Tag Archives: Aaron Jonckheere

Best Practices … Writing a Business Plan

I spent the night on Sunday at Hoppapalooza, one of the best events for Vancouver Craft Beer Week, hosted by the amazing Alibi Room. I had the chance to speak with many amazing people at party, many of whom gave me great suggestions and advice on what choices to make with our brewery. I was asked numerous questions about our business and starting a brewery, which I found very interesting and flattering. One of the questions I was asked several times throughout the night, was about writing a business plan. It is also one of the questions that I get asked most often via email, by way of this blog.

So instead of going on and on about the business plan, what to put into it and what not to put into it, I figured it would be best to just give a few pointers and then a list of important points to consider when creating one.

Start with the end in mind: Yes, this is one of Stephen Coveys 7 habits of highly effective people, but I have always liked this point. So in other words, what are you going to use the business plan for? Your answer to this question will directly effect the scope of your plan. A plan to just figure out your operations might be a little different than one aimed at investors.
Put more into it, get more out of it: Our business plan was a real labour of love. We put excessive amounts of time and energy into our plan, as both Iain and I have personalities that make us overly fastidious about this kind of thing. So we spent a lot of time making sure that we planned every detail, and projected every scenario, good and bad.
No matter what, this is your roadmap: We refer to our business plan on a regular basis, and it has become a living document for our business. The great thing about having a plan is that it also allows any difference in opinion you may have with your partner to be vetted. Moreover, the roadmap ensures that when you opinion changes in the future on something, you can judge it against a baseline, of what you once thought.
Plan for about 6 months minimum: I can’t see how you could write a well thought out business plan in less time than this. Our business plan was a solid 12 months of writing, and then about 2 years of reviewing and revising every component of it. By the end of the 2 years, our plan had completely changed several times over to become what it is now. Moving forward, our plan will surely continue to change, and each time, we will take the time to update the details, so that our roadmap stays accurate.
Its all about the financials: Your cash flow is the most important part of the business plan. It has to be realistic and it has to prove that you can make money quickly and consistently. If you financials don’t add up, then you need to re-evaluate what you are doing and the approach you are taking. Our cash flow has become a monster, and it is something that without, we would be lost.
Keep it short and sweet: No matter what, but out all the crap. Your plan should be no more than 25 pages written and about 25 exhibits. For your financial projections, create a high, low and medium. Shoot for the stars with your high projections …. say Parallel 49 or Driftwood. Aim for realistic on the medium …. say Powell Street or Coal Harbour. Seriously tank on the low, so you know what could happen …. say Surgenor or other under performing brewery. The low will get you out of bed at 5am, the high will keep you dreaming of what could be, and the medium is likely where you will end up (I think).
Don’t use we, use your company name: Maybe this is just a stylistic thing or my personal preference, but you are not talking about you, or your life. You are discussing a business that you may or may not be a part of down the line. According to your lawyer and accountant, your business is an entity unto itself, so refer to it that way.
Have sub plans for various facets: We have a marketing plan that is about 25 pages, and a production plan, that is also about 25 pages, along with a few other plans we are working on. Each of these detailed plans will be shortened and augmented to fit within your plan. Just put a note in that section of the business plan, that there is more information if the reader so desires.
Non-disclosure: You may be handing out your business plan more than you think, so you will need to decide who needs to sign a NDA and who doesn’t. From what I read, anyone that is a seasoned investor, don’t bother asking them to sign one. It will be insulting. But for others who are already in the business, or locals who you might think will tell the world what you have planned, it is your call. We really never had anyone sign our NDA, other than some local brewery owners who we were going to partner with (but didn’t) several years ago.
Prepare a presentation: Maybe not if you don’t need any investors, but for those of you who need outside investment in your brewery, create a power point presentation of your plan, and summarize the key points. Make sure you let the people know what is in it for them. They will always want to know what they will get in return for allowing you to use their hard earned money. Practice your presentation over and over, until you feel at ease. Make sure you try it out on a few people before you go to any actual investors.
Prepare to get rejected: I didn’t track all my failures as much as could have, but I will tell you that I met with about 50 people over the course of 18 months, and we have only about 10 investors in our brewery. That meant I had a 1 in 5 success rate. You may be much better than this, but no matter what, expect some people to pass on your opportunity. Don’t take it personally, ask a lot of questions why they didn’t go with you, and learn so that you can minimize this moving forward.
Be proud, positive and confident: I am overly realistic, so one of my biggest challenges was that I didn’t sugar coat anything for anyone. I never promised that we would make it, never promised riches at the end of the journey, so if things did go off the rails, I would have my conscious clear. However, you can still be proud and positive about what you are doing. In fact, this is super important. No one else will believe in you, if you don’t believe in yourself.
Use a business plan guide: I have my business plan guide in storage, so I can’t tell you which one I used, but be sure to have a guide that will help walk you through each of the key facets of your business plan. A guide explains all the details that you need to know, and will help you determine how to best write your plan. I have written a total of 4 business plans in my lifetime, and I still wouldn’t consider writing a business plan without some sort of guide to help write the plan.

