A close friend, business owner, and Suriname expatriot walks into a bar...

... and orders a Coors Light.  No joke.

I had a much needed and very insightful conversation with a close friend, business owner, and emigrant from Suriname, yesterday afternoon, ironically at a place that we call "the Office".

We discussed having a business office in a residential neighborhood (for me it's R-10), waste management, package delivery, industrial space, and stainless steel counter tops.

Since I need a business office before any licenses or permits can be issued, I need to setup space in my house... well... it's detached... so it's part of my property, but a separate building with separate heating costs, no H2O and electrical is combined with the main house.

When I go to register the business with the city, they're going to ask about the trash generated by the business and where it will go.  I don't expect there to be much trash generated from the office.  I'm going to try to keep it paperless, so the only trash I can think of will be paper that is mailed to the business (envelopes and stuff like that).  But this friend from Suriname said that I still  need to have a plan to dispose of trash not as part of the city's residential trash run... so I need to find a waste management company to sell me a trash bin that I can keep in the office, and every time it is filled, I can call them and they'll come haul it away.

(Once the Brewery gets set up, this office will be moved on-site)

This friend also suggested getting a UPS Store mailing address.  This is something I hadn't thought of before that will make many things much much much easier.

• It will give me an address separate from my residence and brewery so any psycho can't come track down the secret location of the brewery, break in, and steal kegs of beer.
• It will allow deliveries to be safe if I am not there to get them, so no one can swipe that 50 lb. sack of Crystal Malt before I can steep it!
• It will allow any one of my many many many employees (all none of them... but I'm thinking future!) to go and pick up the mail and packages if I'm away.

The one caveat with having a UPS Store address, is that if my Business Credit/Debit Card Address is different, I might have some issues having things delivered there, so when I open up that bank account (at the North Shore Bank -- the world's best small bank!) - I'll make sure to use the UPS Store address as the Business Address.

We also discussed the use of industrial space for the brewery.  The Cummings Center here in town is the best bet.  It's a very large Commercial and Industrial Complex (Ahhh... Axis and Allies!) right on Route 62 with easy access to Banks, Restaurants, other Businesses, et cetera (and it's close to home).  I'm going to need an industrial kitchen with a gas stove, several deep deep deep stainless steel sinks, a Big CO2 tank, and walk-in cooling space (for lagering, conditioning).  Also I'll need a place to store grains... so... dry storage?

I'm going to design what this all should look like and post it.

Until then... Vaya Con Cerveza!

Wiki Brew

http://www.wikihow.com/Brew-Commercial-Beer - Wiki Brew!

In my searches I discovered this gem of a how-to.

Business Planning

Went to a "So you want to be self-employed" workshop today at Salem State's Enterprise Center.  It was interesting, but I didn't learn much.  What I took away from the workshop was how to use a cash flow worksheet... that and apparently "Convenience Stores" should be called "Lottery and Cigarette stores".

The Bev Town Blogger

So, my wife and I have been thinking about starting a commercial brewery for about a year now... I know - how awesome is that, right?
Well the more I've gotten into creating the business plan, the more daunting this endeavor becomes.
I would just like to sell kegs of craft beer made with local ingredients to the local restaurants.  It's not a huge cash-cow, but it could turn some profit.
So far, this is what I think we need to do:

• Get some office space.  Our house is zoned R-10.  Residential, so in order for us to form an LLC, we need to have a place of business.
• Name the Business.
• Form the LLC. 
• File LLC Papers with the Sec. of the Commonwealth.
• File a Business Cert.
• Get a Tax ID.
• Register with the Massachusetts Dept. of Revenue.
• Obtain a Certificate of Good Standing.  From the Commonwealth.
• Get Some Brewing Space. We have to have a place to brew commercially, and I don't think we can use our house, so, we'll have to rent a kitchen somewhere.
• Submit a Brewer's Notice to the TTB.  I don't actually know for sure if we have to do this, since we're going to apply for a Farmer/Brewer license in Massachusetts.
• Wait for Background Check and Interview process to end.
• Apply for a Farmer-Brewer's License in Massachusetts according to MGL (Massachusetts General Laws).  We plan on brewing less than 5,000 barrels/year, so $22 is what that'll cost.  Since we've been growing our own hops for a couple of years now, and since we plan on using other locally grown ingredients, we would fall under this type of license.  This also allows us to do our our distribution.
• Apply for Membership into the Massachusetts Brewer's Guild.  It's free for < 500 bbl, which is where I think we would be at in the first year.
• Then... and only then... can we begin brewing.

This seems daunting to me and I'm probably missing a bunch of steps, but this is the plan for now... until it changes.