How to start a brewery in Australia
- May 18, 2024
- 180
- tiantai
Tiantai, a brewery equipment manufacturer, we have 20 years experience and many breweries setup in Australia. Do you know how to start a brewery in Australia?
Starting a brewery in Australia involves the following steps:
1. Decide on your business model
2. Find and assess potential sites
3. Sign lease for chosen site
4. Detailed design and costing to build your brewery
5. Apply for Development Approval and Liquor License
6. Document everything in a Discovery Driven Planning business plan
7. Test your local market
8. Choose and order TIANTAI equipment
9. Recruit staff
10. Build
11. Apply for ATO License to Manufacture Alcohol
12. Install test and run
b) Brewery Restaurant / Bar / Brewpub – a step up from the brewery tap house, a Brewpub /restaurant / bar serves great food as well as beer brewed onsite. Higher startup costs as you’ll have a commercial kitchen with improved level seating / hospitality area fit out.
c) Production Brewery – a brewery producing kegged and/or packaged beer to be sold offsite. Producing, packaging and marketing beer to be sold offsite to other retail distribution requires a good investment in bottling or canning equipment and very significant effort to sell and distribute this packaged beer. Medium and large breweries do this very well! So make sure you have a well thought out sales model.
b) Sufficient power and water into site – for an all-electric Brewery Tap House you’ll need a minimum of 100A Three Phase power available. A Brewpub will require more. Good quality water is a must – check if it tastes and smells good!
c) Good customer potential– if you’re selling beer direct to the public, then your site should have good visibility and passing traffic, or in a location with demand but little direct competition. For a production brewery you can test market your beer with local sales outlets produced using a Nano Brewery.
d) Local Council likely to support Development Approval & Liquor Licensing for the site – as soon as you have a potential site (and before you sign a lease!) contact the council’s planning department to arrange a pre-approval meeting. The council planner should guide you through the Development Approval process and provide feedback of any potential planning issues. This will include building, noise, parking and most importantly liquor licensing issues you need to plan for. Note that liquor licensing rules can vary greatly depending on the zone of your site. You may have quite different rules for beer and spirits, different rules for beer produced onsite vs produced offsite, whether you need to serve food or not with alcohol, allowed opneing times, allowed maximum number of visitors and more – so do your homework first!
e) Fit-out / building cost for site– some sites will match your chosen business model better than others. For example an ex-restaurant may be perfect for a small brewpub. A small food production building or factory could make a great production brewery. High ceilings / good roller door access, high capacity power and floor drains can reduce your fit out costs significantly.
f) Brewing equipment initial costing – obtain initial costings from TIANTAI for a brewing system to match your potential sites. Smaller sales potential sites means less capital investment and vice versa.
b) Brewery equipment cost – budget around $120,000 for a small (500L batch) complete system and around $180,000 for a 1000L batch complete system, with with multiple pressure unitanks.
For example – will locals buy my beer by the pint? How much would they pay? How much would local pubs pay me for a 50l keg of beer? What style of beer would be most popular? Can I find the right local staff to help run my business? How much will 50L of beer cost me to produce and package?
The big up-front decisions you’ll need to make are:
Brewhouse batch size – typical batch sizes are 500L for restaurant brewery, 1000-2000L for typical Brewery Tap House and Brewpub, and 2000L-3000L for a small Production Brewery. The brewhouse should be as compact as possible – remember your profit is closely matched to your total tank capacity and ability to sell the beer from these tanks – not how big your brewhouse is!
Size and number of Tanks for startup and later stages – with your initial equipment purchase you would usually have sufficient tanks for your first 1-2 years of operation, and space allocated for additional tanks to add at any time.
Glycol chiller size – if in doubt, bigger is usually always better with refrigeration equipment. TIANTAI can help you calculate what size chiller you’ll need to match your tank capacity for your startup and later stages so you won’t need to upgrade this later.
