Yankee Brew News Archive

Video Review: Microbrewing on a Budget

Originally Published: 08/96

By: Gregg Glaser

FrankenBrew: Build a Microbrewery for under $20,000.00

Toko Mas Productions, P.O. Box 941, Salida, CO 81201-0941, 800-795-1877, 89 minutes, $29.95

Tom Hennesey, an owner of the Il Vicino Wood Oven Pizza & Brewery in Salida, Colorado, was a homebrewer for a number of years when he decided he'd like to open a brewery in his restaurant. His partners and wife thought he was crazy, but he decided to give it a try.

After calling the major brewery equipment dealers, Hennesey quickly became confused. He didn't understand their technical language, and he realized that he needed to see first-hand what all the equipment looked like and how it was put together. Hennesey toured as many breweries as possible, asked loads of questions and taught himself brewhouse basics. Next, he constructed a small 7-barrel brewhouse at his restaurant out of used brewery and dairy equipment. He succeeded in putting together a working brewhouse that fulfilled his needs and his budget. And he did it all for less than $20,000.00; far under the $100,000.00-$200,000.00 price tag for turnkey brewhouses.

FrankenBrew, so named because of the imagination and used equipment that makes up Hennesey's brewhouse, is an 89-minute production that shows and describes each piece of equipment in Hennesey's brewery. Also included are the homemade breweries of Rob Russell's Russell Brewing Company in Sante Fe, New Mexico and Scott Moore's Rio Grande Brewing Company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In great detail, Hennesey, Russell and Moore explain how they adapted dairy equipment to their breweries, how they use the equipment, where they cut corners financially and where they found bargains.

Examples include: using a skateboard for a pump stand, using a one-inch piece of PVC in the bottom of a tank for a racking arm, building a sparge arm out of copper for $25.00, an easy way to carbonate beer in a keg, fermenting in a cold room with heat bands to control fermentation temperatures and how to dry hop in a keg without hops.

The videotape is shot and presented in a straight-forward, no frills, no glitz manner. Hennesey speaks directly to the camera in a conversational tone and casually interviews Russell and Moore. For anyone considering opening a brewpub or microbrewery but scared by the high costs of brand-new, professional turnkey brewhouses, viewing FrankenBrew is just the ticket.