What It's About
A side hustle that helps event planners customize beer for their events.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Let’s talk about supply and demand! You’re probably familiar with the basic concept: when more of something exists or is easier to obtain, the price tends to be lower. Similarly, when demand is high and there’s a shortage of something, especially something of limited quantity, the price is higher.
A lot of industries run into supply issues, and this issue relates very much to today’s story. The beer industry has a supply issue, meaning that sometimes breweries have excess capacity, so Neil's side hustle found a way to solve this problem. Is there an industry that you could help with a supply problem?
Fun Fact
A hotel client Neil just started working with in NYC doesn't care so much about packaging, but what they do care about is creating unique beers that they can serve at the hotel bar on draft. For that client, they're working with an extremely small brewery near Albany called Davidson Brothers which has a system that allows them to produce 12 keg batches. They work with the client and brewery to come up with beer styles that could work for their clientele, and the brewery will then produce and deliver the kegs directly to the hotel.
Notes from Chris
Episode 159
For the past 9 months, Neil Soni has been building a side hustle called Unlimited Brewing Company, which helps anyone create their own custom craft beer. He does this without opening his own brewery, which might be fun but would definitely be expensive. Instead, Neil uses an Airbnb-style approach where he works with existing breweries and uses their idle equipment. This flexible manufacturing method allows him to offer small-batch, custom beers to customers for an affordable price. It all started from a blog. Neil was passionate about beer and had a blog called Brewmaster's Reserve, where he interviewed brewery founders. During the course of these interviews, he kept hearing the same complaints coming up, namely that 1) there was excess brewing capacity available, and 2) that demand was hard to predict (thanks to the three-tier system). Neil had worked in marketplaces for most of his career, so he started to connect the dots and saw that there has to be a better way to leverage the excess production capacity. Neil sees Unlimited Brewery Company as a true middleman in the highly-regulated beer industry. He takes each client's request and manually matches it up with his brewing network's capabilities. If they don't have a brewery in the network that can get the job done, he’ll reach out to other brewers. Long term, he’s hoping this can be more automated, but doing it manually right now has been beneficial in terms of learning more about the industry and pain points.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Unlimited Brewing Company: Learn more about Neil and his innovative brewing side hustle on his website
- Brewmaster's Reserve: The brewing blog that started it all!
- Davidson Brothers Brewing Company: A small brewery that Neil worked with in order to customize beer for a local hotel
- TTB | Beer Laws, Regulations, and Public Guidance: Learn more about the rules and regulations associated with working in the brewing industry
- British Pub Manager Bakes Pork Pies for Profit: A British pub manager has a creative idea for new pub food that he initially uses to help his boss but then realizes that it might be better for himself
- House Arrest Leads to $500,000 Food Truck and Catering Hustle: While serving time after a run-in with the law, one man and his cousin get creative in the kitchen, then launch a successful food truck, catering, and restaurant business in rural Pennsylvania
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