The Complete Guide to Opening a Nanobrewery.

Here is a little list of things you need to accomplish if you feel like you wanna open up a nanobrewery of your own. I guess it is relevant for a full scale brewery too. I actually made this list for JC of Trillium Brewing, who will probably be going down the smaller scale road like us.

 Brewery Licenses/Permits/Etc:

Local /County Government:

Planing Department: this is where you gotta go to make sure you can actually open up a brewery at your desired location. If not you'll have to appeal to the government and get Conditional Use Permit.

Department of Environmental Health: If you are going to have a tasting room you'll have to deal with your local DEH. Make sure you get someone that knows what they are talking about.

State Board of Equalization: You need to have a seller's permit which is a local/county run deal.

Business License: A license to actually do business in your city.

Building Permit: If you are doing any serious construction this will be needed. Sometimes even for smaller jobs too.

State Government: 

Department of Health: if you are opening up a wholesale food processing facility, which is the category a microbrewery falls into, they will need to approve you facility.

Alcoholic Beverage Control Board: This is the basic license application. We have a type-23 microbrewery license. We have all the same rights as a type-01 license holder except the fee is considerably less.

Paperwork you'll have to file: Personal Affidavit, Additional Affidavits, Personnel Questionnaire, Corporate Questionnaire (if you are an LLC/ Corp), Diagram of Brewing Facility, Zoning Paperwork, Consideration Point (i.e. schools, churches, etc.), Residence (i.e. if you are close to non-commercial buildings), Signature Sheet (for LLC/Corp), and Tied-House Restriction Paperwork. All in all about 22 pages of paperwork.

Excise Tax Division of BOE: An excise tax permit is required as well. They require a bond as collateral.

LLC or Corporate Articles of Incorporation: Done through a lawyer and usually a yearly fee associated with this as well ($800-1000 per year)

Federal Government:

IRS Employee ID Number: This is just to keep track of your business taxes. Easy to obtain, just a few pages of paperwork. I think it can be done through their website.

Alcohol & Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau: They require a collateral bond for taxes and you need to pay taxes on every barrel of beer you produce and sell. Minimum of $1,000 bond is needed as collateral.

Paperwork you'll have to file: Brewer's Notice, Brewer's Bond, Personnel Questionnaire, Power of Attorney (for LLC/Corp.), Pay.Gov User Agreement, Environmental Information, Quarterly Excise Tax Payment Procedures Checklist, Supplimental Water Quality Information, Signing Authority (for LLC/Corp.), Legal Description of the Brewery, Description of Security, and a Diagram of the Facility.

 I hope this is insightful for anyone looking to get in the brewing game.

The Continuing Story of an ABC License.

Today we visited the San Marcos branch of The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Twice.

Twice because we forgot to bring our corporate paperwork (secretary of state filing number, stock issuance, etc...) so we had to go back down to our offices to get them. Luckily they were not busy today and we were able to schedule an appointment for after lunch.

Once back we talked to Vicky, the friendly ABC worker, for about twenty minute. After updating some information, correcting a few details here and there, we were done. Just had to wait for them to enter the info into the computer.

While we waited we headed downstairs to talk to the Board of Equalization (in soviet russia-board equalize you) to talk to them about getting a seller's permit and whether we need to obtain a surety bond or not. Turns out they have no idea...

Headed back upstairs and they presented us with this pretty little piece of paper we need to post for 30 days. Overall a productive day.

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.