Expert: Spencer W Thomas - 11/19/2009

Question
I've been brewing for a few years and got my wife into it also. we have been mentioned to a few time from people that would like to start but have to idea how to so we try to help some and then one day a friend offered up an idea. It was to open a home brew supply store (not new idea) since there isn't one for aleast an hour or more away... but to offer brewing in store. Basically its a standard supply store, but also for those that cant brew at home (apt or other half cant take the time and smell), they could brew in the store (various degrees of help possible, just burner, storing of fermenter in temp controlled room, sanitizing, etc) have you ever seen or heard of this before? i like the idea but its alot of logistics, any help???

Answer
What you are describing is a "brew on premises" operation.  I have seen a few of these, both around where I live in Michigan and also in California. If you are letting your customers pitch yeast and ferment their beeer in the store, you may be crossing the line into being a "brewery", which would require licensing from the state and federal government. I've never looked into this specifically, so I don't really know what the issues are.

You could offer facilities for your customers to brew in the store, but then have them take the resulting wort home to ferment. That nicely skirts the legal issues, at the cost of being less convenient. You might want to see if the staff at the Brewers Association (http://beertown.org/) can point you at information about the laws in your state.

You could also decide, as have some homebrew shop owners of my acquaintance, to ignore the legal issues. As long as you keep a low profile, that could work, but I'm not going to recommend it (for hopefully obvious reasons!)