Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022 NanoCon Online Schedule
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Day 2 • Saturday, November 5, 2022
(All times are Eastern)
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
YOUR NANO BREWERY LAB – EQUIPMENT & TESTS YOU NEED – BREWERY OPERATIONS
It doesn’t require much space or expense to add the basic gear you need to set up a lab for your brewery so you can test your batches and improve quality control. Brewery lab owner Amy Todd will cover the care and use of pH meters, a basic microscope suitable for a Nano Brewery, and other lab equipment you can add cost-effectively to help you make better beer. She will also cover using this equipment properly to run a variety of test any brewery should have in place.
AMY TODD
BREWERY LABORATORY SCIENTIST AND FOUNDER, ZYMOLOGY LABS
BUILDING A BREWERY MARKETING PLAN – START-UPS
Marketing is often a blind spot for many brewery start-ups and can be confusing, time consuming, and hard to measure. Industry insider Julie Rhodes will teach you the fundamental principles of craft beer marketing including creating your marketing goals, knowing your target audience, understanding your competition, planning marketing strategies, setting a marketing budget, and tracking your progress.
JULIE RHODES
OWNER, NOT YOUR HOBBY MARKETING SOLUTIONS
USING BREWERY KPIs TO BOOST YOUR BUSINESS – BUSINESS OPERATIONS & SALES
Every industry has its own key financial metrics and certainly a taproom-focused small brewery is no exception. Understanding the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your craft brewery business will help you set goals, make more-informed decisions, and achieve better results. Learn about our industry’s KPIs with craft brewery guru Audra Gaiziunas. She will go over and clearly define what KPIs you should be keeping an eye on to track the financial well being of your brewery so you can make forecasts based on hard numbers and facts resulting in a stronger overall business.
AUDRA GAIZIUNAS
OWNER, BREWED FOR HER LEDGER, LLC
12:05 – 12:30 p.m.
Q&A WITH NANO VENDORS – You can check in live with your choice of top craft brewing vendors to get your questions answered about Nano-sized equipment, gear, ingredients, and supplies.
12:35 – 1:30 p.m.
WHAT I LEARNED LAUNCHING A BREWERY THIS YEAR – START-UPS
Matthew McLaughlin is in a very unique position right now in craft beer. On one hand he is an industry veteran helping new and established breweries navigate legal decisions. But on the other hand he is a rookie having just launched his own brewery after helping so many others do the same. So what did he learn from starting up a brewery for himself? He’s here to share his own start-up experiences with you both from his standing as a craft beer industry veteran and rookie. You can hopefully put the lessons learned as well as lessons reinforced from Matthew’s own journey towards brewery ownership to good use as you pursue opening your own brewery.
MATTHEW MCLAUGHLIN
FOUNDER, MCLUAGHLIN, PC
ADDING A DISTILLERY TO YOUR BREWERY – BUSINESS OPERATIONS & SALES
As the number of craft breweries continues to climb and consumers seek out new experiences, it is more important than ever to differentiate your brand and offer something unique to your customers. One way to do this is by adding a distilled spirits. As a brewery, you already have the advantage of producing high-quality wort, the first step in the distilling process. What more is needed to go from grain to spirt? John Kalinowsky of Brewmation will give an overview of the distilling process and how it differs from brewing and discuss why and when you might want to add distilling to your operation. He’ll cover what still equipment and controls are needed to add distilling to your brewery in addition to the safety requirements unique to distilling.
JOHN KALINOWSKY
SALES & MARKETING MANAGER, BREWMATION
USING ENZYMES IN THE NANO BREWHOUSE – BREWERY OPERATIONS
Malted barley, hops, water, and yeast naturally have the fundamental building blocks for great beer. But sometimes your batch might need a little extra helping hand to make it the best it can be and result in the final beer you wanted to brew and improve certain aspects of your brewing process. That’s where brewing enzymes come into play. Learn about the best practices why, when, and how to use various enzymes that can help you as a brewer make better beer.
EMILY WANG
FOUNDER/LEAD SCIENTIST, FERMLY
1:35 – 2:15 p.m.
NANO BUSINESS TRENDS PANEL
Join moderator John Holl and listen to a panel of Nano brewers discuss timely business trends specific as the Nano segment deals with pandemic-related challenges in addition to the ups and downs of running a small business.
