Moving Forward (Work and Identity Crisis)

Looking for a new job. Not going into specifics of frustrations here.

I'm wrestling with the question of how strongly I want to stay in the brewing industry, and what leaving it would mean for me.

To brag a bit, I'm a really good brewer. I'm really proud of that. I'm very frustrated with much of the modern beer market though, which seems to only really get excited for what I'd call "gee whiz" beers - stuff with a bunch of fruit flavors and gimmicks. I don't like those beers, I like beer that is clean, flawlessly executed, incredibly drinkable. If you want a good pilsner or a proper British style ESB or Belgian Abbey ale, I will make you the best one in the city. If you want a mango habanero IPA or Imperial milkshake sour, I'll roll my eyes.

At the end of the day, as much as being a brewmaster is a dream job, it's a job that is mostly about following set procedures as closely as possible and doing a bunch of cleaning in a hot, humid environment.

I like finishing the day having made something I'm proud of. I enjoy the mental challenge of being presented with imperfect systems that need to be fixed, tweaked, refined, and improved. But I can get that in many other industries that do physical production. Those other industries will almost certainly pay better, have more benefits, and be properly structured to not have the frustrations of an industry that is by and large not run very professionally.

I have a broad set of skills. I'm very smart. I learn very quickly and can adapt to lots of roles. I am legitimately very good at training people and leading production teams. I can communicate with and translate between ground level production/logistics, management/ownership, and solidly with sales/marketing folks.

Poking around yesterday, saw a job posted at a company that is a local darling with international renown that I have a lot of respect for, looking for a safety trainer. It's a role I would be really good at. I love training people. I'm genuinely passionate about health and safety in production workplaces.

It would mean not being a brewmaster.

But the sort of brewing jobs I'd want are few. If I want another, I'd probably need to relocate when my wife makes about double what I do. Her company is headquartered here, but she already works from home. Another brewmaster job in another location would still be kinda rolling the dice on if the company is run professionally or not.

Or would taking a non-brewing job really be the end? Could it just be a breather to move into another industry and get some experience and develop new skills while waiting for the next opportunity to present itself of someone looking to start up a new brewing company locally?

I've been there, somehow I'm still at the same job 15 years later. Many times I had offers to go but never felt the pull; many times I felt the need to go but couldn't find a comparative career opportunity. Looking back I see two times where the job that was offered would have been more fulfilling and better rewarding but not all.

Where you are it's time to jump and the industry you live in is not a place to jump from place to place so I think moving to a role that would also be rewarding and stimulating mentally would be a win. You are a good explainer; we've met a few times, and training and safety are in your wheelhouse. I'd go for it.

You aren't going to lose your brewing skills even if you take a few years away from the industry, you can always go back.  
 

You may find that getting a company to recognize your transferable skills may be harder than you think.  
 

I suggest sending in some resumes and going on some interviews, so that you can see what the grass on the other side of the fence is really like and how real those opportunities may be for you.   You have nothing to lose by doing so. 

I can only assume the talks didn't go well, that sucks. 

I'm impressed that that rode brewing for as long as you have. Once you get good and the personal growth within the craft starts to wane, it becomes quite unrewarding rather quickly. 

That reads like you're not dissatisfied with the work (just the opposite) but your current situation. It does seem like the sort of gig you could set aside for a while and do something else until the right opportunity presents itself - but are you going to enjoy being the safety training guy (nobody looks forward to dealing with the safety training guy) more than you'd enjoy your current job? 

Based on the number of breweries in my own small town, it seems like you should be able to find a company that has the same focus on good beer instead of stunt beer if you keep your ear to the ground. And maybe tastes will change. Or maybe you take a deep breath and plunge into starting your own. Sounds like you've got a broad enough skill set to make that work.

Stunt beer.

Today Appleseed learns a new phrase.

It may not be widespread.

Keith Tanner said:

That reads like you're not dissatisfied with the work (just the opposite) but your current situation. It does seem like the sort of gig you could set aside for a while and do something else until the right opportunity presents itself - but are you going to enjoy being the safety training guy (nobody looks forward to dealing with the safety training guy) more than you'd enjoy your current job?

This is (mostly) correct. I like the work, when I'm doing the work. I'm fine making less money in the brewing industry than I would in others. I've got no kids and no debt (aside from mortgage).

Another job wouldn't be as enjoyable as this one, but it also wouldn't be as heartbreaking of frustrating.