So that is my best practices on writing a business plan. I will gladly send you a copy of my business plan, should you want to see what we created. Just send me a message. Best of luck, and writing a business plan can be a lot of fun, so make sure you prepare yourself for an amazing journey.

Hitting the Wall

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Today I lost my shit at about 4pm. After a week of burning the candle at both ends, getting only about 5 hours sleep a night, and having one of the busiest weeks of the year, I literally melted at about 4pm. I couldn’t talk, hold a conversation, engage with my wife or kids, or even crack a smile. The burden of this brewery, and all the associated mental and physical work involved got the better of me.

So instead of writing about this, or anything else, I am going to take the rest of the night off and get some rest. I had planned to write about best practices for concrete, mechanical and trade waste interceptor, but it will have to wait for another day.

I feel I have been ignoring this blog, so I do feel bad about not writing too much of late, but I hope that next week will be a chance to write more. Thanks to everyone for your continued support and I hope to have some good articles this week.

The toll this brewery is taking on me

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There are so many amazing parts to starting your own business. Things like never having a boss again, being able to build a business and brand, making choices based on your own preferences and opinions, and how every day is a new and amazing adventure. These are experiences beyond words and they have helped to make the process of starting a craft brewery all that you think it would be. The other side of this equation involves many other experiences and instances that are less than glamorous, or things that become worse through this process.

One of these things is the relationship you have with family and friends. It is not that the business directly effects these relationships, rather the extra time and attention starting a business takes will eat into the amount of time you have for those close to you. It is a slippery slope to walk, and one that you will often find yourself on the wrong side of. There are many ways to get back to the other side, but it takes ingenuity and changing the established patterns you have …. and lots of coffee.

For me family is everything. I love spending time with my wife and kids. For the most part it is a release from the challenges and grind that makes up starting a business. However, that can become a challenge when you have a list of 40 or 50 hours of work sitting on your desk. Things like entering information into Quickbooks, marketing, ordering equipment, budget revisions, brewhouse work, manual labour, meeting with trades people, and even writing this blog. All these things help to chip away at any sense of release you can enjoy when not at your desk. In other words, your mind starts to wander when you let it, when sometimes what you need is to forget about the business. That is always easier said than done.

Starting a brewery also means that you have a LOT less time for family and friends. Saturdays become work days, early mornings are the domain of getting to-do’s checked off your list and late nights are for preparing for the following day. Sitting with my wife watching a little TV, figuring out who is working when, or even talking about life seems like something we rarely do anymore. Life is busy enough with all that is going on, but to think how much time I have taken away from focusing on my life partner is a little alarming. Same goes for my kids. I have been accustomed to being there for my kids over the past 7 years. I pride myself on coaching their sports teams, dropping off and picking up them from school, and helping with the myriad of chores around the house. All of these things become much harder to do when you are focusing on your selfish dreams.

This selfishness is something we all deal with at some point. Maybe you are looking for additional work to pay off some bills, or you are back in school trying to get a degree, or maybe you are starting a brewery! No matter how you break it down, being selfish results in different things at different times in your life. When you are in your 20’s, focusing on yourself is a lot easier that your 30’s, when family becomes a (really good) drain on your time. Now that Iain and I are into our early 40’s, the lack of time for family and friends is only made worse by a lack of energy.

So with all this in mind, I should officially take this forum to apologize to my dear family and my amazing friends. I am sorry that you don’t see me as much, or hear from me as much as you have in the past. Or when I am around I might be distracted or preoccupied with thoughts of my life. Just know that during this chapter of my life, my focus has changed and that I hope balance and normalcy will return one day. Until then, maybe tell me to lighten up or crack a joke when you can, it will help me be in the moment.

