Brewery Business Plan | PDF
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As the craft beer market has swelled in recent years, home brewers may want to capitalize on their passion by turning it into a business. Before you can get your brewery cranking out bold stouts and citrusy pale ales, you have to develop a detailed, informative business plan to let potential investors know that your brewery will be viable as a business.
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Research and Planning
To begin, you will need to do thorough research of your potential craft beer market. This will involve researching local craft brewers, regional brewers, national brewers, all of their customer demographics, and how they market their beers. This will help you learn more about your target customers, such as whether they prefer extra-hoppy IPAs, high-alcohol stouts, or even dark meads.
Next, consider what your core values are and your overall goals for your brewery. Do you want it to be more of a community brewery, or are you most concerned with offering unique beers that are not otherwise available locally? You could choose to offer a wide range of experimental beers on tap and even have a small restaurant attached, or you might find that offering only growlers and six packs best suits your market’s needs.
With all of this information, you can begin to describe your brewery in business terms. That is, you can state what’s missing from the local craft beer market, and how you plan to fill this void by targeting a segment of customers, and you will justify how you will do so by elaborating on your marketing research and your business goals. For example, you could use your branding to convey how your beer is based on old European recipes but with a modern touch, which might make your beer stand out from the crowd.
Financing and Operation
The financing section is critical, especially if you’re trying to obtain a loan. A lender will want to see that every expense and all revenue has been carefully and accurately planned for and justified. Lenders likely are not familiar with the craft brewing business, so it is even more important to carefully plan and justify all of your expected costs and revenue.
In addition to all of the brewing equipment you will have to account for, including brew stations, tanks, bottling supplies, and so forth, you will need to include costs of rent, overhead, payroll, storage, and perhaps distribution as well.
Then you have to project your monthly sales. Here, it can be helpful to go into detail using market information to justify why you think particular types of beer will sell at certain rates, based on previous consumption and demand. Going into great detail with all of your financial figures will make your business appear more viable to potential lenders.
Last, you have to address how the company will actually operate; that is, you should define employee roles, how many employees you need, the brewing schedule, and storage and transportation.
Once you’ve done lots of research and analysis of these key issues, you can organize everything into the following sections:
• Executive Summary
• Products and Services
• Business Operation
• Marketing Strategy
• Financing
• Professional Biography
• Appendix with licenses or permits
Sources
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