Own or work in a microbrewery?

[Captain Cactus]

Do you own or work in a microbrewery?

If so, would you share your experience?

[tralfamadorian]

I have some experience in breweries, cideries and wineries, mostly the latter.  In general, the work is physical and you will spend the majority of your time cleaning.  But the atmosphere is good and usually there is a mix of people from all different backgrounds (lots of FIRE folks). 

As far as owning, the margins are very tight and the start-up costs are high.  I would recommend spending quite a bit of time working in one or more before considering opening your own. 

[Paul der Krake]

I do neither, but have spoken to people who do.

There's very little money in it. The breweries I have toured, the staff/owners were making barely above minimum wage. People love the idea of making beer, but in reality it's all about taking notes about each batch and being anal about cleanliness. It's incredibly repetitive.

[Pizzabrewer]

Yup.  Worked in several.  Owned several.  Started up several.

I've seen it all.

[frugalcanuck]

Yup.  Worked in several.  Owned several.  Started up several.

I've seen it all.

Haha

So... Tell us what you have seen. 
I'm also interested in this but I think it might be my post FIRE gig if I decide to have one.

[Shortbus]

I've been in the industry in various roles for about 7 years now. Started in packaging then brewer then started/ran the QA/QC lab for awhile and now back to brewing as a Head Brewer.

It's a fun industry for sure and there are some great people but in general the pay is pretty lackluster, especially entry level. I lucked out and got in with a fast-growing brewery where initially none of us really knew what we were doing. It gave me a great opportunity to learn a lot of different roles and pick up some valuable experience as we grew from 1000bbls/yr to ~40k/yr over 5 years. I'm doing well enough to make it a viable career at this point but I still find myself scrubbing floors/tanks/walls/toilets...etc and working the occasional 14+ hour day when something goes wrong. My back has been aching for about two weeks after moving some kegs around and I'm realizing that I'm not going to be able to do this forever.

Ownership is probably my next step but as others have mentioned, cost of entry can be high and margins can be low. My thoughts are to keep it small and keep the overhead low. Focus on my neighborhood instead of going for wider distribution (or distribution at all) and I should be able to make it work. Still a few years out from that though I think.

Happy to answer any other questions if you want to know anything specific.