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I'd agree with Ken - producing a lager could be an expensive mistake. You're unlikely to win over the Bud drinkers as they are so brand loyal and another lager is unlikely to win over those of us who are looking for something different. On the other hand if you're not producing a generic yellow lager - something like Brooklyn Lager might work...

wow lots of doom and gloom - thats ok i am used to that and one never knows - you might turn out to be right... getting those bud drinkers onto something else might be tough but at the moment its not like there's a massive choice out there for them.

If you dont like ales and stouts in ireland you are stuck with a few big names and thats your lot well i think this is a challenge and an opportunity. and the beauty is that they dont even taste very nice. Personally i like warsteiner and would like to think something similar could be produced by us.

but you are right we do need to get into it and actually start brewing to see whether we like it and to see whether we can produce anything worth drinking!!

Ok well if no one is game we will start ourselves and come back to you for tips and tricks! <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

It's not doom and gloom, it's the unfortunate reality. I'd personally love to see loads of microbreweries and hopefully yours will be a success. I think people are just warning you to go into the business with your eyes open. Do lots of research on the Irish market first. Don't fall into the trap of thinking 'once those bud drinkers taste our tasty beer they'll convert over'. Not true there's a lot more than just taste that makes people drink beer. Again look to Galway Hooker and the other small breweries to see how to market yourself against the big boys.

There isn't much choice in ales and stouts in this country either btw.

Cillian,

The intention is not to discourage you but to offer constructive criticism. I think you should put a [u:1dezxuw2]lot[/u:1dezxuw2] of thought into deciding what style to brew before you jump in at the deep end. I feel that something like Warsteiner doesn't differentiate your beer enough from the offerings already available (and heavily marketed) from the mega brewers. Whatever you decide I wish you all the best and I hope to see the results on tap.

Yeah I agree with bogmyrtle- people aren't being negative, it's just you aren't the first person to decide they'd like to brew professionally, actually I'd say everyone on this forum dreams of running a micro, but once you get down to the details it's very hard to see how it will work. For example, doing the maths is depressing, it can be hard to see how you could even turn a profit at all let alone a decent one once you take taxes and that into account. there are many many obstacles, investmentwise, and also regarding your business plan. it's great that you have a premises, but you need to decide will you bottle you beer, keg it, if so who will buy it etc. Bottling yourself will be an added huge expense. But kegging and trying to sell through pubs means you have to find pubs to sell to and many are under a feudal style arrangement with the large companies that prevents them from taking independents on board

there are several possible business models, and there have been extensive discussions of feasibility on this thread <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="www.beoir.org/community/viewtopic.php?t=2402">viewtopic.php?t=2402

One problem you might want to consider is with lager. Lager is more expensive to brew, since you need fermenters that have cooling jackets since lager must be fermented at low temps. It is also generally not bottle conditioned, so that means you need to filter and force carbonate. Furthermore, the likes of wahrsteiner are very cheap beers, it would be hard to produce a bottle of lager for the same price that they are sold to off licenses for, let alone persuade pubs etc to buy your lager for more. So if you choose lager you are choosing to brew the most expensive beer, and compete with the cheapest. that's why most micros stick to ales. You might want to look at the style "blonde ale" which has become popular in britain, exactly because it is an ale that can be pitched to your average fizzy yellow lager drinker who mightn't like red and dark ales and stouts.

You might also be interested in the book "brewing up a business" by Sam Calagione, the founder of dogfish head brewery, a very successful microbrewery in Delaware. His setup was tiny to begin with but he marketed himself really well

No one here is trying to dissuade you or be doomy and gloomy, but there is a lot of planning and dificult decisions that need to be made even to get to the stage of convincing someone that the project is do-able. You need to read up on all this stuff and decide what sort of model you're going to follow. like I said I'm sure most of us have sat down and tried to see whether there's some way to make it work, and it's not easy.

Apart from all that though, you really should try to brew some beer! What if you don't like it after all that? <!-- s:P --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt="" title="Razz" /><!-- s:P --> [/url]

It seems to me that you are trying to undertake a crusade to get lager drinkers* to drink some other lager; this *will* fail. There are already many many options out there for them, all/most of them varying so imperceptibly as to be negligably different.

However if you want to be able to personally avoid filling the coffers of the multinationals and drink something else, then the obvious way is to brew what you want, but for yourself and friends; you do not need to open a microbrewery for this.

Now if you have a genuine love of all things beer, and wish to produce a new product to fill a void in the market that is not currently being served, then by all means go for it, and I definitely wish you all the best, and will volunteer my services as Chief Guinea Pig (tasting division). However in order to succeed your product needs to be sufficiently different from everything already out there to make it stand out from the crowd.

*(I would consider this to be a specific group of closed-minded people who drink lager purely because they like the effect that it produces; i.e. drunkenness, rather than the type of people that tend to frequent this sort of site; i.e. of the "I've never heard of or seen that one before, I'll give it a go". The lager drinkers tend to be of the opinion that if it's not on the tv, and it's not served with an insulated mitt to prevent freezerburn to your hands, it's not worth "wasting" money on.)