Product Description

A practical how-to guide for those interested in entering the craft beer business as a pub brewer, micro brewer, contract brewer or distributor. Includes financial and regulatory information, success stories from those already in the business and a clear description of each business type.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73373 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Customer Reviews

Not Recommended
I had high hopes for this book, but ultimately am left greatly disappointed.

First, I agree with the previous reviewer - this book has more typos and grammatical errors than any book I've ever read! It's really unacceptable in any book, but certainly when the book retails for $80.

Second, this isn't a step-by-step guide to starting a brewing business. It's a hodgepodge of articles from old issues of The New Brewer magazine combined with random interviews and new writings from various "brewing professionals". Their seems to be no real "road map" or grand plan to the way the info is presented. I was extremely disappointed in the amount of information provided on professional brewing equipment. In contrast, an entire chapter was devoted to the selection of flooring material for the brewhouse floor. Admittedly this is an important decision, but the ratio to other information is odd at best.

I've met Ray Daniels at an AHA rally and he seems like a great guy who is passionate about beer and brewing. Unfortunately, this is a poor effort by Ray and I am guessing he's quite embarrassed whenever anyone mentions it.

Michael

The Guide to THINKING About It
What worse way to describe a book than, 'It was OK', it's like someone telling you your best atribute is that your 'nice'. But that's just it, for what it was supposed to be 'The Brewers Association's Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery' (think about it, that's a lot of weight in that title) it was only OK. There was some nice insight from brewing professionals whose opinions I already respect, there was some rough ideas of what to expect, and some sections with great detail about things I couldn't care less about at this point - the point of 'I'm still reading books to plan a brewery'.

I would have really have liked to have seen more real money and real equipment talked about. Basically they broke it down like this: it is hard and expensive, but if you can pull it off it is sooo worth it. That's not enough for me. Oh, I will mention there was a very detailed business plan which could be a great reference to the right person, but it reads like a business plan, go figure. Real snoozer of a way to end the book.

One last thing, this is an $80 book that as an AHA member I was able to buy for $50 from the Brewers Association so I at least felt like I got a deal, but to now see Amazon with it for sale for $50 kind of burns me up. This isn't an $80 book (think college text book) nor really a $50 book (think high school text book or instruction manual), it's more of a decent $25 book (think normal informative/opinionated book). So, all in all I am not saying don't get this book, but I would only get this book if you are seriously contemplating opening your own brewery and only as one more reference, not the be-all-to-end-all.

Poorly Edited, OK Content
Ok, so for someone who went to school for art, hasn't taken an English class in 7 years, this book has more grammatical and editing errors than I have EVER seen in a published book.

The transcribed interviews are missing punctuation needed to make it read properly. In-text notes to the designers are still present. There are typos and misspellings, as though the chapters from various brewery owners were simply copy/pasted from their e-mails to the final publication.

And I've hardly started the book! I'm on page 23....

What gets me most is that this is the second/revised version of this book. Seriously people. Next time ABA, let me copy-edit it in exchange for beer. You know I'll do it.

If the book improves dramatically by the end, I'll revise my review.

kvh