No more gray cubicles, and the ability to get paid to do something you love: make beer. Starting a brewery, however, can be a daunting task. Besides purchasing equipment and supplies, owners also have to navigate the myriad of legal issues in this heavily regulated industry. Without proper planning and advice, you may end up back at square one or worse: back in that gray cubicle.
Here are ten key steps to start your brewery business on a sound legal foundation:. Before any document is filed with a government office, you must determine if the desired name of your brewery is available. The easiest and cheapest way to clear your proposed name is to Google the proposed name. These databases are limited in scope and for additional expense you can perform a comprehensive search that will more conclusively show whether you can proceed with your selected brewery name and beer brands.
Use of a business entity serves two primary purposes: 1 your personal assets are shielded from the liabilities of your new venture; and 2 where you have multiple owners, clear and unambiguous agreements amongst the owners as to who owns what, what rights each of the owners have, and what happens if an owner wishes to leave, help minimize later disputes. Most business owners choose either the limited liability company and the Subchapter S corporation for their entity form.
Use of LLCs or corporations can be a valuable planning and asset protection tool for business owners, and most attorneys can form these entities at reasonable fees in a short period of time. A trademark is any individual or combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs that identifies or distinguishes the source of goods of one party from those of another. A service mark does for services what a trademark does for goods.
Trademarks protect the goodwill that owners create to identify goods and services, not the goods and services themselves. Trademarks can also exist indefinitely subject to ongoing use and renewal requirements. The process of registering a trademark or service mark begins by filing an application with the USPTO. The applicant has the opportunity to respond to any conflicts or problems noted in the office action within six months. Any party, who may contest the registration of the mark, must do so within 30 days of the publication date.
If no one contests the mark, then the USPTO will register the mark, typically 12 weeks following the publication date. Once you select a mark, the overall USPTO process from start to finish averages between 12 and 18 months. Careful trademark and service mark management can lead to a successful brand development and greatly increase the value of a company or product.
However, use and registration of trademarks and service marks can be a complicated and treacherous landscape. The knowledge of an experienced attorney can help navigate the terrain of trademark law, and lead to an outcome of branding success.
And, of course, your beer better be clean and delicious. Additionally, consistency and efficiency of product are major factors. If you make good and interesting beers they will come. Packaging beer with consistent quality is very difficult and requires extensive capital investment and lots of people running the machines as well as people to fix them when they break.
Distributing beer is harder yet again, whether you do it yourself or work with a distribution network. This makes for a very short learning curve. Either you come out of the gate making amazing beer, or be ready to dump it. I highly recommend hiring a professional brewer with at least years experience in a brewery. It is a labor-intensive, demanding, and stressful process, from lifting and moving pound kegs and pound sacks of malt, to cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning.
I remember exactly what I thought owning a brewery would be like before I worked in the brewing industry: I would make beer and people would buy it. Five years in, giving advice about opening a brewery makes me feel like King Bummer: A brewing company is as much a company as a brewery. If you're going to succeed, you need to treat it that way.
Learn about the local regulatory environment, learn about accounting and basic finance, learn about sales. As a co-owner of a startup brewery, I spend way more time working on regulatory compliance than I do making beer.
And sales work is endless and exhausting. Owning a brewery is more about running a business than brewing beer. Prospective brewery owners sometimes forget that beer is a heavily regulated industry. There are federal and state agencies that get all up in the business of any booze maker, and the wastewater treatment folks in your municipality will want to have more than a few words with you before you start operations.
There are far more agencies you will need to report to than you realize, and the first thing you should do when you decide to start a brewery is to contact all of them and ask if they have a punch list of compliance items for breweries. More likely than not, they don't, so don't be discouraged when they can't give you advice on getting your operation off the ground. In my experience, these regulators generally work for agencies that are underfunded, understaffed, and underappreciated, so building relationships is key.
The regulations that breweries have to comply with are not one-time hurdles to jump over; there's constant reporting and constant inspection. You're going to spend a lot of time on the phone with public servants and you'll be much happier if you have good relationships with them. Always ask how the person on the phone is doing today and actually listen to their answer; these small kindnesses will translate to helpful people who want to get you through the process as painlessly as possible.
People have told me my love of spreadsheets is freakish, so I'm not sure I can tell you with a straight face that accounting and finance are fun for everyone. But tracking the expenditures and income of our company and projecting those numbers out into the future is a large part of what I do, and fortunately, it turns out that I enjoy bookkeeping. I find it calming to know how we make money, where we spend money, and how we can save.
You'll need those spreadsheets; they're a powerful tool for remaining in control of your business there is no worse feeling than not knowing if you can afford anything , and if you want a bank loan or to bring on investors, they will want to see that you have a solid understanding of your business's financial operations. Some folks will try to hire their way out of the financial responsibilities of the company, but that seems like bad strategy to me.
Being intimately aware of the financial health of your company might not be glamorous, but it is as important as monitoring your fermentations or selecting hops. You should be excited to see your profit margins for different beers and to understand labor as a percentage of total cost. Knowing these things gives you the power to control them. Don't underestimate the significance of scarcity as a creative driver, either. You may find that there are things you do to impact the cost of your beer that improve the quality as well.
The best advice I can give you about financial planning is this: write a business plan and then double what you think it will cost, because it will cost you double what you think it will. If you're going to own a brewery, you'd better love selling beer. In my opinion, the reason to start a brewery is to share the beer you love with a larger group of people.
Otherwise, why not just make beer at home? If getting your beer in front of a lot of people doesn't excite you, sales will crush your soul into tiny pieces. Walking into a restaurant where you don't know anyone and explaining why they should carry your beer is an emotionally exhausting experience When they say no, it can really make it tough to do the same thing a dozen more times that day.
If you fail to do so, then the bond will be used to pay your taxes. You may also face interests, penalties — and even criminal prosecution. Many of the licenses and permits needed to operate a brewery require the same information, such as proof that you have secured funding and that you have a lease or a mortgage on the property that will be used for the brewery.
Because many of these applications require the same information, it makes sense to do them all together. Keep in mind that if you plan to open a brewpub, you may require additional licenses and permits. Brewing your beer on a commercial level can be incredibly expensive, from obtaining a space and equipment to paying lawyers and getting permits.
For a brewery, you will need to account for a range of costs. These include:. Brewpubs will require you to account for other expenses as well, such as kitchen appliances, plates, silverware, and table linens, and ingredients for your menu. Whatever type of brewery you decide to open, remember that your costs will likely be more than you anticipated.
Build in some extra cash into your budget to account for unexpected expenses. Once you have a good idea of what your startup costs will be, it is time to figure out a way to pay for everything. If you are lucky, you may be able to pay for a chunk of your initial budget using your own funds. Most people will need to take out a loan or raise money from family and friends in order to start their own brewery. Unlike mega beer corporations that sell their product across the world, craft or micro breweries are known for having personality.
When you think about the name of your brewery and your brand, consider what makes you unique. Branding can set you apart from the crowd — and even boost sales. You may already have a name in mind for your brewery. When you are branding, think about the other aspects — like a logo, label design, and even how you want your space to look. You might use your location, your favorite hobby, or even a clever pun to develop your brand.
0コメント