Starting a brewery may take more legal legwork than it seems

A hot-tub conversation about careers and the future led Theo and Brandalynn Armstrong down the path to starting a brewery. Four years after the “I want to make beer” discussion, the Armstrongs are expected to open Zeroday Brewing Co. LLC in midtown Harrisburg by the beginning of 2015.

Getting there isn’t as easy as it would appear from the explosion of craft breweries. It takes more than a few good recipes and a building. And once you start making money, it’s on to increased brand marketing and mapping out the next steps — new distribution channels or additional brewpubs.

DIY

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“It’s a very do-it-yourself industry until your application gets flagged by the (Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board),” said Ken McDermott, an attorney with Lower Allen Township-based Shumaker Williams, who specializes in liquor licensing and intellectual property issues.

McDermott, who runs an alcohol industry blog called “Barrels & Barristers,” said he has seen steady growth in the number of brewery-related inquiries and clients as craft beer has continued to expand in Central Pennsylvania and across the commonwealth (see “Midstate beer country,” this page).

Most of those calls come from passionate homebrewers who think they have what it takes to make money from their hop-filled hobby. But they don’t always research everything necessary to start a production facility or brewpub.

That includes identifying a location, reviewing zoning requirements, researching equipment needed to handle current and future operations, licensing restrictions and obtaining the financing to make it all happen. There is also federal trademark registration to protect intellectual property.

“It’s very hard to even estimate what it’s going to cost,” McDermott said of starting a brewery. “A lot of breweries are in old industrial places and they are trying to rehab a vacant building. You just never know from a construction standpoint what you will have to overcome.”

Risk and wait

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Making the initial investment is the hardest part, Freer said: “You don’t know if you’re going to be approved or not, but yet you have to move forward with progress for them to license you.”