Coolroom size – A coolroom provides a buffer to match your brewery production and changing customer demand. Properly stored beer can last months (depending on beer style). Larger coolrooms also allow you to have a wider range of beers always on tap as you’ll have more room to store sufficient quantities of different kegged batches.
Its here: ATO Licence to Manufacture Alcohol
If you need brewery equipment, contact Derrick to get your special offer.
Derrick
Sales Manager
[email protected]
Tiantai Beer Equipment
Starting a brewery in Australia involves the following steps:
1. Decide on your business model
2. Find and assess potential sites
3. Sign lease for chosen site
4. Detailed design and costing to build your brewery
5. Apply for Development Approval and Liquor License
6. Document everything in a Discovery Driven Planning business plan
7. Test your local market
8. Choose and order TIANTAI equipment
9. Recruit staff
10. Build
11. Apply for ATO License to Manufacture Alcohol
12. Install test and run
1. Decide on your business model – one of these three:
a) Brewery Tap House – primarily a venue to produce and serve good craft beer, a brewery tap house sells beer direct to the public by the glass, and usually has no in-house kitchen to reduce setup costs. Very limited food is usually provided to keep happy customers onsite, usually by partnering with nearby take away sellers. This is the most popular business model for startup breweries, as you can focus on producing and selling good beer, with a lower capital investment than a full brewpub or packaging production breweryb) Brewery Restaurant / Bar / Brewpub – a step up from the brewery tap house, a Brewpub /restaurant / bar serves great food as well as beer brewed onsite. Higher startup costs as you’ll have a commercial kitchen with improved level seating / hospitality area fit out.
c) Production Brewery – a brewery producing kegged and/or packaged beer to be sold offsite. Producing, packaging and marketing beer to be sold offsite to other retail distribution requires a good investment in bottling or canning equipment and very significant effort to sell and distribute this packaged beer. Medium and large breweries do this very well! So make sure you have a well thought out sales model.
2. Find and assess potential sites using the following criteria:
a) Sufficient floor area and ceiling height – Required area will depend on your business model, but around 50M2 would be a minimum size for a small brewery taproom including brewery, coolroom, storage, and seating / bar area. Minimum ceiling height should be 3m for a small brewery, or 4M for an 1000L batch brewery.b) Sufficient power and water into site – for an all-electric Brewery Tap House you’ll need a minimum of 100A Three Phase power available. A Brewpub will require more. Good quality water is a must – check if it tastes and smells good!
c) Good customer potential– if you’re selling beer direct to the public, then your site should have good visibility and passing traffic, or in a location with demand but little direct competition. For a production brewery you can test market your beer with local sales outlets produced using a Nano Brewery.
d) Local Council likely to support Development Approval & Liquor Licensing for the site – as soon as you have a potential site (and before you sign a lease!) contact the council’s planning department to arrange a pre-approval meeting. The council planner should guide you through the Development Approval process and provide feedback of any potential planning issues. This will include building, noise, parking and most importantly liquor licensing issues you need to plan for. Note that liquor licensing rules can vary greatly depending on the zone of your site. You may have quite different rules for beer and spirits, different rules for beer produced onsite vs produced offsite, whether you need to serve food or not with alcohol, allowed opneing times, allowed maximum number of visitors and more – so do your homework first!
e) Fit-out / building cost for site– some sites will match your chosen business model better than others. For example an ex-restaurant may be perfect for a small brewpub. A small food production building or factory could make a great production brewery. High ceilings / good roller door access, high capacity power and floor drains can reduce your fit out costs significantly.
f) Brewing equipment initial costing – obtain initial costings from TIANTAI for a brewing system to match your potential sites. Smaller sales potential sites means less capital investment and vice versa.
