Opening a brewery in any year is a challenge. In 2022, amid inflation, rising cost of goods and labor shortages, what’s it like to try to move from brewery-in-planning to open with a full taproom?
Sarah Real and Mike Dell’Aquila, the co-founders of Hot Plate Brewing, share their experience and the challenges they’ve faced in trying to open a brewery Western Massachusetts before the end of the year.
Real shared that equipment costs jumped from when they shopped to when they signed the contract to buy.
“When we got our first quote in the spring of 2021 to when we signed our contract for the equipment in February 2022, steel went from $1.50 a pound to $6.50 a pound,” she said. “That’s ridiculous. We’re essentially paying for an extra fermenter that we’re not getting.”
Dell’Aquila, who is handling the marketing for the new brewery, added that one challenge will be drawing people to downtown Pittsfield.
“We’re going to live and die by taproom sales,” he said. “So there’s going to be this need to drive people to our taproom and also for locals to drive that behavior change back to coming downtown.”
Listen to the full interview in the episode above and on popular platforms such as iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify.
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