I need a job that doesn't break my heart and kick me in the gut multiple times per week.

As much as no one loves the safety training guy - I used to teach junior high, and I'm coming into it from the perspective of someone who works production, not an HR drone. Or maybe I'm weird, because I *like* the safety guy. I want to be not-injured on the job.

Based on the number of breweries in my own small town, it seems like you should be able to find a company that has the same focus on good beer instead of stunt beer if you keep your ear to the ground. And maybe tastes will change. Or maybe you take a deep breath and plunge into starting your own. Sounds like you've got a broad enough skill set to make that work.

The number of breweries is kind of part of the problem. I think the market is getting oversaturated and the opportunities for growth are getting slimmer.

Maybe starting my own company is the way to go. The thought of that makes me very nervous. I would need someone who has better organizational and bookkeeping skills than I have to manage finance stuff. I know that is a weakness of mine. I suppose instead of being the owner who does admin and hires someone else to head up production, I could head production and hire someone to do the admin.

Opening my own brewing company is daunting, because I know that if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right. The brewing companies I've seen flounder and fail have by-and-large rushed to open with a very "this is good enough for now; we'll upgrade when we get money" mentality, and/or have been ego projects. Brewing is something where you need to invest a LOT of money to set up the facilities and the equipment properly from the outset. I figure I'd be looking at around $1-$2 million to start up the kind of facility I would want.

I think if I did start my own company, I could get away with making the kinds of beers I want and not chasing the trends I dislike. I would just have to clearly establish it with a specific identity that people associate with clean beer styles. Places that bill themselves as very explicitly German don't seem to have the typical issues of people coming in and asking, "What do you have that's hazy or sour?" that a just-another-craft-brewery does.

Keith Tanner said:

It may not be widespread.

I think "stunt beer" is a great name. My friend and I have long referred to Dogfish Head as "dare beer" because we're pretty sure most of their concepts came from a couple drunk/stoned guys sitting around daring each other.

I would assume that the easiest way to start a brewery is to buy a failing one, along with all the hardware. One of our local brewpubs has all their tanks and plumbing on display at the front and it is definitely a significant chunk of hardware. It's more of a "get prepped and be ready to move when the opportunity presents itself" scenario. With your history, you may be able to get some investors on your side especially if you can show you'll have someone to take care of all the admin crap. I suspect most small businesses are started by someone who is good at and interested in the work being performed and not the actual running of a business, and there's a support structure out there of companies that will help with HR and accounting etc on a part time basis. We've moved back and forth from outsourcing to doing our own admin work over the years.

Keith Tanner said:

I would assume that the easiest way to start a brewery is to buy a failing one, along with all the hardware. One of our local brewpubs has all their tanks and plumbing on display at the front and it is definitely a significant chunk of hardware. It's more of a "get prepped and be ready to move when the opportunity presents itself" scenario. With your history, you may be able to get some investors on your side especially if you can show you'll have someone to take care of all the admin crap. I suspect most small businesses are started by someone who is good at and interested in the work being performed and not the actual running of a business, and there's a support structure out there of companies that will help with HR and accounting etc on a part time basis. We've moved back and forth from outsourcing to doing our own admin work over the years.

Buying extant hardware is not necessarily the easiest way. That's what we did with the current space, and it turned out to be the wrong choice.

Used brewing equipment is often close to the price of new. It's just available immediately in stead of having a long lead time.

Fundamentally, new or used equipment doesn't change that big figure by much.

...or maybe I'm not thinking right.

I keep thinking about starting up a brewery and my frustrations with that industry and the saturated market here. Maybe what I need to be thinking is *distillery*. Yeah, startup costs are even higher than brewing, but the market is very different, with more chance to do my own thing.

The stunt beers are what the untappd beer groupies flock to, ownership that panders to them as opposed to the craft of making high quality brews are the problem. Go into brewery tap rooms that cater towards the hype beer hipster set versus the clean traditional set and count children...

You'd pretty much need to find a spot that works on Reinheitsgebot levels of ingredient purity, process and cleaniness. That obviously requires commitment from ownership and bucking of trends. Unfortunately, most owners are spineless. 

In reply to Beer Baron :

I pivoted from brewing to a distillery, AND most importantly, out of operations. I make about 80% of what I did while brewing and I have an additional salaried full time position, as the distillery takes about 12 hours of my time a week. 

In reply to Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

There are brewers and breweries who I do respect who play those games some. It's just not a game I want to play.