JOHN HOLL
HOST, BYO NANO BREW PODCAST
2:20 – 3:15 p.m.
UNDERSTANDING TAPROOM CUSTOMER MOTIVATIONS – BUSINESS OPERATIONS & SALES
Michael Varda does market research exclusively dedicated to craft beer and in preparation for this seminar he pulled data just for the Nano brewery niche. The result is a targeted rundown for small-scale craft breweries about our basic groupings of taproom customers. Understanding these taproom customer clusters and their particular motivations can result in tweaks to your own taproom marketing and efforts so you can boost your sales. So find out based on hard data who you serve at your taproom and what they want.
MICHAEL VARDA
FOUNDER, CRAFT BEER ADVISORY SERVICES
KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL SMALL-SCALE BARREL-AGING PROGRAM – BREWERY OPERATIONS
Learn the keys to running a small-scale barrel-aging program at your brewery from sourcing barrels to space saving ideas to tracking the progress of each beer. Michael Tonsmeire not only specializes in barrel-aged beers at his Maryland brewery Sapwood Cellars, but he also authored the book “American Sour Beers”. He has experience running a successful barrel program for his brewery and he’ll share his knowledge with you so you can add this new aspect to your brewery.
MICHAEL TONSMEIRE
CO-FOUNDER, SAPWOOD CELLARS
WHAT HOMEBREWERS NEED TO KNOW WHEN GOING PRO – START-UPS
As a homebrewer, going pro means much more than just ramping up the amount of beer you brew. Steve Parkes of the American Brewers Guild has guided hundreds of homebrewers to become professional brewers with his decades of work providing professional brewing education. He’s come up with a list of the most common surprises people have when jumping from hobbyist to pro. You may have years of experience making your own beer, but here’s what Steve thinks you will need to prepare for ahead of time when looking at opening your own brewery and charging customers for your beers.
STEVE PARKES
BREWMASTER & OWNER, DROP IN BREWING COMPANY
OWNER & LEAD INSTRUCTOR, AMERICAN BREWERS GUILD
3:20 – 3:45 p.m.
Q&A WITH NANO VENDORS – You can check in live with your choice of top craft brewing vendors to get your questions answered about Nano-sized equipment, gear, ingredients, and supplies.
3:50 – 4:45 p.m.
CONTRACT BREWING: PERSONAL EXPERIENCES ON THE PROS AND PERILS – BREWERY OPERATIONS
Many small breweries and start-ups look at contract brewing as an attractive and cost-effective option to increase their production without the expense of new equipment or need for extra brewery space. But brewing your beer outside of your walls isn’t always free from headaches and problems. Brian Buckman co-founded Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago back in 2015 where he is the head brewer. In addition to their own in-house brewing Illuminated has contract brewed over the years with quite a few different area breweries and right now contract brew with two Chicagoland breweries to meet their production needs. During those years Brian has experienced both the good and bad sides of this arrangement and here’s here to share with you the lessons he’s learned from years of contracting out brewing.
BRIAN BUCKMAN
CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD BREWER, ILLUMINATED BREW WORKS
BREWERY ACCOUNTING 101 – START-UPS
Learn the tools to better understand and manage your upcoming craft brewery’s money needs. You’ll gain a basic understanding of the importance of finance and accounting in craft beer and learn the top financial mistakes breweries make (and how to avoid them). You’ll then begiven an overview of the basics of the brewery balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statements to understand how they all tie together for your future brewery business. Brewery cost accounting will be touched on including beer recipe costing and overhead allocation.
AUDRA GAIZIUNAS
OWNER, BREWED FOR HER LEDGER, LLC
LEGAL CHECKLIST FOR YOUR BREWERY – BUSINESS OPERATIONS & SALES
Are you unknowingly making legal mistakes that will negatively hurt your brewery? From intellectual property to navigating permits to employment law, there are plenty of ways an existing Nano can run into trouble in the course of just doing business. Craft Brewery Lawyer Matthew McLaughlin will share his legal checklist any existing brewery should review and keep in mind to make sure in the course of brewing great beer you also run into legal troubles and roadblocks that you could have avoided.
MATTHEW MCLAUGHLIN
FOUNDER, MCLAUGHLIN, PC