Capital Brewers potential co-location with TOG

[Shane Phelan]

Hi all,

Some of you may know already that TOG's (Capital brewers brewday HQ) landlord is not going to renew their lease so they have to find a new location in the next 8 weeks. There are several dozen city centre options that could cater for their requirements.

One of the members asked me what I thought of a potential co-location with TOG for capital brewers. What that would mean that there would be a dedicated brewing area for all the equipment, fermentation fridges, grain storage etc.. The size of this area would be proportional to the number of regular contributors. A contributor would get key access and be able to brew themselves any-time they wanted while brew-days would stay the same as usual where anyone can come along.

Several brewers have already kindly offered equipment which, up until now, there hasn't really been any room to store in TOG. In terms of fixed costs, TOG have to pay for electricity, gas and rent and a contributors' money goes towards paying those bills. To give an idea of costs, the costs of being a TOG member are between €20 and €45/month depending on your ability to pay. I have been a member for more than a year so that I can run the brewdays within the rules.  With a current membership count of 40+ and rent of around €1400/month you can see roughly where the cash goes.


Just wanted to get peoples thoughts as if there is enough interest I will put the time into setting all this up, if not I will leave things set up as they currently are.

[brian_c]

Sounds like something with potential, I'd be up for something like that. What would the story be, would a paying capital brewers member be equivalent to a tog member?

[molc]

It sounds like it's best to be full to members as well as capital for something like this. Could be a fun social way of handling brew days and pooling resources for equipment and supplies though, kinda like a cooperative brew community.
A big thing would be parking for transporting brews to and from the site for brew days.

[Shane Phelan]

Sounds like something with potential, I'd be up for something like that. What would the story be, would a paying capital brewers member be equivalent to a tog member?

Yeah I think the best thing would to be a full TOG member, it would give you better value then as you would have access to all the workshop equipment, welders, saws, laser cutter, 3D printer etc..

Parking is definitely going to be a plus, one of the requirements for the new space is a yard for parking and burning stuff/brewing. Its not guaranteed though...

[Vermelho]

It'd be great to have a dedicated brewspace, just for inspiration, I used to be a member of this club in Chicago:

https://www.chaosbrewclub.net/about/brewhouse

It was a very organised outfit with a lot of members but it also came from humble beginnings. It would be great to have something like this in Dublin and something that is not just open to Capital members, maybe it could be something run for all Dublin members but with it's location somewhere central for all? Would there be interest in that from North and South county brewers? Maybe that's something for a year or two down the road. They used to sub funding with parties at the brewhouse where friends and non-members would pay a small fee and get free beer and BBQ in return. It was great.

Anyway, back to the point, I'd be very interested in using a communal space with all amenities. I would also be willing to donate equipment. One thing that put me off TOG was the cost of membership at €45 per month, I think this is quite expensive and €20 being far more reasonable as a standard.

[brian_c]

OK, I think you can count me in on this. €45 a month does seem a little excessive, but €25ish is reasonable. Would there be an upper limit on members though?

[phoenix]

Id be keen to get involved too.

[cruiscinlan]

Was gonna say that parking at TOG was limited. It would be nice to have a place with lots of parking.

Only trouble with that is it'd likely mean it'd be on an industrial estate with limited public transport access.  If its within cycling distance once it moves I'd definitely be interested.

[Shane Phelan]

I agree completely agree about the membership pricing, that will be a the first point of negotiation as no way am I expecting people to pay €45/month for this. I don't know about an upper limit on members, its not a problem I see us having in the short term although we would have to set-up an online booking system pretty much straight away.  The more interested parties I have when I go to the TOG AGM next Saturday (24th Jan) the more negotiating power I have. I might suggest that we would pay for our own electricity/water as a show of good faith if we got a lower price, we could just install our own meters to keep track (It would probably end up costing €2/brew). The scope for any new location is that it must be within 20 minutes walk of O'Connell street. In fairness it has always been handy to pop into the nearest pub after a brew-day and get any range of buses or trains home.