One thing I take pride in, if you put every local breweries best beers up against each other, we may not come out on top. But I think thta if you were to take every local brewery's *weakest* beers (excluding pilot test batches) mine would either come out on top or be just behind the biggest local competitor.

The Reinheitsgebot is protectionist bullE36 M3 to advantage large domestic breweries. Even German breweries break it when they can (adding yeast nutrients). It hasn't been about purity since brewers stopped putting hallucinogens and digitalis in their beers. My most fully German style beers wouldn't follow the reinheitsgebot because I carbonate with regular food grade CO2 that wasn't produced by fermentation of beer wort, even though it's chemically identical because it's just CO2.

Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Beer Baron :

I pivoted from brewing to a distillery, AND most importantly, out of operations. I make about 80% of what I did while brewing and I have an additional salaried full time position, as the distillery takes about 12 hours of my time a week. 

I want to talk to you more about this. PM sent.

That's why I suggested "pretty much" to the spirit of it without the complications or hoop jumping. I consult with ownership of Guilford Hall brewery in Baltimore now, though I never brewed there, and they're a fit of your mindset. You never have to order based upon "what's good here" as it's all done to at least a solid B to B+ level of execution, which means that you can order based upon style, what you feel like or what pairs best with your food. Also their seltzer water isn't flavored and doesn't contain alcohol. 

In this area, that's a bit of a refreshing rarity, but out of the roughly 70-90 breweries within 90 minutes of me, it's why it's one of the 3-4 that I'll willingly enjoy visiting. 

Almost everyone I worked with dreamed of and studied to do something else.  There are times when collecting a check somewhere and then doing what you love on the side is more practical.  

I feel where your coming from.

I've worked my dream job for 11 years and I'm bailing out next month to do something completely different.

Sometimes a change is as good as a rest.

In reply to ShawnG :

Can I ask what you're moving to? How did you know it was time to get out? Are you thinking you're out for good, or just stepping away for a while?

The difference between a rut and a grave is just the depth of the rut.

If Brewing has taught you all that it has to teach, then it might be time to move on to something new. I left brewing beer for people because I decided the business model had run its course and it was a business that anyone could just buy their way into. Price became the driver not the product quality. 

I used my skillset to work my way into automation and then medical device  development, applications and manufacturing.

If you really want to stay in the fermented barley world, you could look into the "YouBrew" world such as I was doing. The original business plan  exploits a legal tax loophole that allows people to make their own beer. and wine. Nowhere did it say that you could not retain the services of a brewer and rental of mash tuns, climate controlled fermenting space, heat exchangers filters carbonation equipment and bottling/kegging equipment. Customer brews were the equivalent of 6 cases of 24 bottles.

I ran it for 8 years. The place is still operating in the same place 30 years later. The business model seems to suit a mom and pop lifestyle as all the income stays in one family rather than paying managers and staff as I did.

Beer Baron said:

Keith Tanner said:

It may not be widespread.

I think "stunt beer" is a great name. My friend and I have long referred to Dogfish Head as "dare beer" because we're pretty sure most of their concepts came from a couple drunk/stoned guys sitting around daring each other.

I live in Delaware and I hate Dogfish Head beer. My company took us there as a reward one time. The food was OK but I got a flight of the 6 flavors that sounded even remotely good, and I only wanted to finish one of them. And these were just little 2-3oz samples!

I applaud your taste in beer. I think DFH represents everything wrong with modern brewing.

Which, frankly, speaks to how inadvisable it might be for you to start your own company. By your own admission, it's an overcrowded industry. And the other side of that is this:  you need to brew what makes a lot of money, not necessarily what you like. That could be very dissatisfying to you.

NOHOME said:

...it was a business that anyone could just buy their way into. Price became the driver not the product quality. 

I think this is what I'm noticing and feeling. I'm seeing new breweries pop up with far inferior products to what I can make who are growing rapidly. The only factor I see really driving success is the money put into marketing.

There is only one brewery in the region that I think has legitimately built a name for themselves with quality and innovation.

I used my skillset to work my way into automation and then medical device  development, applications and manufacturing.

I'll send you a PM. I'd like to hear your story and path and details on what you feel about the career change.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Good luck.  I think at the core you have skills in manufacturing process management and quality control.  Other food production might be a good fit.  Oreo cookies get made somewhere.  Sure, you don't know about oreos but the oreo people dont know about mash.  They're probably more similar than they are different.  

The same might be applicable to making any widget.