October 2014 - MicroBrewr

MicroBrewr 033: Wastewater treatment solutions for a craft brewery

October 28, 2014/10 Comments/in Podcast /by Nathan Pierce +

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Wastewater treatment is a key issue for a craft brewery. John Mercer from Brewery Wastewater Design in Montrose, Colorado has more than a decade of experience. He shares wastewater treatment solutions for a craft brewery.

For every gallon of beer produced, a typical brewery uses 7 gallons of water. If your municipal wastewater treatment plant can’t handle it, you could be facing high fees for wastewater treatment.

Brewery wastewater can fall into one of several categories:

Floor drains in the brewery, which contain alcohol, sugars, and other contaminants.
Kitchen drains, which includes grease.
Restrooms, which typically go the sewage treatment plant.
Side stream, which is a way to divert extremely concentrated wastewater such as spent yeast, waste beer, fermenter blow-off, and trub.

If your brewery is in an area that has municipal sewage service, you might not have to do anything. If you’re in the county with no sewage service, you’ll likely have to build your own brewery wastewater treatment infrastructure.

Solutions will vary depending on your brewery wastewater characteristics, or who designs your system.

Diverting the very concentrated sources through a “side stream,” could reduce the contaminants in your wastewater by 90%. Which could mean reduced fees for treatment.

Key questions to ask:

Is the wastewater facility at capacity?
How much would the fees cost?
Does your consultant have experience designing systems for breweries or other food manufacturers?

SPECIAL BONUS:

Ask John any question about wastewater treatment for your brewery.

Leave your questions in the comments section below.

John will keep watching the comments for the next 30 days to answer as many of your questions as he can.

Be sure to connect with Brewery Wastewater Design and thank John for being on the show and for helping us out with questions.

UPDATE: Thirty days is up, John is no longer monitoring the questions here. You can still reach him through the links below. Thanks for your great questions everyone!

Tweetable:

“I came back to brewery work because the people are the greatest and the industry is the greatest.” [Tweet This]

Listener question:

From Megan Tolbert: How low environmental impact is your business?

Book recommendation:

Beyond the Pale: The Story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. by Ken Grossman.

Check out the entire list of recommended books, click here.

An upcoming beer style:

Sour beer

Other resources:

Your city public works department.
Your county environmental services department.
Brewery Wastewater 101 by John Mercer, Brewery Wastewater Design.
Water and Wastewater: Treatment/Volume Reduction Manual by Brewers Association.
The growing challenges of brewery wastewater systems by Keith Gribbins, Craft Brewing Business, September 6, 2013.
How side streaming your brewery wastewater can save you money, John Mercer, MicroBrewr, December 11, 2014.

You can reach John Mercer and Brewery Wastewater Design at:

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Help keep MicroBrewr on the air. CLICK HERE for ways you can help.

MicroBrewr 032: Export beer to tap new craft beer markets

October 21, 2014/0 Comments/in Podcast /by Nathan Pierce +

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Maximus BumSoo didn’t like beer so he told his friends that he was allergic to hops. Finally, one night in London, he drank a London Pride and loved it! He emailed the company and spent the next 3 weeks learning about beer. Then he flew to London and got the exclusive distribution deal.

Now Maximus is CEO and President of London Ale & Co. in Seoul, Korea. They are the exclusive distributor of Fuller Smith & Turner’s beers from the United Kingdom.

If you have excess product or if you want to expand to new markets, you might want to export beer to tap new craft beer markets. American craft beer is popular in Korea, and other foreign markets are craving craft beer from the U.S. and elsewhere.

Some of Maximus tips on how to export craft beer:

Contact your local governing agency about legal requirements.
Pick an importer who loves your beer.
Pick an importer with enough funds to move large shipments of your product.
It’s best to ship the product with climate control the whole way, but it’s not always feasible.
Get paid up-front.

Listener question:

From Nick Bray: Why are you doing this work?

Book recommendation:

Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter.
Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery by Sam Calagione.
The Oxford Companion to Beer by Garrett Oliver (Editor).

Check out the entire list of recommended books, click here.

An upcoming beer style:

Sour beer

Other resources:

Exporting Alcohol Beverage from the U.S., TTB, International Affairs Division (IAD).
Directory of State Alcohol Beverage Control Boards.
Export Development Program (EDP), Brewers Association.
U.S. craft brewers exporting beer – and ideas – around the world, Eric Gorski, The Denver Post, April 8, 2014.
Why American Craft Beer Exports Are Booming, Lisa Wirthman, Forbes, July 11, 2013.

You can reach Maximus BumSoo and London Ale & Co. at:

Diagram showing the Chief Winds of the World and the Average Rainfall (1922) by Eric Fischer on flickr (CC BY 2.0) was modified from its original state.

You might also like:

MicroBrewr 045: Launch your brewery with a strong opening night, featuring West Cork Brewing Company in Baltimore, Ireland.

Support MicroBrewr

Help keep MicroBrewr on the air. CLICK HERE for ways you can help.

MicroBrewr 031: Accounting solutions for your craft brewery

October 14, 2014/11 Comments/in Podcast /by Nathan Pierce +

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So you want to start a brewery and you don’t know what to do about bookkeeping and accounting. Audra Gaiziunas, Brewed For Her Ledger, guides us through accounting solutions for your craft brewery.

With a degree in accounting and a Masters of Business Administration, Audra worked as controller for Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. Later, she served on the board of North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild and worked as CFO of Mother Earth Brewing.

Now Audra provides a “kind of one-stop shop, mercenary, CFO for hire” for craft breweries. She helps with accounting solutions such as business plans, pro-formas, costing templates, and software implementation. She also does operational audits and more.

Recently Audra won a business plan competition at Oregon State University to earn an internship at Ninkasi Brewing. At the brewery in Eugene, Oregon, she enhanced her first-hand experience in production, technical, and maintenance aspects of Ninkasi’s operations.

The 3 biggest mistakes she sees breweries make:

Not having enough capital on hand. You’ll need more than 3 month’s cash on hand.
Not planning for information flow. Set up processes to make sure information and documents flow efficiently from one department to another.
Not having funds for contingencies. Set aside 10%-15% for unexpected expenses.

6 tools she suggests to manage your breweries finances:

Set aside time each week to handle paperwork.
Take a cash flow class at the community college.
Use Microsoft Excel or simple accounting software to track your data.
Ensure information is communicated between all departments of the brewery.
Build a budget annually and review it monthly to stay on track.
MOST IMPORTANT: Understand how much your beer costs at any given time, by beer type and by packaging type.