CA Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage Control

There is nothing more fun than working on paperwork when opening a new business. Especially if you are going to be selling alcohol. There are about 15 different licenses/permits/agencies that you need to work with and each of those have enough paper work to make you get carpal tunnel syndrome.

Here is a shot of the ABC paperwork on my computer.

That is 22 pages worth of questionnaires, diagrams, financial and personal histories. I have yet to figure out how much getting this license will cost us, but I know they can be a little pricey.

I do like that Arnold is on the ABC's homepage. I imagine he drinks fine hand-crafted beer and not ABInBevSABmillerCoorsMolson Conglomerate Fizzy Water. I cannot believe Obama drank a BL at the beer summit.

Home Sweet Home

WE MOVED INTO THE OUR WAREHOUSE!

This is the biggest move forward we have made to date, besides registering our fictitious business name.

I am excited to get this show on the road and actually having a space to call home will help push us in the right direction. Next up, dealing with the DEH to pass codes and whatnot. I hear that is going to be the toughest/most costly aspect of getting the business up and running.

I'll be sure to post more pictures once we actually have the place set-up. It might not look like much right now, but give us a couple months and you'll be surprised how great the beer this little place will be putting out.

Just remember, it's not the size of the brewery that counts. It how you use it.

Research: Breweries per Capita

I have been doing a little bit of research lately, specifically on the number of breweries per capita. I thought the USA would dominate considering we have far and away the most breweries at 1,480ish. Turns out we only come in 6th in terms of breweries per person.

Although this doesn't really concern us in anyway I just thought it was interesting and I couldn't find the information anywhere else, so I did a little research and came up with some numbers. I'm not sure how accurate they are, but they are probably somewhere in correct range.

Here's the top 10:

1. Belgium - 1 per 77,550 with 124 breweries
2. Germany - 1 per 91,250 with 940 breweries
3. Austria - 1 per 101,220 with 82 breweries
4. New Zealand - 1 per 122,650 with 35 breweries
5. U.K. - 1 per 160,877 with 282 breweries
6. United States - 1 per 218,520 with 1,480 breweries
7. Switzerland - 1 per 249,190 with 31 breweries
8. Sweden - 1 per 287,500 with 32 breweries
9. Canada - 1 per 294,950 with 112 breweries
10. France - 1 per 408,800 with 159 breweries

What surprised me most was Spain only has 16 breweries! Talk about a place with room to grow.

What Hath God Wrought?

Well, well, well... it looks like we are about to go on a bit of an adventure.

In three days we will be moving into a warehouse, which in turn will allow us to start dealing with the Health Department--eventually get our Type 23 ABC license, TTB approval, Fictitious Business Name, Seller's Permit, and so forth-- needed to become a legal commercial nanobrewery.

So grab a beer, relax, and enjoy me bloggin' & tweetin' and usin' whatever social networkin' tool comes out between now and our grand openin'.

It is sure going to be a wild ride, probably very similar to Splash Mountain, consider me your Br'er Rabbit.

I hope this blog will be useful to anyone who hopes to open a business of their own someday. I will be writing about all of the hardships, triumphs, and pitfalls of opening a new brewery in a very competitive industry.

Consider this BUS101 for beer.

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah