Starting a small brewery with very little funding

I started homebrewing because I absolutely love beer especially good ones. After homebrewing for several years and assisting with cellaring at a fruit winery, I decided to go to the American Brewers Guild based out of Vermont. The course focused on all aspects of brewing with an emphasis on biology, chemistry, and engineering for all the brewing processes from malting to packaging. I already had a strong background in the sciences having graduated with a BS in Chemistry from Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN and this definitely helped me understand the concepts much more thoroughly.

Having a formal education in brewing makes someone very attractive to employers in the brewing industry. This advantage allowed me to quickly find a job with Karl Strauss in San Diego, California. I chose to come to San Diego because lets face it, San Diego is awesome and the brewing community is very strong with nearly 30 microbrewies in the San Diego county area.

While the American Brewers Guild gave me a great education, Karl Strauss gave me the hands on training that I needed to become a successful commercial brewer. I learned nearly everything in the two years that I was with Karl Strauss and even formulated my own recipes for the Citywalk location in Los Angeles.

I left to go back to pick up my MBA at USD, which I am currently doing. However, I have always wanted to be a brewery owner and have some great ideas. Although I am only 24, I have a wealth of knowledge and believe I am ready to start a small brewery.

The main purpose of this blog is to invite everyone to follow on my journey to stardom in the heavily competed San Diego beer market. The catch like most people is that I have very little funds to get started, less than $10,000. Can it be done? We will see?

I will update this blog a few times a week or even more if a lot is going on. I will take you through all the experiences that I have and will explain exactly how I plan to make money with so little up front funding.

I would also love to answer questions regarding any brewing questions! I feel that a lot of sites out there don't give the proper advice when it comes to a lot of brewing questions. I feel like I have quite a bit of expertise and quite frankly I love making friends and enjoy talking to others about brewing.

Lets get started!
Cheers,
Brian