So, you’re a fan of beer. You’re a connoisseur of all the craft breweries in your area, the king of pairing beer with your meals, and if you’re a special type of brew-happy, you also belong to the elite class of men known as homebrewers.
If you’re a homebrewer who’s been in the game for a while now, you may have thought about sharing your brewing prowess with the world and making a buck off it. But knowing the differences between homebrewing and commercial brewing will help you navigate those unknown waters to decide whether owning a pub is in your future.
Larger Scale
The brewing process hasn’t changed too much in the last few thousand years, and it doesn’t change much when you go from homebrewing to commercial. But what does change is the scale. Brewing 15,000 barrels of beer in a year takes larger equipment and more space, after all.
Along with quantity comes variety. Remember, the difference between homebrewing and commercial brewing involves your target audience. As a homebrewer, you can make the same American wheat ale over and over and no one minds. But if you want to open a brewpub, your customers won’t be too happy about a one-drink menu. Commercial brewers must offer a wide range of flavors to achieve success.
Significance of Environmental Control
Brewing is both an art and a science, and any scientist will tell you that the surrounding environment can directly impact how your experiment turns out. If you want your tasty, liquid experiment to come out consistently for your customers, you must control those conditions.
Temperature
If you’ve ever brewed beer in your garage or basement, you know that a winter’s day or a heat wave can change the quality of your fermentation. Too little heat will put your yeast to sleep, but too much will kill it. Along with making sure your equipment can maintain your fermentation temperature, you have to control the temperature in your brewhouse.
Sanitation
Anyone who was forced to read The Jungle in high school knows that if you’re making a product for people to consume, you can’t ignore hygiene. But hygiene does more than prevent your customers from getting sick. Contaminants in beer are the proverbial fly in the ointment, throwing off your beer’s flavor. Remember, consistency is key, so it’s important to find a consistent sanitation strategy for your equipment.
Differences in Experimentation
Since you are the customer as a homebrewer, you can try just about any off-the-wall ingredient you want with a 100 percent customer satisfaction rate. But the life of a commercial brewer is the life of an entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs have other customer’s sensibilities to consider.
You must experiment strategically. Different types of beer mean different types of fermentation vessels and ingredients. You must decide whether your brewery-to-be can invest in these things and whether the investment is worth it as far as your customers go. But once you get it right, it’s all the more satisfying knowing you’ve made a brew your fellow beer fans can enjoy.
Van Rundell is a writer and author who specializes in transportation, travel, guidance, health & fitness. With over 10 years of experience in the industry as a driver and an entrepreneur, he has seen it all. His tone is professional but friendly with a dash of humor thrown in for good measure. In past, he has been advising, educating and writing about transport for the public and professionals alike.
A qualified fitness instructor with over 5 years’ experience as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor, Van brings his deep knowledge of health and exercise science to his articles on health & fitness.
