Yankee Brew News Archive

Brew On Premise Trend Spreads to NH

Originally Published: 08/96

By: Ron Lachance

The Brew On Premise (BOP) trend was launched in New England last year in greater Boston, as reported in the August-September 1995 edition of Yankee Brew News. Now, this new segment of the homebrewing market has expanded to southern New Hampshire with the opening of IncrediBREW in Nashua.

On the surface, Dave and Nancy Williams are an unlikely couple to open a Brew On Premise business. Dave was a division manager in a company that made printer parts, and Nancy taught special education. Spend a few minutes with them and its not difficult to detect the attitude and ambition of entrepreneurs. They both had flourishing careers and were willing to sacrifice their careers for the chance to succeed at something they enjoy doing.

"Frankly, I was just getting tired of the corporate world, spending all the time on the airplane, and sitting in business meetings," relates Dave. "I basically wanted to get out and have some fun. I gave up a job with a very good, growing company because there's more to life. It's nice to do something that you really love and have fun with it."

Nancy supported and highly encouraged Dave to end his career. "I knew he could be happier doing something else," Nancy said. "He spent more of his time away from home and from the things he enjoyed." Nancy had ended her teaching career earlier and was doing volunteer work when Dave decided it was time for a career change. "I knew when I made the decision to get out of what I was doing, that it made me feel happy, so I encouraged him to do it."

Both Nancy and Dave had a single goal; to start a business together. They looked into the possibility of owning a franchise, as well as starting a Brew On Premise business. Dave learned of BOPs while researching for the type of business they wanted to operate. Dave read articles about how popular BOPs are in Canada. In Ontario alone, there are 250 Brew on Premises.

BOPs are very popular in Canada because of the high "sin" tax on alcohol and cigarettes. BOPs are a way to circumvent the high taxes. According to David, a case of beer in Canada costs $25 due to heavy taxing. The BOPs advertise "half price" beer. Beer lovers can brew their own batch for half the cost. The emphasis is on low cost beer, not necessarily quality beer.

However, in America the BOPs emphasize quality beer at a reasonable price. "In the US, the consumers are getting more sophisticated about their beer taste, and getting reintroduced to a lot of different flavors and styles of beer that ten or fifteen years ago they weren't exposed to," Dave explained. This awareness of the improved quality of beer has been due to the popularity of microbreweries and brew pubs.

Many of Dave and Nancy's customers have been to Europe, particularly Britain and Germany, and have been exposed to fine quality beer hand-made using ancient brewing recipes and processes, and have enjoyed the many fine styles of microbrewed beer in America, especially New England. With the popularity of BOPs in Canada, and the sophistication of beer lovers in New England, Dave felt the time was right to open a BOP. "I felt it was good chance to take a gamble and give people the opportunity to come in and make fresh chemical free, preservative free beer, and just have a lot of fun doing it."

According to Dave, 30-40% of his customers are experienced home brewers. "They're simply tired of the mess, tired of the smell, their wives have kicked them out of the kitchen, and they can't achieve the sanitation levels that we can achieve, and they just want to go have some fun," explains Dave. "You brew at home alone, or have a friend over to help, and you're looking at five or six hours of brewing to do it right. Here, you come in and spend two hours, and that's it."

Dave and Nancy have hired a professional staff to assist the brewers through the brewing process, and answer questions. They also assist the brewers in the selection of style of beers based on their particular taste. IncrediBREW offers over sixty proven recipes from light lagers to red ales to creamy stouts. Dave and Nancy guarantee all their recipes. However, if the brewer wishes to modify the recipe, or use their own recipes, they cannot guarantee the recipe.

It takes two hours for the brewers to brew a batch of beer. A batch will produce 13.5 gallons of beer, or six cases of beer. Batch cost are $80, $90, and $100 depending on the recipe. Six cases of 22 oz. bottles cost an additional $30, or you can bring your own bottles. The brewers use the professional brewing equipment from the steam-fired kettles to the automatic bottle fillers. Once the brewing is complete, Dave and Nancy will take the batch through the two week fermentation and cold aging, filtering and carbonation. After the two week period, the brewer returns to bottle his beer. It takes approximately two hours to cut and paste the labels on the bottle, fill and cap the bottles, and place them in the cases.

For the wine connoisseurs IncrediBREW offer a dozen varieties of quality white, blush, and red wines. They offer very "high end" wine and use 100% high quality grape concentrates from California. It takes a half hour to forty five minutes to make wine. The process is very simple. You add yeast, oak chips, and bentonite (clay material to help precipitate solids out of the wine) to the grape concentrate, and check the temperature, specific gravity, seal up the container and allow four to eight weeks of fermentation.

The interior of IncrediBREW is a spacious and sanitized brewing area that invites group brewing. "I brew at IncrediBREW because of the fun," says Harry Purkhiser a regular at IncrediBREW. "It's like a social event. My friends and I brew different styles of beer and we just have a good time."

Nancy is in charge of labels. She works with the customers to design a unique label for their bottled beer at no extra cost. Once the label has been designed by the brewer, Nancy uses a computer program to create the labels. They have the capability of scanning photos using a flat-bed scanner which creates some very personalized, and risqué labels. "The customers get a real ego kick about seeing their name on the label, seeing their dogs picture on the label, seeing their wives picture on the label," says Dave. Visit IncrediBREW, and ask to use the rest room�the walls are decorated with all the labels created at IncrediBREW.

A "Take One�Leave One" rack is mounted on the wall for brewers to swap their recipes with other brewers. "It's just a way of customers trying and trading off with other customers to taste different styles of beer," explains David. "They go very quickly. They stay up there a day or two and they're gone. They move very fast."

The focus of IncrediBREW is for the customer to have fun. The staff is present to assist the brewers or winemakers with their recipe selection, their measuring and preparation of ingredients, and with their questions. Several clubs and organizations have enjoyed the brewing and winemaking experience as a unique function for their group. Bringing their own snacks, or ordering a pizza turns their experience into a private party.

"Basically there are three elements we focus on," said Dave. "One is the fun of brewing. People love coming in here. They really have a ball in here. They come with their friends, their wives, relatives, their co-workers, and just have a good time. The second element is the labels. The customers work harder at making the labels than brewing the beer. The third and most important element is the quality of the beer. We use extract-grain combination brewing, and the beer is fabulous. Its probably the best beer that most of these customers have ever tried. They share it with their friends, they're proud to talk about it, and they come back."

IncrediBREW is located at 112 Daniel Webster Highway in the Marketplace Shoppes Plaza. They are open Tuesday through Friday from noon-8 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. -5 p.m., and Sunday from noon-5 p.m. To reserve a brew time or winemaking session, or for more information call Dave or Nancy Williams at (603) 891-2477.