So a buddy and I are thinking of opening a online HBS. We thought about opening a brewery, but we don't have that kind of money. We already buy grain by the pallet, so it got us to thinking about doing this full-time.

We are thinking that we would run it out of our houses' at first, to make sure it is a viable business. We should be able to keep costs low by doing it this way. We are thinking of starting with just grain and yeast.

What are you guys looking for in your HBS?

I look for good selection, good pricing and fast shipping. I know thats kind of general but those criteria are what led me to use the online shops I do.

everyone here loves bmw but when I ordered from them nothing shipped for 5 days so I cancelled the order and ordered from AHS. Shipped same day and I had it 2 days later. I was still able to buy grains by the oz and have it packed in one bag. Yes it cost a little more but I will pay that if i know it ships quickly.

I used midwest because they have things for my party pig. easy to add other things to the order and get everything shipped together.

so, selection, pricing and shipping. being able to buy grains by the oz is awesome but no need for a recipe builder. Just let us choose which bag it goes into and we make it ourselves (like at austin).

good luck!!

i like the brewmaster's warehouse idea of building your own custom recipe... and not getting saddled with 14 oz of caraffa II just because you had to buy the whole pound when you only need 2 ounces. and, buying the grain in moderate bulk might be nice, too... like in 5, 10, 25, 30 lb increments?

like i said in my other post, the url beerwarrior.com is available!

and i'm sure we'd all appreciate a "mrbeerfans" coupon code lo

I could see a bulk hops and grain business being a nice little niche.

It's about time!

I am an Austin guy exclusively. I love their brew builders, i know BMW does it too, but Austin also has literally 1,000 recipes whether it is their clones or their originals. And you can get all these brews AG, PM, or extract. Plus no one, and I mean no one packs the box better than them. The boxes themselves are heavier than you get anywhere else.

I also like the free shipping on orders over $100.

What I dont like about them is that they only sell hops by the oz. I make a house IPA that has 4 oz of hops in a 3.5 gallon brew. If I order 2, or 3 of these and I have to buy hops @ $2 an oz it adds up. So I have been buying my hops in bulk from either Label peelers, or farmhouse.

Grain and yeast are usually what I look for...particularly specialty grains (since I tend to buy my base grains in bulk).

A nice selection of dry yeasts, as well as liquid (I prefer wyeast, but will use white labs if wyeast isn't available), and price is (of course) important to me too.

A good website that's easy to browse is also nice

I am not sure if we will have a lot of recipes at first. We are going to try to order our malt with the idea that if all else fails we end up having to keep all the grain for ourselves. If we do this business we will be open I still plan to keep my Management job for long enough to know whether we can make enough money to make it worth all of the work.

I can promise that we won't get rich off starting this venture. I would love to open this business and have it pay me enough to pay my bills. I don't know any computer programming, so we would have to pay to have someone set-up a website.

You should PM Frosty, I know he does some freelance web design.

I don't know that if he'd have time to take on a full-site design, but it's worth asking him.

With all of the sites currently available I would think you have your work cut out for you especially without computer skills. Not trying to be a skeptic, just realistic. I wish you well if you do go through with it.

Starting a business is tough. Starting a business doing the same thing others are already doing is even tougher. I don't want to get too business but do you have a plan to make money? I can't imagine you are going to put in the kind of work required for nothing.

Getting into the market, that is fairly saturated now is a worry. My parents owned a clothing store until I graduated from High School and my older brother owned a limo company for 10 years, so I am possibly going into this knowing that owning a business is tough work. Not a whole lot of money would be required at first. A website would have to be designed and some grain and yeast would have to be purchased, and my liability is only 50%. A little marketing to help get people to website and that would be all the upfront costs.

This business may happen and it may not, I would love to open a brew on premises LHBS. We could do some lessons, and offer a brew day package where you get 5 gallons of wort and a bucket w/lid and airlock for $25.

i've heard those things are taking off... there's one in minnesota that is booked like four months in advance. there's an episode of BrewingTV that went there...

Brewing TV - Episode 9: Furthermore Beer at Vine Park / Tomax + Xamot from Brewing TV on Vimeo.

Like everyone else, I'm looking for price. Being still really new (and knowing I'll probably never have the time and space to go all grain), I've been looking at prices for malt extracts and yeasts.

Mr. Beer-sized BiaB takes up only a tiny amount of space...ok, so you do need a 5 gallon pot, but otherwise, all you need are some paint strainer bags from Home Depot/Lowes.

Time, though...that you do need.

I think price is the #1 thing for a general deciding factor as to where most people shop. so if you are looking to hit that grains/yeast niche...that would be something.

however, I prefer a "one stop shopping" experience. even if you had the BEST grains and yeast pricing, that might be offset by having to order hops from somewhere else...thus having to pay shipping twice.

that being said, you definitely don't need a midwest size cataloge. if you have 1 major supplier for each "category", I thnk you would be good to go. like all briess grains, fermentis dry yeasts (ease of storage), and then the main home brew hops like the Cs, with a couple others (thinking noble and a few popular IPA hops)...then you can satisfy that "everything in one order from one place" for a lot of people.

