Job offer at a brewery

Sorry this is lengthy… I’m looking for advice.

I’m a 28 year old beer lover that has been a home brewer for about 5-6 years now. I’d say I’ve brewed about every 1-2 months sense I’ve started and I started AG brewing about a year ago. Recently I passed the Beer Server Cicerone program and am currently working on the Certified Cicerone. (just for personal growth)

Long story short. I have some long term friends that have decided to open a restaurant/brew pub and they asked me to be the brewer…In no way do I consider myself a professional brewer. I know I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the experience and knowledge that most of you have. I’m assuming this is a dream that every home brewer has. With them being the money (lots of money) and me the brewer… Am I crazy to say yes?

Yes but crazy isn’t always a bad. Start looking at online brewing classes. siebel offers online classes you can learn a lot in the time it takes to get the pub open. Either way good luck.

You will get plenty of honest advice over at probrewer.com. I believe its a free forum, and there are lots of great guys/gals on there. Most of them have had plenty of wide-eyed hopefuls roll through their brewery when they are knee-deep in spent grains and at the tail end of a 15-hour shift.

Also, Brew Strong on the Brewing Network has some great shows on going pro. Jamil Zainesheff won exactly 1 million homebrewing awards (including multiple Ninkasis) and founded Heretic Brewing. He also has some very unbiased, unfiltered advice. Definitely worth a listen.

If you’re single/no kids, don’t have a ton of loans, believe in these friends as businesspeople, then its worth a real hard look. You need to really look at their ability as businesspeople, and whether you would want to work with them everyday (and it sounds like a lot of nights). More importantly, forget about beer being their passion and all that bull$#@. Can they (and you) make this work is the question. I would take their business plan (hopefully they have a business plan and financial projections) and show it to someone you trust in banking or finance, and maybe get their opinion (and confidentiality) as well. It sounds like these guys have some capital behind them, and if its their personal bank accounts, or the First Bank of Mom and Dad/Grandpa, they will still need to be committed to making it work, and smart enough to make it work. For it to…well, work. Speaking of work, there will be an s-load of that. But most people who took the leap don’t regret it.

Best of luck. Please let us know how you proceed!

Sounds like these guys want to open a resteraunt and have an attached brewery as novelty. If so and it’s a small setup and you are just going to brew small batches to serve at the resteraunt go for it. Start small and you can get your feet wet pun intended . They can buy you a sweet setup. If they want to open a big full blown brewery and they are asking a home brewer to run it I would question their plan. Not sure why you would take advise other than home brewing advice from us though.

In addition to the above, see if any breweries/brewpubs around you would allow you to assist while the brew so you can learn the ropes of the equipment. Personally I don’t know you need a top notch brewing education to go “pro”. You know the basics about mashing, sparging, and boiling. If it gets big time then yes, you will prob need more education, but you can do that on the fly and as you go.

Also personally, and I don’t mean this to be rude or a di*k, but take the chance on someone else’s dime, rather than your money. Whatever you decide, good luck!

I poked around on probrewer last night after reading this. I would HIGHLY encourage you to check out that forum. There was one particular post I was reading about a homebrewer wanting to ‘pursue his passion’ and who ‘didn’t care about profit’, and the pragmatic advice that followed from pro brewers/owners/entrepreneurs was right on. You could tell the OP didn’t want to hear it though!

As above, I would also have my spidey sense go off when these guys want a homebrewer to be at the helm of a commercial system with no training (no offense to you hopefully). Then again, maybe they know you are a smart guy and can figure it out, and they are comfortable with you as a business partner. It does sound like you have some good chops and understand the process, and you are committed enough to get your cicerone. Sensory analysis is essential for quality control.

EDIT: hit up Scoggin on here via PM. He works at a brewpub in Oregon I believe, and made the leap from homebrewing IIRC.

I’m not a commercial brewer, and some may even doubt my qualifications as an ameteur brewer, but I would think there’s a bit of commercial regulations that need to be studied before officially going pro. I know in the kitchens there are codes about storage temps, how long prepped items can sit before use, bla, bla, bla. I’m sure there are regs and inspections for the brewery too.

Good luck! It’s quite an opportunity to be considering.

[quote=“Jordan3394”]Sorry this is lengthy… I’m looking for advice.

I’m a 28 year old beer lover that has been a home brewer for about 5-6 years now. I’d say I’ve brewed about every 1-2 months sense I’ve started and I started AG brewing about a year ago. Recently I passed the Beer Server Cicerone program and am currently working on the Certified Cicerone. (just for personal growth)

Long story short. I have some long term friends that have decided to open a restaurant/brew pub and they asked me to be the brewer…In no way do I consider myself a professional brewer. I know I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the experience and knowledge that most of you have. I’m assuming this is a dream that every home brewer has. With them being the money (lots of money) and me the brewer… Am I crazy to say yes?[/quote]

What size brewery are we talking about? Some nanos are barely larger than a typical home brew set up and probably wouldn’t be that big a switch to a good home brewer.

Turns out we’re looking at a 15 bbl system. We have a local fabrication company that builds these systems and they are will to arrange meetings with prior customers to help me learn on their system. Slate Creek Brewing being one of breweries willing to help me out.

Thank you for some of your suggestions and advice. I have been on ProBrewer for the last few evenings and there is SOO much information there. I will be spending a lot of time on that site.

It would be sad to leave the company I have been working at for the last 9 years. But If the brewery were to not work out I’m sure I wouldn’t have any issues either going back or finding another job. And sense this is on someone elses dime, I think I’m going to take that chance. They’re wanting to open the doors in mid 2016 so I have some time. Just means I have a lot of studying to do.

Good luck.

You have plenty of time to learn! Remember nothing ventured nothing gained. Good luck!