Come One, Come All—Wait a Minute: Assessing the Elastic Limits of Opportunity

These days it seems a new brewery is opening every day. Well, actually, that’s true—a new brewery is opening pretty much every day, and sometimes more than one. With this proliferation of new breweries attempting to sell their beer in an already crowded market, questions are being asked in all quarters. How many is too many? How much longer can this rate of growth be sustained? Can all these breweries make it? Having provided many of the nuts and bolts for joining the happy throng in The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery, Dick Cantwell will take a look at some of the limiting factors to growth, such as market selection and share, availability of raw materials, beer quality and sophistication of concept. Before you write your business plan, hear what Dick has to say about going into it with your eyes open and your wits about you.