The jobs involved in opening a brewery …

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There are many things to do in starting a business, that much is for sure. But let me be the first to say that there are about twice as many jobs to get done as you first anticipate, when you are conjuring up your business plan months and years before actually taking that leap of faith. With the help of this post, you can plan ahead, learn some skills, mentor from someone who has experience, take a few classes, or just meet someone with a complimentary skill set to yours.

In no particular order, here are the things you need to be good at:

Salesperson: Maybe I put this first because I feel like there is so much of this process that you need to get buy-in on. Whether it be your spouse and why they should support you in opening a craft brewery, investors to see a bright future in your business, or even possible partners to believe in what you are doing, you are always pitching an idea to someone it seems. Not a lot of people have sales experience, so I would recommend Spin Selling by Neil Rackham
Janitor: Get really good at sweeping. This means finding a messy floor somewhere and getting a good broom and going to town. A couple techniques. There is the long stroke or the short stroke. I seem to prefer long strokes on smooth surfaces and short strokes on rough surfaces
Accounting: There is no way you want to get behind on this one. From the start, have a good idea of your plan for taking care of the books and reporting this information. We use an accountant and they have set us up on a system that works with their office. Essentially, we track everything in quickbooks, pay every bill and invoice, and then push this to them at the end of the year. Easy enough, but it was a long road to get here. My recommendation is to use Quickbooks, which is available online for $250.00 or so.
Digger: Another really important skill to have. I suggest you head to the beach, and try digging a couple holes and a trench. Do this a couple times a week, so that when it comes time to dig up floors, or shovel dirt, you are in prime shape to make this happen. A key here is to manage your shovel loads. Not too much dirt now …
Marketing: I have always kept marketing separate from sales as I think they are 2 very different things. In short, marketing is the long term plan and vision for your brand, and sales is the day-to-day activity. Read some books, look at other companies, brands and marketing whenever you can, and learn from others who specialize in this to get a better understanding of what you should (and shouldn’t) do. My book recommendation here is Permission Marketing by Seth Godin.
Steelworker: My hands don’t lie, you will need to get good installing and tying rebar and wire. I suggest you go get a job tying rebar for a week at a local construction site. Make a B-Line for the site super and tell them how your baby soft hands are in need of toughening up. Don’t forget to strengthen your lower back as well, as you will be bending over for most of the day. Just find your happy place, and try to think about how great it will be to serve your beer to the world when you are finished.
Decision Maker: You will need to to learn how to make decisions based on the advice of others. It will often involve a complex set of parameters with varying opinions, the exact answer you must decide on your own. Good examples is whether to lease that warehouse that is empty or what floor plan to use for your brewery. You will get opinions from realtors, bankers, lawyers, engineers, accountants, architects, and even your friends and family, but at the end of the day, you make the decisions, so don’t overlook or underestimate what is important to you and how this decision will play out long term. My book recommendation is Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, a must read.
Painter: Up, down, up, down, repeat. Think of Mr Muyagi in the Karate Kid, and practice for painting with painting. This process should actually start with power washing, so find a dirty piece of concrete and let loose about 1,000 PSI to see what it feels like. When you have mastered use of the wand, you can move to painting. This involves a lot of cutting plastic poly, taping, and scraping. So get ready for the time of your life! Remember patience is the key to getting a good paint job.
Social Media: There are some breweries that open and they have put nothing out there, while there are others who tell everyone what they are doing every step of the way. I wouldn’t say one approach is right and the other is wrong, I would just say if you aren’t active in social media, at least understand what is happening and how you will take part in that down the road. My book recommendation here is Guerrilla Marketing
Psychologist: When you are dealing with trades people, construction workers, and general labourers you are going to hear stories that will make you cringe and make you smile all at the same time. Time to talk some sanity into these people!
Human Resources: you are going to hire people down the road, so its important that you understand what skills your team has, and what skills you would like to add to the mix. Without question, every person you hire is important, but the first couple out of the gate will truly make or break you. Hiring for Attitude is my book recommendation for this bucket
Bathroom Cleaner: Thats right! Get down on your hands and knees and scrub. Great preparation would be to head into your local Frat house and start cleaning the toilets. You see, trades people have the aim of a 3 year old boy, and the cleanliness of …. well a construction worker. So rubber gloves and eye protection are mandatory, while hazmat suit and respirator are optional.
Copywriter: A bit of sales and a bit of marketing in here, but that is not the point. You need to be able to convey information to others in written word. Whether it is your brand statement to consumers, a letter to your architects expressing your desire for changes to a plan, or the content on your website, you need to be able to write in concise terms. Personally, I am not the best at this, as those who read my blog with regularity can attest, but it sure is something you can work on … like I do in writing this blog. My book recommendation is Writing that Works.
Phone Hanger Upper: You will get good at hanging up the phone. This is a product of having a lot of phone calls, but also a lot of telemarketers call. I find the best way to get out of the conversation is to cut yourself off mid-sentence, that way the other person will think the line was disconnected. Don’t hang up while they are talking, as it is a giveaway you did the dirty.
Retail Manager: A huge portion of a new breweries sales take place at the tasting room and growler fill area. For a company like Brassneck, the experience they gained from their previous experiences only helped to make their retail experience what it is …. amazing. Same goes for Bomber and others, as their retail experience only helped them to make sure they got the retail area perfect. For us, we need to find help on that front. We need someone who will understand what we are doing, and help us to nail it. We are looking for this person and hopefully they can come on board at the right time.
Mechanic: We have yet to experience this one for the most part, but it would be wise to learn some basic skills around fixing things. I have heard the horror stories of things breaking down and needing repair in a brewhouse are too numerous to mention, so knowing what to do, or who to call is a very important component of keeping operations smooth. Remember, red is positive and black is negative.
Delivery Person: When the production gets going, we know that a good portion of time will be driving around and dropping off product. We view this interaction as very important, and something that we need to do in person.
Production: Maybe I put this last because it is the most important on this list. I still maintain that we can get everything else on this wrong, or not have any skills in those areas, but as long as you make a quality product that is consistent, you will do well. Maybe I am a little naive, but having good beer will make everything else easier. So this is where you need to make a choice: Either find someone who knows and wants to handle production, or learn the skills necessary yourself. Guys like Ben Coli are a good example of someone who wanted to handle production themselves. I would be antithesis of this, as I always knew there would be someone else handling this part of operations. I think at the end of the day, you need to decide what role in the business you want to have, and go for it. Book recommendation here is any and every book that has to do with brewing or production.

