Wowoweewow

So, did a final measurement of the beer yesterday afternoon (roughly 4:30 pm). After almost 2 weeks in the fermenter, we hit our target FG (slightly lower, actually) 1.021. This gives a final beer ABV of 9.2%, which makes this monstrosity a bear of a pale ale.

Sampling some lead to no detectable alcohol notes. The malt sweetness did come to the forefront after a citrusy bitterness, characteristic of those beautiful Amarillo hops. The beer has a definite protein haze, that I'm hoping will go away once I rack to the kegs and cold crash @ 30*F. My impressions of S-05 are only that much stronger. It's clean, hard working, and left no yeast in the final beer. The fact that a single packet of it will last forever, and that pitching it is roughly 200bn cells is only gravy. WPL001 or Wy1056 can't compare @ their price points. Indeed, for a good, neutral ale yeast I'm on board the Fermentis Safale-05 train. I'm betting I could even get a subtle, delicate kolsch from it.

On to packaging, and subsequently, tasting. MMM.

On the brewery plans front, I've done some pricing on CIP brewhouses (7bbl) and some fermenting vessels. That stuff isn't cheap, let me tell you. Even used dairy equipment requires quite a bit of sweat equity before it's usable. I've also toyed with the essence of nano and seeing if I can "do it" on my home-brew equipment by adding some more fermentation capacity. With the system the way it is, I know I could probably put out 1-2 bbls a week. In laymans terms, that's 15-30 cases. Just going by the IPA costs for a beer, if I spend $.20 per 12oz beer, and charge the retailer $1 per beer, that means the retailer will have to charge $31 per case. $31 isn't a whole lot, but that breaks down to $8 or so for a 6-pack. Again, not crazy outrageous. But it means $288 per week gross (that's the 1bbl output) and is only roughly $18k. That means, it's not worth it. Even if I could miraculously push to 2bbls a week, that's still only $36k / year. Again, difficult to justify for what will essentially be quadruple brew-days. If, however, I charge the retailer $2/bottle, I gross $576 / week on a batch. That comes out to a nice $29k / year gross, and it's mostly doable with what I have. But that assumes a few things.

2) I brew 1bbl every week (which will be 2 brews on my current setup).
3) I have the fermentation capacity (likely, I'll have 1wk queues, meaning I'll want at least 2 bbls of fermentation)
4) I have the ability to bottle 360 beers / week
5) I can sell all this beer.

$2 / beer isn't an easy sell, I think. That means that the 6-pack is probably gonna be $15 for the consumer, which is a tough sell. Now, I think if I buy everything bulk, my price drops a bit. That same .20 beer, is now .04 / beer. That means that I might be able to get away with dropping the price to something like $1.25 or so / beer.

I dunno - figuring out these numbers over and over again is tough.