How to Start a Brewery: Brewhouse Equipment and Startup Costs
Key takeaways
Anyone working out how to start a brewery needs the federal permit cleared before the brewhouse: nothing gets legally brewed for sale until the TTB signs off, and pricing equipment from real vendor quotes only makes sense after that.
- The TTB has to approve your Brewer’s Notice first. No federal fee for it.
- Published startup-cost ranges swing from about $250,000 to several million. They don’t agree.
- Used brewhouse equipment and private-party deals are common ways new breweries get in the door.
- State alcohol licensing runs alongside the federal notice, not after it.
Most new owners sketch out the brewhouse before they’ve looked at the paperwork. Understandable; the tanks are the fun part. But it’s backwards: nobody gets to legally brew a drop for sale until Washington says so, and that approval can sit on someone’s desk for weeks. Owners who open on schedule file the notice the week they sign the lease, not after the tanks roll off the truck. The permit comes first below, then what a brewhouse and fermentation tanks actually cost, with brewery equipment financing covered once, near the end, not as the point of this page.
Clear the Federal Permit Before You Buy Anything
A Brewer’s Notice is the approval the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau issues before a business may legally brew beer for sale, filed on Form TTB F 5130.10 under 27 CFR §25.61. Nothing about the brewhouse, the lease or the can label matters until this one form clears.
File through TTB’s Permits Online system, which the agency recommends over its paper form. The part that surprises most first-timers: no federal fee to apply, none to keep it current. State alcohol licensing runs on its own track, at the same time, not after. Ask your state’s alcohol beverage control agency what it wants before you sign anything; a few states won’t open your file without a copy of the approved federal notice already in hand.
Under 27 CFR §25.61, the notice has to be approved before the business starts operating as a brewer. Miss that and you’re brewing illegally. Landlords don’t care about TTB timelines, so don’t sign a lease that bets your opening date on a specific approval week.
What Kind of Brewery Are You Starting
The Brewers Association calls an American craft brewer one that’s small and independent: under its own production ceiling, less than 25% owned by a non-craft alcohol company, and holding its own federal Brewer’s Notice. Below that, the labels split by size and business model, and they decide how much equipment you need on opening day.
6 million barrels
is the annual production ceiling the Brewers Association uses in its own “small” test for a craft brewer.
A microbrewery usually means production under 15,000 barrels a year, most of it sold off-site through distribution. A brewpub is different: it brews on the premises and sells most of what it makes through its own restaurant, which means a second, separate equipment budget for the kitchen. See restaurant equipment financing for how that build-out usually gets financed apart from the brewhouse. A nanobrewery is smaller still, often one small system run by one or two people who are also pouring the beer.
The Brewhouse and Fermentation Equipment You’ll Actually Price
Four systems make up most of a startup budget. Price each one separately, from the fabricator who’ll actually build yours, not from a table on the internet.
| What it covers | How to price it | |
|---|---|---|
| Brewhouse | Mash tun, boil kettle, hot liquor tank, controls | An itemized quote on your exact barrel size, installed |
| Fermentation | Conical fermenters, brite tanks, glycol chilling | Priced per vessel, by tank count and cooling load |
| Packaging | Canning or bottling line, keg washer | Deferrable; kegs and taproom pours can come first |
Packaging is the one line you can push out. A lot of new breweries sell only kegs and taproom pours the first year, then add a canning or bottling line once the beer is already moving. One decision, tens of thousands of dollars out of the opening budget.
Why the Published Startup-Cost Numbers Don’t Agree
Search for brewery startup costs and you’ll find a figure anywhere from about $250,000 to several million dollars, sometimes contradicted by a second range on a sibling page of the same site. One brewhouse manufacturer’s own content prices a 7-barrel system at over $250,000 on one page and at $100,000 to $250,000 on another page of its own site. Neither cites where its number comes from. That should tell you something.
You can’t average your way out of a gap like that. Stop treating any published range as a budget; treat it as a reason to call two or three fabricators for itemized quotes on your exact barrel size. A quote is a number you can hold a vendor to. A blog range isn’t.
Financing a Brewery’s Equipment
We finance equipment, so weigh what follows with that in mind. In equipment lending generally, a used brewhouse or a private-party purchase isn’t automatically harder to finance than new; lenders weigh the age and condition of what’s being bought alongside the business behind it. Whether a given lender works with a first-time brewery owner varies, lender by lender and deal by deal. Ask directly, and don’t assume either way.
Growing into a bigger brewhouse or a second location is a different financing conversation than a first system. See how brewery equipment financing patterns tend to work by industry and region, never tied to one name or dollar figure.
Questions New Brewery Owners Ask
So what does a TTB Brewer’s Notice actually require?
It’s a federal application, Form TTB F 5130.10, that has to be approved before a brewery can legally brew for sale. Filing runs through TTB’s Permits Online system, with no fee to apply and none to keep it current.
Realistically, how long does federal approval take before you can brew for sale?
TTB doesn’t publish one guaranteed number, and the guides that estimate one disagree with each other. What actually moves the needle: how complete your application is, your bond paperwork, and whether TTB has questions about the location. Build slack into your lease timeline instead of betting on a specific week.
Microbrewery, brewpub or nanobrewery: does the label change what you need to file?
No, every one of them files the same federal Brewer’s Notice, regardless of size. What the label changes is how much brewhouse and fermentation capacity you actually need to buy, since a nanobrewery’s single small system costs a fraction of a microbrewery’s multi-tank setup.
Can a brewery start with used brewhouse equipment instead of new?
Plenty do. A tank is a tank once it’s clean and the welds are sound, and a brewery upgrading its own system is a common source of used mash tuns and fermenters at a fraction of new pricing. Have a fabricator inspect anything used before you buy it, not after.
Does the published startup-cost range mean anything for your own budget?
Wrong question, a little. The number that matters isn’t the range you read online; it’s the quote you get for your own barrel size and your own vendor. Call fabricators before you believe a blog post.
Next Steps
Planning a different concept? See how to start a restaurant or how to start a coffee shop. Ready to talk through the brewhouse itself: start an application.