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HendrixCat made a few great points at the beginning of this post. He said that a microbrewery is not really feasible and that contract brewing was the way to go. Creat brand awareness and develop a varied customer base. Great points for any aspiring commercial brewer!

My idea plays off these points, points I was already aware of after my conversations with the Arainn Mhor Beer owner when it was launched.
The restaurant creates this customer base, gets the beers out there and makes people aware, the biggest obstacle in craftbrewing in my opinion. What's more inviting than a free glass of beer?!

Of course, you can't serve customers rubbish and expect to get away with it. The food would be no less than any other eaterie out there but the difference is you get a free beer aswell. A small point but one which travels the fastest on the grapevine.
Couple this with the B&C beerhall table layout and a long slender table/"bar" lining the wall for those eating on their own and I believe it could be a success.
And of course you also have the wine sales....

"Ichiban":1pdzmj08 wrote: My idea plays off these points, points I was already aware of after my conversations with the Arainn Mhor Beer owner when it was launched.
The restaurant creates this customer base, gets the beers out there and makes people aware, the biggest obstacle in craftbrewing in my opinion. What's more inviting than a free glass of beer?![/quote:1pdzmj08]

Sounds to me like, your idea is that of running a restaurant, with a sideline in beer. Like it or not, the business of running a restaurant would be the main focus. Anything beer related would, necessarily, be secondary.

I also think that the notion of avoiding the taxman by using it as a loop-hole is a bit unrealistic, whatever way you'd like to interpret the rules, the revenue will always interpret them to ensure that they get paid.

"Poc":231o26c2 wrote: Sounds to me like, your idea is that of running a restaurant, with a sideline in beer. Like it or not, the business of running a restaurant would be the main focus. Anything beer related would, necessarily, be secondary.

I also think that the notion of avoiding the taxman by using it as a loop-hole is a bit unrealistic, whatever way you'd like to interpret the rules, the revenue will always interpret them to ensure that they get paid.[/quote:231o26c2]

The whole objective of the restaurant is to establish a customer base, thats it. If that means running a restaurant than so be it, better than my current finance job! I'm thinking of the bigger picture, how to actually get craft beer on the market. Once the beer is established then you can think about opening a microbrewery full time. And you still have the restaurant as the testing ground.

As for pulling a fast one on the Taxman....."He who dares Rodney, he who dares....".

If it doesn't work out then I'd start selling my mead legally in the restaurant. Not much of a problem there I figure.

If you know a restaurant owner you could approach them and pitch this idea of offering your free beer with their food. If they've balls and perhaps struggling in the market they might just go for it!!

i was chatting with a piano player i was working with one night and he used t owork in hte carlow brewing company...he suggested to me if i had the storage facilities i should just get a micro to brew me a batch..he seemed to think it would work out as cheap....any chance we can lobby the government to drop the duty further for home based breweries....id imagine the amount of tourists interested in a micro brewery visit could be big. ive been in micros all over the place and the tours are always full....few free sample thrown in. how much would it cost to get the darcy's recipe? .....how i miss it so much.....what a stout.anyone ever brew anything similar? ...i just put a porter on this morn in hoping to have something within hte ballpark of flavour of darcy's (not the same ...but match it for flavour) i still think some lobbying and maybe an investor or two and all of us could do it...well its a wish anyway

If you could get your hands a recipe I'm sure a few us would volunteer to brew a batch, maybe it could be pencilled in for a future tasting session...

where do i start...they used to have this spanish woman working the phones...think she got fed up of me ringing them...not there anymore of course...any suggestions where one would purchase a commercial recipe such as that?