Was starting a brewery in a global pandemic a good idea? I’ll let you be the judge of that. Here’s how it happened. Five years ago I took a home brewing course at a local brewery in London. Soon after I moved to Ireland with the aim of starting my own business. It took four years of planning and knock backs to get to the point of launching my first beer. It was an exciting and at times frustrating journey, but I got there eventually.
Starting out
My initial idea was geared towards starting a brewery. However, with little experience in the industry I decided to start an off licence to familiarise myself with the product. Unfortunately the cost of a physical shop meant it was not a viable option. Therefore, I looked at going online. However, after months of research I was told that the cost of an off licence was almost as much as the outlay for a small brewery, so as a result I was back at the beginning.
Then I decided I would home brew on a small scale and sell it, but I would need a beer manufacturing licence. Renting a premises was unsustainable because I was starting from nothing, so I considered a number of more economical options. For example sharing an existing premises and renting a self storage unit. However, this gave way to more unforeseen issues like obtaining approvals for health and safety and fire regulations. Therefore achieving a beer manufacturing licence was even more unlikely. At one stage I even submitted a planning application to the local council for brewing for sale in my shed, but of course it was rejected. To put it into context, reaching this point took three and a half years.
Contract brewing
Years before this my wife had bought me a box of beer from a consortium of home brewers in Scotland. They had produced a range of quality beers through contract brewing at a local brewery. I wanted to brew the beer myself so I had been reluctant to pursue contract brewing. With every other avenue closed off it now seemed like a great option. I approached a local brewery who were incredibly supportive. All I had to do was give them a recipe and a label design and a month later I’d have my beer.
Despite it being a crowded market I felt there had to be room for another. After all, the craft beer drinker is always seeking something new. With a business plan in hand I went to the local authority and secured a grant based on producing one batch of beer. I wanted to produce a quality pale ale that would be full of flavour and promote local. By doing this I believed that there was a better chance of my beer being stocked in local places. Once it was selling I could go further afield.
By the end of 2019 I had a recipe ready to go and the label design was underway. A fantastic local illustrator was working on the design with the only stipulation being that the logo had to be the main focus. A few weeks later with the label complete and sent to the brewery, the beer production started. By mid February I had the finished product. Coincidentally it also happened to be on the cusp of the pandemic.
Pandemic
Like everybody else I had no idea of the level of disruption that was to come with the pandemic and how restricting lockdown was going to be. There was a slight panic when the restaurant and bar market suddenly became unattainable but the off licence trade was still operational. Within the first month I managed to sell to a handful of local places who were very supportive of a new local business.
There was a lot of stock to sell and a limited time to do it in because of the sell by date. I started cold calling off licences in Dublin to see if there was any interest, which there was. On each trip I would see where else I could call into on the way to maximise the journey. At the beginning I would drive through the countryside stopping off at as many places as possible along the way and then drive back home in the middle of the night. Every sale was a big deal even if it was just one case.
Stockists
The key was not to be left with stock. I soon realised the best opportunity was the shops that also had an online presence. They tended to make bigger orders and could post nationally. At that time I was getting requests from people asking where they could buy the beer. By being online I could meet demand straight away.
As each month went by I managed to gradually increase the increase the number of stockists. After ten months it was in twenty two shops in seven towns and cities across the country. What was even more encouraging was that All Hail was receiving repeat orders, so it wasn’t all luck!
Highlights
There were lots of highlights over the past year. It was always amazing to read great reviews and to see my beer pop up on people’s Instagram accounts. I also wasn’t expecting to meet so many people that really wanted to help, either by taking a chance on a new product or actually helping me to succeed. Starting a brewery was hard work and frustrating at times, but my goal was to produce my own beer and I did it.
What’s next?
So here I am a year later planning what to do next. I feel like I was quite fortunate to get to this point and sell all my stock. As a new small scale brewing business the success of the first batch was critical to the possibility of doing a second. Thankfully the first batch has gone better than I had expected.
In the next few weeks I’ll be trying out some home brewing recipes to see what batch number two is going to be. So make sure you check back for that. If you liked this blog entry about starting a brewery and you want to ask me anything just get in touch on [email protected].
