Is a commercial hobby doable?

[cgueret]

Hello!

I've been brewing a good few batches now and thinking about scaling up as a commercial hobby. The idea would be to produce just enough to cover for operation costs, at home. Has anyone done, or tried to do, that and would be happy to discuss the experience?

Christophe

[johnrm]

Hey Christophe,
You say commercial.
In order to do this there are some legislative hoops to jump through.
Revenue, licencing, health and safety are the obvious ones, there may be more.
You will need an outlet for your wares, so if you own a pub or are well in with an owner you could do this. Bottling is not really practical for very small scale.
If you want to see a small scale model on action, have a look at The Roadside Tavern in Lisdoonvarna, Clare.
The owner there, Peter Curtin, retired now, was very creative commercially as can be seen with his other venture, Burren Smokehouse.

[cgueret]

Hey!

Thanks for the reply :-) I've seen discussed the matter with a few more people on the Discord channel of the Homebrew Club and also with some friends. Recently GEB released that video tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AKMppiP72g which is pretty close to what I have in mind: small scale at home as a side job, local distribution, etc (indeed, no bottling system in his garage). I'll have a look at the place you point me to...

Christophe

[MuddyRiver]

Hey Christophe. I'm liking your plan. Would love to do something commercial and manageable at some stage. Could you send me a link to the discord group please? My username is kirwangreen

Cheers

Conor

[cgueret]

Hi Conor! Here you go https://discord.gg/BTxuKNf9pp

[bartonj]

What # is the discussion under? Was looking at doing something like this myself awhile back, would be interested to read others thoughts on it

[cgueret]

The discussion is on "Chit Chat"

[johnrm]

@Christophe
Have a look here for a discussion form a few years back...
https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2056423377/selling-my-own-homemade-beer-in-my-pub

[cgueret]

Thanks! It's an interesting discussion. I got to the conclusion that a taproom would be the best (only ?) option. Or having a pub already and try to sell but, as discussed in the thread, the competition with established names will be tricky. Something like https://www.bruhaha.beer/ could be nice.  It also kind of align with this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATMs2vPsZaM where the brewer explain that he didn't want to get much into social space and food stuff, and that contributed to forcing him to close.