Planning a brewpub's opening month

Work backwards from the first pint

The fixed point in your calendar is not the launch party. It is the day the first beer is ready to serve. A clean ale takes roughly two to three weeks from brew day to glass, depending on the yeast and the style. A proper lager, fermented around 8 to 13 °C and then conditioned cold, needs longer, often four to six weeks.

That means your brewing licence, your water and your brewer need to be ready well before the opening date. If licences slip, the opening slips. Do not book the band until the excise paperwork is in hand. Our guide to the microbrewery licence in India explains why the timing is hard to predict.

Four weeks out: first brews and paperwork

• Confirm every licence and approval you need to sell, including food, alcohol, fire and signage. Requirements vary by state and change, so check with your licensing consultant.
• Run water and cleaning trials on the brewhouse before real wort goes in.
• Brew ales first, because they turn around fastest. Start any lager as early as the licence allows.
• Lock the opening tap list. Four to six beers is plenty. A short list you can keep pouring beats a long one that runs dry in week two.

Three weeks out: people

Train front of house on the beers before they meet a guest. Every server should be able to describe each beer in one sentence, suggest a dish to go with it and handle the "which one is least bitter?" question. Run tastings with spit cups and keep them short.

Train the kitchen on the real menu, at real volumes, with the real equipment. Time every dish. Practise closing too: cleaning the draught lines, counting stock and reconciling the till.

Two weeks out: soft opening

Invite friends, neighbours and a few local food writers to limited sessions. Open fewer tables than you have. The point is to find what breaks while the stakes are low: the kitchen ticket printer, the glass washer, the walk from bar to the far corner.

Ask for honest feedback and write it down. Fix the top three problems before the next session. Serve responsibly from day one, with water on every table and a plan for guests who should not drive home.

Opening week: watch the numbers, not the crowd

A full room in week one tells you little. Track these every night instead:

• Beer sold per keg or tank against the litres that went in. A gap means foam, spillage or free pours.
• Covers, average bill and the split between food and beer.
• Beer stock in tanks against the next brew date, so you do not run out of your best seller.
• Kitchen waste and comped items.
• Ticket times from order to table on the busiest hour.

Write the figures in one place every night, even on paper. By the end of the month you will have a baseline. The second month is when it starts to earn its keep.

Our guide to the first 100 days of a new brewpub picks up where this month ends.

Keep a buffer

Almost every opening runs over in time and money. Keep cash set aside for at least the first few months of rent, salaries and malt, because sales take time to settle. Plan one quiet week after launch for fixing things rather than adding events.

The founders who handle opening month well usually did the planning months earlier: a written schedule, a cash plan and a clear owner for each job. That planning is what our founders' course is built around.

Decide who owns what

Opening month fails most often at the handovers. The brewer assumes the manager ordered CO2. The manager assumes the chef briefed the servers on allergens. Write one list of every opening task with a single named owner and a date beside each line, then review it together every morning for fifteen minutes.

Typical owners look like this:

• Head brewer: brew schedule, tank stock, draught lines and beer training.
• Chef: menu trials, kitchen stock, hygiene and food training.
• Manager: rosters, POS set-up, suppliers and the soft opening guest list.
• Founder: licences, cash, marketing and the final call on the opening date.

If one person's name appears against everything, that person is the bottleneck. Usually it is the founder.

Common questions

How much beer should be ready on opening day?

Enough to cover at least the first two weeks at your expected sales, with the next brews already fermenting. Running out in week one is one of the most avoidable opening mistakes.

Should a brewpub open with a lager?

Only if you have time. A lager needs several weeks of cold fermentation and conditioning, so most new brewpubs open with ales and add a lager once the schedule allows.

Is a soft opening worth it?

Yes. A few limited sessions find the problems in the kitchen, bar and billing before full-price guests do.