+100 to this. i've been known to spend a bit more on things when I know I can get everything I need on one order.

Yes. One order beats many.

If we were to go forward with our plan, we wouldn't stock hops at the beginning. The main reason for that is the difficulty in getting hops in-stock at this point. The other reason is cost. You guys have to remember that we are just looking to see if there is enough of a market share left to make the business viable. Buying a fancy hops sealer would not be very smart if the business wasn't going to be around in say 12 months. If I bought a couple pallets of grain and some dry yeast I know that I could sell it or use it with no problems.

The people that I have in my brewing circle all buy grain with me in a group buy and I am not stupid enough to believe that they would then buy grain from me at retail prices. I could sell them some yeast with no problems.

Right now my buddy and I are just looking at what the start-up costs would be. So far this is what I have jotted down for expenses before we can open a website: Website Design, Website Hosting, Marketing, Grain, Yeast, and maybe a storage unit.

One of the problems right now is that my buddy lives like 30 minutes from my house. We would be starting this business from our houses with the possibility of having a storage locker to store all of the grain. We know that we could keep costs down and that we can offer the grain at a really good cost just due to having nobody on the payroll. We would need to make enough money to pay for the goods and pay ourselves back for the web hosting fees and the cost of designing the website.

Nobody goes into business to lose money so the plan would be to make enough money at the end of the day to make it worth our time. As I stated earlier, I don't need a business where I can get rich from it. I don't even make $40K at my management job with Metro Parks and my buddy is going to school right now. If after 12 months we saw enough online traffic and we saw the ability to grow the business we would then have to look at a storefront. Our plan would be to make baby steps in the business. We want to have a good time while offering a product at a great price. We don't want to make the most on each product we sell, we want to sell more of the product to turn a profit.

Sounds like you're going into it a good way. Since I'm not interested in hops (yet) or grains, I am curious if you'd stock DME. I would be happy to buy dry yeast at a good price, if nothing else!

DME would be stocked and LME is still being looked at.

Yeast would be tough too. It'd have to be fresh.

Would it be worth starting a thread where we'd list 3 pros we look for in a supplier and maybe 3 turn off from a supplier? Maybe it would give some insight....

P.S.

You launch, I'm buying... at least once. Count it!!

As of today I am only 50-50% if we do this. I am looking into what the cost would be on designing a website. The cost of the grain and yeast isn't that big of a deal. Hosting the site isn't that big of a deal either. If we can do this for 5k at the beginning I think we will do it.

I have started looking into what malts to start off with. I want to keep the number under 30 to start off. Any suggestions?

I read your post about making <$40k, I most days have a love/hate relationship with my job. I will tell you that as much as you love to brew it would be cool to do the "buy this kit and make this beer here" thing. If you can make money doing something you love it is worth it, and if not you would have the stuff you better call poodie about renting the conical

Unless you can start with some sort of turnkey ecommerce site, I don't think 5K will be able to get you a website set up, unless you could find somebody who would work in exchange for a share of the company.

If I were you if look at hosting sites that have package deals. An inexpensive hosting site is 1&1. I don't think they get good reviews, but they're inexpensive, so it might be an option to start with them and switch later.

I have several guys who I know that are computer programmers, and I have helped them buy letting them in my group grain buys. I will try to see what they say about what it would take to get this done.

The buddy who would be in this with me is a former mortgage broker and is in school getting his business management degree. He may be getting a professional brewing job real soon. If he gets the brewing job I will have to look for a different partner and I think I would have a couple to pick from, but his business management degree would be very helpful going forward.

Beer Warrior, never and I mean never go into business with
anyone not even your best friend. It always ends at some point
and it's never pretty. Ex wives and lawyers get involved and it's
a bad deal.
Go it alone but ask for help. Friends will always help you out
especially if beer is involved. Go into business with one and
you could end up doing most of the work while they expect a
check in the mail. A friend of mine started a brewery a few
years back with a rich guy who fronted most of the money.
Another partner was a local bar owner and the other was a good
old boy homebrewer who claimed to be an accountant.
The rich guy never showed up but always wanted a cut. The bar
owner who was supposed to help out with electronics never lifted
a finger and pulled the beer out of his bar when confronted with
lack of effort. The good old boy accountant left his wife and
moved in the brewery with his pregnant girlfriend.
All the while my buddy and his wife did 99% of the work. Ended
up with lawyers involved and a nasty brewery divorce.
All these guys were tight just a few years prior.

I had a similar situation with two friends back in the 80's
in a business we started. Business was good but they only
wanted to be around when it was time for a dividend check.

Just last year my business had to buy out a friends ex wife
who fell into our business through a divorce. Cost us 60,000
to get rid of her not including 15 years of shareholder checks
sent to her. She never worked a day in the store.

I'm glad HatchetJack broke the ice. I have seen too many partners end up in lawsuits or bankrupt. When it gets going/tough one person always perceives the other as working more or less or something comes up in the partners life... At the minimum I would clearly define responsibilities for each person.

