How to Open a Brewery in 10 Easy Steps

Are you passionate about brewing beer and considering turning your hobby into a profitable business? While you will have some fierce competition to surpass, with the right knowledge and tools, you can also become a known name on the market. 

In this article, you will find a comprehensive guide on how to open a brewery, including necessary permits, must-have technology, useful equipment, marketing techniques, and much more. 

A brewery is a business that both produces and sells craft beer. A typical restaurant or pub usually buys their drinks from other suppliers and just commercializes them. 

A brewing business will be attractive to customers due to the fresh unique beers with a variety of notes and flavors that can create a great tasting experience. 

Some breweries will also serve food, but the menu is usually small, as the focus is on the special beer. Here are some other typical brewery characteristics: 

• Big tasting space: often with an industrial design as the brewery restaurant is incorporated into the brewery itself, where employees produce the beer; 

• Relaxed service: the ordering will be done at the bar or using a QR code on the table and the servers are always open to talk about the beer options and recommend menu items. 

Before you open your own brewing business, it is imperative you do some market research to understand if the industry is profitable, how much do brewery owners make, and what your customers want. Check out these statistics: 

• In 2024, there were 9,796 operating U.S. craft breweries, including 2,029 microbreweries, 3,552 brewpubs, 3,936 taproom breweries, and 279 regional craft breweries; 

• Craft beer’s retail dollar value rose to an estimated $28.8 billion, a 3% increase over the previous year; 

• Employment in the craft brewing sector increased to 197,112 in 2024, a 3.0% rise from the previous year. This is due to breweries focusing more on taproom and brewpub concepts, creating more job openings in the process; 

• On average, breweries earn a revenue of about $4 million annually; 

• The average profit margin for breweries is around 10%; 

• The average salary for a brewery owner is $85,000. This figure can vary significantly, depending on the size and profitability of the brewery.   

While most beers only need four ingredients – water, malt, hops, and yeast, starting a brewery involves a lot more expenses than the cost of prime materials. 

Moreover, the cost of opening a brewery can vary significantly according to location, brewery size, state of the equipment and much more. 

Here is a brewery cost spreadsheet estimation so you can get a better idea of the financing you will need to secure: 

• Rent: $24,000 – $240,000 

• Equipment: $150,000 – $300,000 

• Licensing and regulations: $5,000 – $20,000 

• Raw materials: $5,000 – $20,000 

• Marketing: $10,000 – $50,000 

How to open a brewery? With patience. You can expect to wait one to two years for your plan to turn into reality as you have to take a lot of steps that require time, such as: 

• Obtaining the required licenses and permits: for example, a State Brewery license can take up to 180 days; 

• Choosing and securing a location; 

• Purchasing equipment and having it installed; 

• Developing a beer recipe and process; 

• Getting the word out about your brewery business; 

• Setting up distribution channels. 

One of the first steps to opening a brewery is figuring out which type is best suited for your needs, location, and clients. Here are the most popular types of breweries: 

• Nano-brewery: any brewery that produces less than 2,000 barrels a year. They usually handcraft the beer and experiment with unique recipes, as the small batches allow them to be flexible; 

• Craft brewery: have an annual production of maximum 6 million barrels of beer. They are also characterized by innovation, often providing limited edition beers with non-traditional ingredients; 

• Microbreweries: produce up to 15,000 barrels per year, of which 75% is sold outside of the premises; 

• Brewpub: they sell 25% of their beer on-site in what can be described as a combination of a restaurant and brewery, as they also provide food; 

• Taproom brewery: similar to a brewpub but does not traditionally offer food. It can, however, collaborate with local businesses, such as food trucks, to allow customers to order food; 

• Regional brewery: a small-scale business that provides beer for a specific region, often according to the target audience’s taste; 

• Large brewery: have a production scale bigger than any other brewery, anywhere upwards of 6 million barrels a year. The manufacturing process is industrialized, and they have a well set-up distribution system. 

If you’ve settled on starting your own brewery, you will find this guide very helpful. Read on before you invest your hard-earned money: 

The business plan is the backbone of your future beer brewing business. A well-crafted one will help you attract valuable investors and also keep you on track to achieve profit. 

Here is what a brewery business plan must include: 

• Mission statement: What prompted you to start a brewery? What will you offer clients? What makes your brewery special? 

• Market research: is there an audience for a new brewery in your location? Are there many other competitors? 

• Financial statements: a detailed plan including how much it will cost you to open the brewery and how much you estimate you will be earning; 

• Operations plan: how many staff will you employ, what will be their roles, how will production work, how will you sell your beer; 

• Marketing plan: including how much you want to invest in promoting your brewery, branding costs, what channels you will use, and what strategies you want to take advantage of. 

How to open a brewery with no funds? As you’ve previously seen in the costs section, starting a brewery can be quite expensive. 

Here are a few ways to secure financing: 

• Invest personal funds: if you can afford it, you can immediately jump to the next step of running a brewery; 

• Ask family and friends for money: if you feel comfortable, getting a loan from your family and friends will be more advantageous because there will be no interest; 

• Start a crowdfunding campaign: if you have an interesting concept, ask people to donate money in exchange for free tastings when the brewery opens; 

• Get a loan for a brewery: be it from the government or other institutions; 

• Attract investors: use your business plan to present your brewery’s potential to angel investors and venture capitalists. Be aware that they will ask for part of the ownership in exchange. 

You don’t want to risk starting a brewery business without being legal as you risk big fines that will affect profit and can even lead to closure. 

