent in your ideas and pictures. I’ll publish them so we can all see what you come up with.

As I always ask, if you find this newsletter useful, please subscribe and pass it along.

Cheers,

Tom Hennessy