Sample Business Setup

This is an early draft of what a Brewery business might look like in Boomtown 1870. It is a Nickels & Law brewery business started by Cole Nickels & Naomi Law.


"Yearly" Batch Recipe: (produces 3,332 bottles)

• 50 bags of Barley
  
• 2 bag of hops
  
• 6 lbs of yeast
  
• 24 bottles of scented oils
  
• 
  The barley needs to be soaked overnight. Overall, this does not require
  much in the way of labor and our capacity is limited only by the number
  of barrels on hand. Any amount of barley can be soaked and still only
  require 1 or 2 days to soak it all. Generally, we soak four bags of
  barley at a time with each four bags being one "batch".
  
• 
  The boiling process is a bit more difficult. Using several stoves and
  25 gallon containers, 1 person (needing relatively little skill) can
  boil up to 2 bags of barley per day (along with the proportionate
  amount of hops). Though the work isn't difficult and doesn't require
  much special training, this is somewhat of a labor intensive process,
  as the mixture needs to be carefully watched, the temperature kept
  steady, and none of the malt should be burned in this process. So the
  amount we can boil is limited to the labor we have on hand. We have two
  workers, so that's four bags of barley (and 1/3 bag of hops), defining
  the size of our "batch".
  
• Without letting the batch cool,
  the batch is transferred to the two stills, along with some small
  amount of yeast. Again not hard, but this part definitely needs to be
  supervised by someone more skilled as the whole month's batch depends
  on this going right. (If its not right, then it just takes 2 days more
  to make a new batch, but only if the mistake is caught by an
  experienced journeyman.)
  
• The batch is left to ferment
  for three weeks, ensuring a proper conditioning process to produce a
  high quality beer. During the first week, the workers bottle the
  previous batch, while the more experienced owners check inventory and
  inspect the batch every so often. During the second week, the workers
  clean the equipment and sanitize the barrels. The third week involves
  distributing the bottled product from the previous batch and taking the
  empty barrels to the farm to fill up with new barley and hops.
  

The
recipe above yields 3,332 bottles of our Nickels & Law Fine Scented
Malt Beverage, however, that's just used to calculate the costs since
we can't produce that much with only 2 stills and 2 workers. It takes
about 20-25 gallons of water to boil one 50 lb. bag of barley. We've
set the stills to hold 50 gallons each, so two stills allows us to work
with up to 4 bags of barley per batch. (The amount of hops and yeast
and such we need are calculated proportionately to the amount of barley
being used. 1/25 hops, 1/300 yeast, and so on). We know that a 50-bag
barley recipe produces 3,332 so that's 66.64 bottles per bag, or 266
bottles per "batch". Given our current resources, this is the most
bottles of product we can produce in every month.

Monthly expenses:

• $22.17 for monthly barley, hops, and yeast
  
• $12.00 for 288 bottles each month
  
• $1.00 for monthly scented oils
  
• $60.00 for 2 workers, monthly, 40 hours per week
  

So that's a total of $95.17 per month in expenses to produce 266 bottles for sale.

The break even price for every bottle of our Nickels & Law Scented Fine Malt Beverage is $0.36 per bottle.
The wholesale price (our price) per bottle is $0.72.
The final retail price for saloons and stores is $1.08.

Each bottle is standard size, approximately 1 liter and equivalent to 2 servings / glasses.

Comparison Alcohol Prices
$0.12 per serving of cheap beer
$0.25 per serving of good beer
$0.25 per serving of Sarsaparilla
$0.54 per serving of Nickels & Law Fine Scented Malt Beverage
$0.80 per serving of Bordeaux wine


Monthly Income
We
appear to be the most expensive alcoholic beer on the market. However,
assuming that these prices represent the supply/demand mean, and that
my character will have the Crafting (Brewery) 3 skill to back it up, I
think we can safely assume that the Brewery is selling all 266 bottles
every month at a price of $0.72 per bottle. That's a total gross income
of 191.52. (woo hoo!)

Monthly Profits
Monthly
income ($191.52) - monthly expenses ($95.17) equal a total net income
of 96.35, divided between me and my partner for $48.18.
As Naomi
pointed out to me, the difference between weekly wage between us and
our workers is less than $5.00. I kinda' like it. Gives us an excuse to
be out on the town, plying our other trades.