Alternative Models for Operating a Brewery

This morning I watched a video that got me really excited about alternative business models for breweries. It's something I've been thinking about for about a year or so now and someday hope to open either a brewery or a pub that operates on a different playing field. Not sure how or what it will be like but I've been thinking about triple-bottom line breweries, CSA style breweries, and non-profit breweries. That's all I really want to say for now because I haven't really acted on this interest, except in creating Beers Made By Walking.

I want to show you the video that got me excited (I found it on this site, which I hope to learn more about soon). The video shows us a brewery called Flying Dog Cooperative Brewery, located in Seattle, and it looks like they are starting a cooperative brewery, where the community can become members, or owners, of the brewery. I'm assuming, like in a cooperative grocery shop, that the profits from the brewery would then go back to the members. Then another part of the idea is that homebrewers would get to have commercial products (I've been trying to do this here on some levels). Have a look at the video and I've got another video below as well:


This next video is one that I saw about half a year ago or so on the New School Beer Blog. It's a non profit pub in Portland, Oregon called the Oregon Public House. I think this is my favorite model of these two. I'll let the video do the talking.

The Oregon Public House-A Vision for the First Non-Profit Pub from Ritch Marvin on Vimeo.


- - -
To stay up to date with Focus on the Beer you can receive email updates and join us on our Facebook page.