Writer: Jamil Zainasheff

I knew distributing beer would be hard work and I wanted to sign up with distributors as soon as possible.

Most brewers will tell you that attending the Great American Beer Festival is one of the highlights of the year for them. It is a big spectacle of beer, brewers, and beer lovers. It is something for every beer
geek’s bucket list.

I received an email from a homebrewer dreaming of becoming a commercial brewer and he asked, “How late is too late for a determined fool to chase an old dream?”

I’ve always wondered what the secret is to creating a successful brewery.

I think most brewers would agree, a beer’s life begins the moment the yeast are finished with fermentation.

We’ve been spending a lot of time lately scrubbing some used kegs we bought.

It all seems so simple on paper. You brew the beer, stick it in some packaging, then sell it to the thirsty hoards. How hard could it be? It isn’t rocket science, right?

We nearly didn’t get to brew out a second batch of beer.

OK, so the long awaited day arrived and we brewed our first batch of Heretic beer.

In a way, I can’t believe we will be brewing our first batch in just a couple days.

There are a lot of little and not so little things to do before your brewery is ready to produce beer.