The most interesting thing about this list is that you will be doing all of these things on a daily basis. There are days I go from item to item to item, and then I repeat a few of them. That makes the job interesting, but also means you have to get really good at prioritizing, multi tasking, and working in several silos all at the same time. For instance, as I write this post I am also answering emails, texting my partner and yelling at my kids!

An Uncomfortable Decision

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Throughout the process of starting any business, you learn quickly to deal with unforeseen circumstances on a regular basis. Things like missed deliveries, unexpected costs, delays by a government body, missing parts, etc. Recently we had one of the biggest curveballs sent our way, from the most unlikely of places. Our Structural Engineer who has been working with us a lot lately, just had a heart attack.

For starters, we wish him all the best in his return to health. Having worked as a pharmaceutical salesperson, I have learned the effect ill health can have on a persons physical and mental well being. It can effect different people in a number of ways. So we wish our engineer all the best in getting back to health after such a traumatic experience.

Let me give you a little context to the situation. A structural engineer is pretty important on most any building process, as there are lots of decisions to be made around making sure big components are sound. Things like; making sure our floors are structurally sound, the grain hopper is fastened to the building properly, connecting the new curbs to the old concrete slab properly, and making sure the walls and ceilings are properly built so they can handle a heavy load …. you get the idea. So having someone that understands your project, and someone that works within your timeline is key.

More importantly, when you are at the point our brewery build-out is right now, a structural engineer and their work is critical in moving things ahead. For instance, there is a list of about 10 things that our engineer is working on, and without his guidance and advice, we can’t make any progress.

Let me now recap a few of our issues with our engineer and you will see why we need to make such an uncomfortable decision. We picked our structural engineer about 6 months ago, and like a lot of decisions we make, it was based on personality, a referral and price. He was not from a company or firm, rather just a guy who works on his own … he is the only employee. Early in the process of things, he gave us some advice, and it seemed very good and we looked forward to working with him on things.

Fast forward to the day we took possession: February 1st, 2014. All of a sudden we needed our engineer to start producing some drawings and work for us, but our emails and calls went unanswered. We reconnected with our architect over this, and they handled things, allaying our concerns and repointing everyone in the right direction (they are good at this). As our general contractor kept sinking his teeth into the building of our brewery, he had more and more questions for the structural engineer.

