Do you love beer? Are you a beer connoisseur? If beer is a passion of yours, why not make some income from it? Billions upon billions of dollars are spent every year on beer and related products, so why not get your piece of the pie.
Here is seven ideas for beer related businesses:
Start a Beer Trade Show: Trade shows are great, and if you live in a fairly large city, this could be a fairly simple and rewarding task. Beer drinkers are everywhere, and more and more people are looking for unique beers.
Starting a trade show will be daunting and stressful at first, but after you have completed one a couple of times, it will get easier and easier. You will want to start the planning process six months to a year in advance. There is several ways of hosting a trade show. First you will want to find a location to have it at, and how much the location will cost you to rent out for your allotted time. Next you will want to check into liability insurance, who will the liability be on, you as the host, or the building owners. If you have hundreds of people walking around taste testing beer, it is almost certain you will end up with someone slipping in a puddle of puke. Once you have your location, it’s time to make the doughnuts. Plan events and sell your space. Try to think of anyone who would like to advertise to your audience. Sell, sell, sell. This is where the money comes in. You want to sell as many booths as possible. This is the money you will use to recover the amount you spent on rent and advertising. Start a contest for the best home-brewed beer in each category, and submit a small advertisement in a home-brewing magazine. This will help your show gain notoriety, and help the home based brewers get their beer out there. Now that you have your booths sold and a little money in your pocket, start advertising. Write a press release, and give it to all of the local news sources i.e. newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations. Also, advertise in any magazine relevant to your show. Once the advertising is done, you’ll probably notice that your just about out of money if not in the negative. This is the moment of truth; It’s the day of your show, and you are hoping you advertised enough to make a killing off of the door fees. These are just a few examples of how to start a trade show. There are a lot of books you can read to learn more about how to run a successful trade show. Check some out here.
Beer Nostalgia: You might be surprised to find out, that thousands of people purchase and collect high end and antique beer products. There is a lot of value for them too. If you travel a lot, or are really good at finding deals, you could make some pretty good pocket change, by finding and selling these products. Restaurants will use memorabilia in their decor, and museums will even buy from you if you have a unique find. You can find old beer memorabilia from auctions, yard sales, or even at bars that are closing down. Most people purchase old beer steins, neon signs, and old bottles, but people will also pay up to $250 for the old cardboard cutouts you see in gas stations of the celebrity holding the Bud-Light™.
You may never make a million dollars buying and reselling memorabilia, but you can have a lot of fun, and make some decent money on the side.
Make Crafts: Well, you already have plenty of those empty bottles and cans laying around, why not make something out of them. You might not get rich, but you could always support your drinking habit!
I have seen some incredibly creative things made from beer bottles. I was at a restaurant last week, and all of their table lamps were made out of beer bottles. I asked the owner where he got them, and he said a guy came into his place one day selling them out of the back of his van. He said he paid $50 a piece for them. I counted the amount of tables in the room, and it was 26, all with a lamp valued at $50 a piece on them. The lamp was a beer or a liquor bottle full of tinted wax, it had lighting hardware with a lampshade on top, and a small piece of wood as the base. These things were really cool. I have also seen birdhouses made out of wood and old beer cans. The point is to be creative. Have a few beers, after about a twelve pack, I’m sure the ideas will start rolling out. Just don’t start using the drill or saw until you sober up a bit!
Make a beer based blog/website: If you love something, chances are there are a lot of other people out there with similar interests. Start a blog about your research of the best beers around. Talk about the difference in beers from different countries. Just make it interesting. Teach people how to brew their own beer. Whatever your interests are. The more information you provide, the more readers you will get, and the more readers you get, the more money you will make from advertisers and affiliates.
If you can be unique enough, and you work and build up a good source of information, with time you could build a decent living off of your website, and maybe even start a magazine and transfer your readers to your magazine!
Start a beer and wine making shop: There are tons of home based brewers out there, and they have to get there hops somewhere. Why not from you? You don’t need any special licenses for selling the ingrediants to make beer, just as long as its not finished beer when you make the sale. Hops are the secret. If you shop around and find or import GREAT hops, people will find you. The word will get out that XYZ Beer Making Supplies has premium hops, and your customers will come searching for you. For a home brewer, having good hops, is similar to a drug dealer having good Crack.
Along with selling hops, you can carry bottles, special yeast, wine-making supplies, recipe books, and all other things associated with home brewing.
Advertise by having beer and wine testing days, for people to promote their beers. This will generate a buzz for your store. Just have fun, and get used to being labeled: “That Beer Guy/Girl”!
Start a Bar: If beer is the love of your life, why not start your own bar so you can be around it all of the time. At first, it might be hard to get used to sitting on the other side of the counter, but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it.
The truth is, starting a bar is going to take a lot more than just loving beer. You will need to obtain many licenses, and carry a very high amount of insurance, but wouldn’t it be cool to tell people to stop by “your” bar after work. I don’t have much resources or information on starting a bar, but there are some really good books out there if you are serious about owning one.
Here are a few of them:
The Bar Blogger: This is a great blog for anyone looking to get into the industry. The writer has lots of information on marketing, and promoting your bar.
The Professional Bar and Beverage Managers Handbook: This is like the Bible for people interested in owning and running a financially successful bar.
Start and Run a Money Making Bar
How to Start and Manage a Bar and Cocktail Lounge Business
Start a Microbrewery or a Brewpub: A microbrewery is just a small bar where the beer is brewed on site. The only difference between a Microbrewery and a Brewpub is that a Brewpub serves food, and a microbrewery just serves drinks. A microbrewery is kind of like a coffee shop for beer drinkers. As a Micro-brewer you are legally permitted to make up to 15000 barrels of beer per year.
If you have a few good beer recipes, why not get them out there. You don’t need a huge restaraunt to be succesful. There are actually a large group of beer connisseurs out there who base their whole vacation around popular Microbrewerys’. You can have a hole in the wall somewhere downtown, as long as the beer is good, the drinkers will come. ”If you brew it. they will come”.
This is actually the first step into having a major beer manufacturer buy and mass produce your recipes. If your frothy beverage gets popular enough on a local level, you could easily raise some eyebrows in the beer world and live the rest of you life off of the royalties you made from the sale of your recipe.
Here is some good resources for starting a microbrewery:
Redhook-A microbrewery Success Story: This is a great read about the pioneers of the Micro brewing industry, Redhook. This is a incredible story, and a very motivating book about making beer.
How to Brew: Everything you need to know to brew beer right the first time
Extreme Brewing: An enthusiast guide to brewing craft beer
Summary: These are just a few ideas you can use to turn your passion into profits. There are probably many other ideas out there. This is just a starting point. I would love to here any ideas you guys have about making money from beer. Have fun, and if anybody starts making those lamps from the beer bottles, I would love to buy one off of you. I prefer Dos Equis, so if you make one out of a Dos Equis bottle, I would love to give you your first sale!
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