CLEVELAND — The brewing business involves costs you’d expect and some you may not think about.
For instance, there are hoses used to transfer beer across the brewing station. Andrew Revy, owner of Immigrant Son Brewing, said those hoses cost a lot more than when he opened a year ago.
“This particular one is $175,” Revy said. “A couple of them were well over $200.”
Revy buys his aluminum cans from a separate vendor. He said those costs are up anywhere from 8-15%.
“I know in the last three to four years alone there’s been a significant increase in aluminum,” Revy said. “Also there’s about a good year period where there was a scarcity issue, which also drove up the price.”
Revy also doesn’t have the machine that seals the beer in the cans yet, so he pays another brewery to come in and do it for him with their machine.
“We don’t have the space to set up for year-round and we don’t have the capital to invest in our own canning line,” Revy said.
Revy, who had to delay his opening due to the pandemic, is still facing challenges.
He’s in the middle of building a customer base and said he can’t pass additional costs onto his customers, which have lowered his profits.
“Good beer is costly to make but it should also be accessible,” Revy said. “It’s a very fine line of where to pass on (costs) to consumer unnecessarily.”
Revy has plans to eventually can the beer in-house, but he’s still too early on in the process to invest in that.
“For now we’re in growth mode, we’re enjoying year one,” Revy said. “We just got through year one. We’re thrilled to see what happens in year two. In the mode of trying to figure out how to grow into getting into the next step of having our own facility.”