Vermelho, your old club looks fantastic! I would never have even thought of doing half of the stuff they have there, it is exactly what we should be aspiring to. The way they do their membership is also very interesting as its proportional to how much you use the space/equipment and gives you different levels of entitlements. So at the lowest subscription level you can attend, next you can brew but supervised, next level brew on your own and ferment in a temperature controlled fridge etc... If the facilities were that good I would be weighing up the prospect of leaving my equipment in there permanently as a fridge for fermentation temperature control is the one thing that I cant do in the apartment due to space issues.

In terms of other Clubs it would of course be open to anyone that wants to become a member! I suppose I concentrated on Capital as we have the most to gain from it in terms of space issues. A lot of brewers outside the city have sheds and gardens and wouldn't have much of a need for such a space. I'm going to start a list here just to keep track of the people that are interested (you aren't committing to anything at this stage, its just to give me an idea of numbers).

01. Shiny
02. Vermelho
03. brian_c
04. phoenix

[molc]

I have an interest, mainly from the pooled resources side, like an active yeast bank and centralised specialised ewuipment etc, rather than necessarily needing the brew space.

[armedcor]

Count me interested. I'll finally make it to a meeting sometime I swear!

[Vermelho]

Vermelho, your old club looks fantastic! I would never have even thought of doing half of the stuff they have there, it is exactly what we should be aspiring to. The way they do their membership is also very interesting as its proportional to how much you use the space/equipment and gives you different levels of entitlements. So at the lowest subscription level you can attend, next you can brew but supervised, next level brew on your own and ferment in a temperature controlled fridge etc... If the facilities were that good I would be weighing up the prospect of leaving my equipment in there permanently as a fridge for fermentation temperature control is the one thing that I cant do in the apartment due to space issues.

In terms of other Clubs it would of course be open to anyone that wants to become a member! I suppose I concentrated on Capital as we have the most to gain from it in terms of space issues. A lot of brewers outside the city have sheds and gardens and wouldn't have much of a need for such a space. I'm going to start a list here just to keep track of the people that are interested (you aren't committing to anything at this stage, its just to give me an idea of numbers).

01. Shiny
02. Vermelho
03. brian_c
04. phoenix

I'm not sure how they afforded everything but they all used to seem to have various contacts and they were a very talented bunch from a trades perspective so no job was too big. The brew house was also in an industrial estate just outside of the city but everyone was willing to travel to it as having everything at your reach meant your brew day was seamless. Also meant no mess at home and no equipment build up which was nice (although that's also part of the fun for some I suppose). Maybe the Kildare and Meath brewers would be interested also. Generally they're only 40 mins away?

Sounds great though, count me in and let me know if there's meeting's that need attending etc. I will also make a meetup soon just haven't been able to with my current job travelling around the country. I'll be in a new job from Feb which is in Dublin so I'd love to become a more active member.

So updated list is:

01. Shiny
02. Vermelho
03. brian_c
04. phoenix
05. molc possibly??
06. armedcor

[Paul B]

01. Shiny
02. Vermelho
03. brian_c
04. phoenix
05. molc possibly??
06. armedcor
07. pdb

[cruiscinlan]

Just wondering how this would work, would we all pay in for use of Tog solely for brewing or become full members? Access to decent gear and avoiding duplication of effort would be great as well.

[Shane Phelan]

Is this list for those interesting in co-locating with TOG, or for something else?

Its a list for co-locating with TOG, if the number of contributors grew to a large enough level then at a future point we could go out on our own. I see no reason for that not to happen in the long term. In the short term it's the realistic option as 10 people paying €25/month for example doesn't even come close to the €1400+ that would be required.

In terms of how it would work, becoming a full TOG member is the easiest option in that everything is already set-up for that to happen in terms of rules, finances, trial periods and so on. Adding different subscription tiers is more overheads for us but I think it has to happen, to use molc as an example, it wouldn't be fair to expect him to be paying the full whack. That said, I could propose this next weekend and be quietly told to piss off with myself as I'm going to be arguing with people already paying €45/month that we should only be paying €25.