3. Sign lease for chosen site:
If you can, sign a lease subject to a successful Development Approval from Council. Really good sites will go quickly and so you’re unlikely to have this luxury. That’s why its important to have a pre-approval meeting with council as you’re assessing potential sites. Negotiate a flexible long term lease with extension options/rights.4. Detailed design and costing to build your brewery:
a) Building costs – major items include installing brewery area waterproofing with floor drainage to handle waste water, electrical supply upgrades and power outlets, filtered hot and cold water, front of house / bar fit out, toilets, kitchen (if you’ll have one), storage area and coolroom. The minimum building fit out cost of our 50 customers would be around $80K for a small brewery taproom. $200-300k would be more typical.b) Brewery equipment cost – budget around $120,000 for a small (500L batch) complete system and around $180,000 for a 1000L batch complete system, with with multiple pressure unitanks.
5. Apply for Development Approval and Liquor License
You’ll already have had a pre-approval meeting with council, so now you should have your brewery design ready to submit to Council. Start the Liquor license application at the same time if possible as in some States this can take quite a while!6. Document everything in a Discovery Driven Planning business plan
The aim of the business plan is to find out and document explicitly what you DON’T know! This may sound strange, but it’s one of the most important activities in new business planning. It’s called Discovery Driven Planning. By discovering your hidden assumptions you can learn more quickly up front the things you don’t know -and before you get too far building a brewery!For example – will locals buy my beer by the pint? How much would they pay? How much would local pubs pay me for a 50l keg of beer? What style of beer would be most popular? Can I find the right local staff to help run my business? How much will 50L of beer cost me to produce and package?
7. Test your local market
If you haven’t yet been brewing at home and developing some favourite beer recipes, now is the time to start! A 100L pilot brewing system (also called a ‘nano’ brewery) will mean you have a well developed product to sell as soon as your brewery is built. It will also provide a means for you to test many of your critical assumptions.8. Choose and order TIANTAI equipment
Tiantai can help you select the right size brewing system. The system should be where possible modular, so you can add extra capacity as your business grows. This is usually done by selecting a brewhouse big enough to still meet demand a few years away, and providing spare space in your brewing area to add extra tanks progressively.The big up-front decisions you’ll need to make are:
Brewhouse batch size – typical batch sizes are 500L for restaurant brewery, 1000-2000L for typical Brewery Tap House and Brewpub, and 2000L-3000L for a small Production Brewery. The brewhouse should be as compact as possible – remember your profit is closely matched to your total tank capacity and ability to sell the beer from these tanks – not how big your brewhouse is!
Size and number of Tanks for startup and later stages – with your initial equipment purchase you would usually have sufficient tanks for your first 1-2 years of operation, and space allocated for additional tanks to add at any time.
Glycol chiller size – if in doubt, bigger is usually always better with refrigeration equipment. TIANTAI can help you calculate what size chiller you’ll need to match your tank capacity for your startup and later stages so you won’t need to upgrade this later.
Coolroom size – A coolroom provides a buffer to match your brewery production and changing customer demand. Properly stored beer can last months (depending on beer style). Larger coolrooms also allow you to have a wider range of beers always on tap as you’ll have more room to store sufficient quantities of different kegged batches.
9. Recruit staff
As part of your Discovery Driven Planning process you will have identified the roles you’ll need to fill to start and run your business. To start with there may just be you as an owner / brewer / taproom bar attendant or keg delivery driver! But don’t be afraid to seek help from the very start. If you haven’t had commercial brewing experience, paying an onsite consultant to train you for a few days, or gaining work experience in similar breweries is essential.10. Build
Your brewery build stage will usually take longer than equipment delivery, so start the design process early. Tiantai is able to provide you with a customised layout plan to get you going which you can use to work with your building designer / architect / fit out company.11. Apply for ATO License to Manufacture Alcohol
As well as your Development Approval, Liquor License, you also need to apply for a “Application for a licence to manufacture excisable products – alcohol” with the ATO.Its here: ATO Licence to Manufacture Alcohol
12. Install test and run
Tiantai will assist you with necessary site requirements for installation of the whole brewing system. This should include all utilities and physical requirements for correct installation and running of everything.If you need brewery equipment, contact Derrick to get your special offer.
Derrick
Sales Manager
[email protected]
Tiantai Beer Equipment
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