He put these questions to the engineer on a regular basis for the next month, until about the beginning of April, when we really started to worry about not getting drawings and answers on what exactly he was supposed to be doing with certain parts of the brewery. This time we contacted the engineer directly to tell him our concerns. He gave us a few small little answers, but nothing concrete. Fast forward to the last week of April, and it was now critical to get answers. We needed to know about drain construction, floors, connecting old cement with new, etc., and we still didn’t get or have any answers.

A meeting was planned at the end of April to discuss what we needed, and how urgently we needed it, and it went amazingly well. The engineer agreed that he was late in getting stuff to us, and promised we would have this information for last Friday. We felt really good about things and moved forward with a positive attitude.

You can probably see where this is going. Last Friday came and went, and we received nothing. We were pretty disappointed to say the least. The bottom line is that we need these drawings for work that is getting done right now, and without them, we are opening ourselves up to major problems. The biggest of these is a delayed opening, which means we will loose even more money in our first year.

Well the news got even worse on Monday morning, as we learned that this engineer had a heart attack and was in the hospital. And since he is from a company of 1, there was no way to get anything he has done. So what would you do? Do you show compassion and wait for him to get out of the hospital, and let him finish the project …. or do we move in a different direction, avoiding any further delays. We ground our teeth on this one, but as of yesterday we have moved on with a new structural engineer.

In one way its good, as we get a fresh start with someone who hopefully be a little more proactive on getting things done. Moreover, in our initial consultation he gave us a lot of really good information and advice, something we didn’t get from our last engineer. In the another way, moving on with someone else is bad. We have lost all the work that he completed, there is definitely going to be some bad blood over the bill and invoice for work he has done, but not delivered to us on, and we feel bad kicking him when he is down.

At the end of the day, we need to move this process forward now. So waiting for our engineer to heal and get better, while the right thing to do, is not something we are doing. We do wish our contractor all the best, and we hope to recovers and gets back on his feet ASAP. This is just one of the harsh decisions you have to make when starting a business, one that kind of makes you uncomfortable.

General Contractors and Sub-contractors

Floorplan Update and Best Practices

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Some of you may have come across a story written by Greg Clow of Canadian Beer News. If you live in Canada and you are serious about beer, you should be checking his website on a regular basis. Click here to link with our story and Canadian Beer News. His article focused on Strange Fellows operations and what our full floor plan will look like when complete.

I have included both the layout we have moved forward with as well as the side profile of the space, so you can get a sense of the way our operations will look. Not unlike anything else we put out there, things will change somewhat as we move ahead; however, 90% of what is on paper here will be represented in our build-out at the space. Once you commit to submitting building, electrical and mechanical permits, you are also committing to what you have on paper. So in other words, the size of a window in our tasting room that overlooks the brew house may get bigger, but we have committed the location for the bathrooms, the trade waster interceptor and the trenches.

We have allocated a total of $12,500 for permits throughout this process. I have blogged about them a little bit under The Process of Starting a Craft Brewery, subcategory X: Government Stuff. There are lots of permits you need and getting them all in a timely manner is important. To be honest, the process of preparing for permits and approval is one of the keys to getting this process right. In short, for your business to move forward you need to submit for your permits in a timely manner, with information that is well thought out, thorough and correct. Changes or missed steps here will cost you down the road. Read more about permits at the page linked above (and I will add more details in the next week).

Anyhow, coming full circle here, our floor plan was a real labour of love. Like any decisions you make with a partner, there is give and take. However, when you add in an architect, mechanical and electrical engineers, a general contractor and your finances, you get a mish-mash of opinion and information. You can never make a decision without effecting every other decision you have made in the past, and every other decision you will make in the future.

Some of the keys when creating a floor plan are as follows:

