Paradigm Shift

While the entire media is writing about the demise of the brewing industry, I think all that is required is a slight paradigm shift in your approach to opening up your brewery.

If your first goal is to brew beer, and everything else about your brewery is secondary, then there isn’t a lot that differentiates you from other entertainment venues. And really, a brewery is something people will go to for entertainment.

Rather instead, think of a cool concept that you and your friends would want to go to that also happens to make its own beer.

Let’s say you love airplanes. Wouldn’t it be super cool to go to a restaurant that’s in a Quonset Hut close to an airport, and inside is the fuselage of an old DC3, that is also the back-bar, but because it’s insulated so well, is also converted into a cooler housing serving tanks with tap lines going right out the side to the bar?

Inside the Quonset Hut, it’s dark with lots of twinkly lights and a jungle theme. The food is Mexican (great food cost) and the beers are mostly variations of Mexican Lagers with a few hop bombs thrown in for good measure. This would be a great money maker as your cost of sales for your beer is going to be about .08 on the dollar, and the cost of food about .19 on the dollar. A lot better than some fancy food and beer pairing venue. Plus a hell of a lot more fun for the whole family. Especially if you also made really cool sodas.

Or (as I’ve mentioned before) you find an old bowling alley for lease. Insert a brewery into that space. Now it’s a hip bowling alley, serving great burgers and salads and beer brewed right on premise.

That old movie theater downtown? Pull out every other row of seats and add tables. Then add your brewery set up, make pizzas, and show second run movies and art-house films.

Got some open land? Create a great dog park and then convert some containers into a bar and brewery so people can enjoy a beer while their dogs play.

In all of these examples, you are creating a place that people want to go, that also just happens to make its own beer. It’s a different way to look at the business. Your customers won’t think of you as just another brewery. They may be telling their friends about the cool Mexican restaurant with a plane parked inside.

Of course in all of this, you need to find a deal on the real estate. It can’t cost that much to build out, or have too high rent. For example a bowling alley or a movie theater already serves food, so may have some of the infrastructure you would need to add a brewery. That saves you a lot of money up front.

Now that Quonset Hut would cost quite a bit, and of course there is the plane too (There is a plane graveyard outside Tucson Arizona, where you can pick up a fuselage cheap - wouldn’t that make news bringing that baby in on a flat bed?) but man oh man, who wouldn’t flock to that space?

I would love to hear your out of the box ideas. Please share. We all need to expand our thinking if we are to get over the so-called brewery slump. Why not make this a time of opportunity?