While requirements may differ according to location, here are the main licenses and permits you will need: 

• Federal Brewer’s Notice: this federal brewing permit is free, but may take up to 120 days to obtain; 

• State Brewery License 

• Local Business License 

• Health & Safety Permits 

• Distributor License 

• On-premises Alcohol Selling License 

To attract as many clients as possible, you need to be easy to reach. If your brewery is too far away, people may visit you once as a novelty, but they won’t become regulars. 

Here are a few tips for choosing the best place to start a brewery: 

• Be accessible: because people will consume alcohol, they won’t be able to get to your brewery by car. Therefore, choose a location in walking distance of bus, tram, and metro stations; 

• Pick a high traffic area: if you are opening a taproom or brewpub in a separate location than your production brewery, go for spaces in the city center or near offices to attract walk-ins. For bigger breweries, you will have to stick to industrial zones with enough space; 

• Be a good distance away from competitors: one or two competitors in the area is a good sign that there are interested buyers. But if you position yourself right next to them, you will lose a couple of clients to your competition. 

One or two beers in, people will start to get hungry, and you don’t want them to leave your place to find another place to eat. Keep them spending with these brewery menu ideas: 

• Appetizers such as pretzel bites, wings, popcorn, fries, cheese boards; 

• Sandwiches like Reuben sandwiches, burgers, grilled chicken sandwiches; 

• Pizzas; 

• Classic bar food, for example fish and chips and steak frites; 

• Desserts like some beer-based cakes and brownies will keep with the theme. 

Once you launch your brewery, only serving clients at the counter will lead to long lines which in turn generate unhappy customers. If you want to prevent this, enable on-premise ordering via QR code.  

This way, people will be able to scan the menu once they are seated, browse, order, and pay, using their mobile phones. You can generate a free QR code menu with GloriaFood. This will increase both speed of service and client satisfaction. 

When you’re searching for “How to open a brewery?”, getting the necessary equipment is an essential step. You have the option to buy it new or go for the cheaper second-hand version, if you can find any good ones available in your area.  

Here are the main pieces of brewery equipment that you will need: 

• Brewhouse, with kettle, mash tun, and lauter tun 

• Fermentation tanks 

• Brite tanks 

• Kegging and bottling line 

• Cold rooms and keg coolers 

• Serving glasses 

• Kitchen equipment 

If you want to offer your clients a fast and reliable service, you need to have an effective brewery POS system. This will not only enable you to process orders and payments faster, but it will also make your team more productive. 

Check out the valuable features you will enjoy if you take advantage of the GloriaFood brewery POS system: 

With this brewery POS software, you can optimize your order-placement and payment processing, no matter the type of brewery you run. 

It can be hard to provide fast service when you offer a variety of beers, and you have to scroll through the entire menu to find the one a client ordered. 

With the GloriaFood brewery POS system, this is no longer a problem, because the menu categories are color-coded to help you find specific menu items faster. 

Swipe to the left or to the right to delete an item from the check 

Click the quantity of a menu item in the check detail to increase the number by 1. 

Perform a long click (long hold) to reset the quantity to the original value. 

Internet problems can happen at any time, but if you use GloriaFood, they won’t stop you. You will be able to accept orders and payments as usual, even during busy hours. 

Use the Reports module to access valuable brewery insights such as: 

• Number and value of orders 

• Best-selling menu items 

• Average order value 

• Transactions reports 

• And much more. 

The main draw of a brewery is the unique beers and the passion owners have for creating them. The perfect employees should also share your passion for craft beers, so they can enthusiastically share your brewery’s story with clients. 

Make sure you have a thorough hiring process, so you can pick candidates that will help your business thrive. After you pick the perfect employees, you can use the GloriaFood staff management features built into the POS to make your work easier: 

• Add, remove, and update employee information in a couple of clicks; 

• Use the training mode to teach new employees how to use the POS system without affecting your financials; 

• Assign different permissions to employees, such as only allowing the manager to access the cash drawer and limiting access for servers or bartenders; 

• Enable instant POS log-in with RFID cards.

The answer to how to open a brewery doesn’t stop at the physical aspects. To attract clients, you need to build a powerful online presence that will convince clients to visit your brewery. This is where marketing can help you. 

Your brewery marketing plan must include the following: 

• An SEO-optimized website: So clients searching for breweries in your area will easily find you. You can use GloriaFood to generate a sales and SEO optimized website in just 10 minutes; 

• Flyer distribution around your brewery: with a small discount to get people to give your brewery a chance. With GloriaFood, it will only take you a couple of minutes to create a flyer and send it to print; 

• Promotions and special offers: the best way to incentivize clients is to tempt them with irresistible offers. For example, you can have a 10% off all beers in the first opening week; 

• An email marketing campaign: the Autopilot module from GloriaFood will help you send personalized emails to clients according to their purchasing history. The emails will encourage second orders, prevent cart abandonment, and re-engage dormant clients. 

Opening the doors of your brewery can be nerve-wracking, especially if it is the first time you are running a business. What can go wrong? How will you be able to solve it fast? 

If you want to prepare yourself, you need to do a test run. Once you organize a soft opening, you will know how to open a brewery and deal with any issues that may occur. 

Invite your family and friends to the soft opening and treat them like real clients. Ask them for feedback so you can find ways to improve your business. Moreover, you can ask them to leave positive reviews online so you can start growing your reputation. 

With the help of these tips on how to open a brewery, you are now ready to start your journey by both brewing your own beer and selling it to interested customers. What will be the first type of beer you will add to the menu?