I would feel better if you said I've got a big empty basement and we are going to start from there. Having the location would give you the stronger hand and commitment. It also helps with the work load. Working from home sucks but it would give you a way of still being connected with family while you work. I can't imagine working a day job and then working in a renal storage unit at 8pm, when my partner can't make it because his daughter has a tummy ache.

I'm not trying to be a total bung hole. I've now got two businesses going and if you can make it fly it can be very rewarding but OMG there can be some days when everything is going crappy and you have to write $25k in checks and you have not been paid in months. The $25k is just a guess but sometimes it can feel like a million.

I totally understand the caution with partnerships and I have seen more marriages end in divorce than business partnerships, and people still get married. The reason to get a partner is to divide the liability. I like my credit score and I want to buy a new house soon, so I am not looking to write a bunch of checks for something that could prove to be successful or could end up costing me some major money.

The other guy is a homebrewer and is going to college to get his business degree. The rental unit would just hold the grain that isn't needed right away. The plan would be to divide and conquer with each of house working from our homes.

Both he and I have a number of things going on right now that could prove to make this possible business venture a no-go. I have a interview on Friday for a promotion at work and it would give me a nice $8K raise. He may be getting a job as a head brewer at a local place that is looking to get into the market.

If he does get the job and I don't get a promotion I may talk to my folks about just advancing me some money.

So far I've dabbled around "why not go into business", now for the why do you want to go into business? Not to get too fru-fur but in your gut what do you want from it?

I don't think "just because you can" or that you are buying a bunch of grain to support your hobby is a good enough reason. Going into business is much like knowingly taking a hammer and smashing your finger. Anybody can do it but why do you want to and is that reason worth bearing the pain?

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I have one manufacturing & retailing (to commercial customers) business and one property management one. After 15 years doing it my salary is just now equaling what I made at the job I left 15 years ago. There are other benefits of owning businesses that put my true income substantially higher but if you look at the cash in my pocket I'm about where I was 15 years ago. A big benefit for me is that I'm no longer making money for other people and not having to answer to their bullshit. Secondly I like to travel and now I can take as much time as I want. I'm keenly aware that I'm not working when I'm traveling but I don't want to die without having seen the world and that's more important to me than the money I could make if I worked to several extra weeks.

The reason to go into business is complicated. I don't particularly like the current job I have now. I have to work nights and weekends and I miss out on a lot on the homefront. I like people and I think I have a knack for sales, which comes into play in a competitive marketplace.

I want to be able to provide a needed service at a fairy competitive price. I have never really enjoyed working for someone else. I watched my folks build a business, so I know it can be a tough job. I know the pay isn't always that great, but money isn't everything.

In your shoes I'd be more inclined to start the business on my own, without a partner. Do you have space at home or at your parents that you could use to receive truck shipments and inventory grain? It sounds like your strong point might be selling grain in bulk. Grain by the pound or ounce is done by many brew suppliers and you get the type of people who want to get everything to brew a batch in one shipment. If you stick with grains by the sack you get a different customer. Someone who is more accustomed to purchasing from different suppliers and you're not screwing around trying to sell 4 ounces of something. Just start simple maybe with base grains. Packaging and order picking would be greatly simplified and you would be able to pick & ship orders pretty quickly making your life a little easier while you are still working a day job.

I think the key is working from someplace like home (best) or a cheap location close to home. You don't want to work a day job and have to drive 20 minutes each way to pack & ship one or two orders.

The real killer I see is receiving truck shipments. Grains are big and heavy so you need a location accessible to tractor trailers. I'm trying to think how to get around the truck unloading problem. If you'r parents had a farm trucks could go there and use a tractor with forks to unload the trucks. Otherwise you really need a forklift or rent a location that has a loading dock so you can use a pallet jack. You can break down the pallets and manually unload but I can't see the truck waiting around while you manually unload a couple pallets worth. You could have your shipments held at the trucking terminal and go in a pickup and bring them home one pallet load at a time.

You just need to start thinking what markup you could apply to each sack. Then think of how much you might sell (be conservative) in a month, and get some idea of the money involved. It's going to be tough going against N. Brewer with 2-row at $36 a bag but places like FiftyPoundSack are open for business selling at $62.

Shipping is going to be a key point for you. With my business volume I get some modest discounts from UPS shipping about $50k a year in UPS shipping costs. Someone like N. Brewer who is filling semi-trailer loads every day is getting a much, much better discount. I have some good FAK blankets and fixed price shipping rates from Southeastern Freight Lines which would be an option but I don't know how well that will work with mostly residential customers.

You are close to Nashville, "lots of tourists" what about opening
a small general store and carry a good selection of craft beer,
wine, cheese, sausage, fresh bread, jellies, honey, odds and
ends and maybe have a small homebrew selection of grains, yeast
and hops to serve the locals?

i still like the Brew On Premise idea... and beer classes, too. not just homebrew... but beer tastings, style classes, pairing classes, cooing with beer classes, and maybe even host some cicerone tasting events or something like that. beer culture is getting pretty big...

That is the short/long range goal. I don't want to dabbel with jellies and stuff like that. I want to do a Brew On Permises, that was my goal years ago and then I found Rebel was in the area, it is just how to get there.