Probably the most anxiety-inducing aspect of the whole brewery development story is licensing. It's also the most important step, so maybe the stress it brings on is appropriate. Fortunately for us at Hawksbill Brewing, the waiting is over, and our licensing process s complete as of last week!
There is a story I like to tell about this journey we are on - it starts in 2013, when I first started doing research about how to grow hops. Back then, the business plan centered on purchasing some land here in Page County and setting up the operation there - eventually including a farm brewery as part of the destination.
That's not how our plan rolled out, but what I learned as part of the research then was that there were 25 breweries in the state of Virginia at the end of 2013. It is a population that has grown steadily since then.
In fact, our business partner "ABC Kevin" - he has led us through the licensing process - told us that there were 200 breweries in operation at the end of 2016, and that we were one of 37 that had our license in progress!
Now that we have the key administrative detail taken care of - this is the start of a whole new ball game as far as reporting and regulations go - we have a last few work flow items to take care of before we open. I'll have another post later this week to write about a few of those.
No comments:
Post a Comment