Keep everything as central as possible. The longer runs you have for any electrical or mechanical, the more cash you will bleed. For us, moving our main electrical panel 10 feet saved us $3,000. So you can see that small changes can make a big difference.
Plan for the future, but prioritize getting to day 1. It is important to think a couple of steps ahead here, at least that is what I have heard from other breweries, but don’t lose sight that you need to get to day 1.
Look to save money at every step. Ok, maybe you are better at this than I am, but we are in full cash saving mode, and we feel like we have been for a long time. Any chance we can save money on something, we are doing it.
Tasting room and Retail area. A huge part of all these breweries starting up in Vancouver is the ability to sell your products from your business. It takes what was once an impossible task, and makes it so much more realistic of an opportunity. So make sure you design a space that works for your brewery. For us we wanted something intimate, open to the brewery, and simple.
Work with sub trades early in the process. You don’t have to pick who you are working with, but bouncing plans off them will give you real world answers to questions you have. It was also help you find savings and efficiencies in your space.
Another dilemma on decisions. You can have things done quickly, you can have things done for your budget, and you can have things done inline with your dreams, but at best you will get 2 of these things, but most of the time you will only get 1 of these things. What will you pick?
Call the room where you mill your grains a “grain cracking room”. Trust me on this one, it will save you a bunch of headaches at the City
Depending on if you are focusing on production or focusing on tasting room/retail sales, your layout may be different. For us, we are a production brewery first, so the layout and design of the space tried to take this into account as much as possible. Process workflow, material in and material out, future expansion are all important to us, and are reflected in our space.
Keep your cooler close to the tasting room. Iain has so much experience with this kind of thing, that he is adamant that these 2 things need to be connected. He talks about the shorter the run of lines, and being able to connect our taps to tanks instead of kegs will save us heaps of time.

What really gets us excited about our space is the connection between the tasting room and the brewery. When you are sitting in our tasting room, you will quite literally be 10 feet away from the brewhouse. Want to watch Iain add hops to a brew, just sit back enjoy your beer and watch from your perch. You will also be able to have a first hand view of the barrel storage area, which we think is a really cool thing. We also think the art gallery will add a nice connection to the local community, and we hope the growler and retail area will have good process flow so as to not back-up too much.

As I have always said, Iain is really good with this kind of thing, so if you have questions about how to lay your brewery out, feel free to contact us. At the end of the day, follow your instincts on the way things should be. Whether you have experience with this kind of thing or not, make sure you follow what you would want as a consumer. You will deal with enough people along the way that aren’t into craft beer (like contractors, architects, etc) that their opinion will help to balance yours out. Stay positive and you will find the way.

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Marketing Update – Website, Blog, Social Media, etc

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It seems there have been 2 buckets that I have been working in lately: Fixing the warehouse and building our brand. I love the physical aspect of working in the brewery, and I am sure you would too. What I have found is that when you build a company, its hard to see progress and win the little battles that make up the war. For instance, when it came to picking a name, it took literally hundreds of hours of work and effort, and you don’t see any milestones along the way. One day you just have a name. But when you have a physical project like constructing a brewery, its easy to see progress along the way, and I like that.

We have been busy painting the warehouse lately. The amount of time and energy this has taken astounds both of us. We have had great help from family and friends who are incredibly supportive of our journey. Without their help from the get-go, none of this would be possible, and I am sure this is going to continue onwards in the future as well. Even with this help, we have spent 2 weeks preparing the space for painting and first coat of primer. I guess that is what happens when you have a 9,000 square foot space, with 19 foot ceilings.

So when we are not going up and down the forklift preparing walls for paint, and applying paint, we have been busy with organizing what our brand will look like. That means meetings, meeting and more meetings. I have come to realize that it is incredibly important to express how you feel in a positive and straight forward manner. When it comes to the way I feel about something, I owe to my partner and the business to say what I need to say, all the while improving the relationship with my partner and leaving my influence on the business.

We have picked a logo, and it may not be finalized, it will look similar to this.

Online I can understand why people are torn between the 2 logos we had everyone vote on, but when you see them on a bottle printed out, the decision was quite easy. The text on the other option seemed too small, and didn’t stand out on the bottle like this logo. So thank you to everyone for your feedback and input into our decision. The results were virtually even on our blog and also the Vancity Buzz poll, so at the end of the day, we had to make the decision. There might be people who strongly dislike our image and brand, and we have quickly come to realize that we are ok with that. But we have also come to realize that our brand is so much more than a logo.

All of our social media is now live:

Twitter: Strange_Fellows

Instagram: strangefellowsbrewing

facebook: strangefellowsbrewing

We are busy working on our landing page for the website, and it will likely be another couple weeks before we have something up and running. Until then, the main contact points are the above …. and of course this blog. As Iain so shrewdly put the other day, he is the one doing all the work in starting a brewery, and I am the one telling everyone about all the work he is doing in starting a brewery. Seems like a good set-up to me!

Your feedback is always welcome and helps us to know what we are doing well and what we can work on. Should you think of anything we can do to make this company better, we would love to hear from you.

I'm Starting A Craft Brewery

We are starting Strange Fellows Brewing in Vancouver. Follow the ups and downs of that process here.