Location Is Everything

If you're going down the brew pub route, location is the single biggest factor in whether it works or not.

A village that's lost its pub is the ideal. Communities that once had a local and watched it close are desperate for somewhere to go. If you can fill that gap with a small brew pub serving good beer, you inherit a ready-made customer base of people who've been waiting for exactly this. You're not competing with five other pubs for the same drinkers — you're the only option, and people will support you because you've given them their local back.

Similarly, a town where the existing pubs are all serving the same bland lager and no one's offering anything interesting. If you're the place with well-made, distinctive beer in an area where the alternative is another pint of Carling, you'll stand out without trying.

Get the location wrong, though, and no amount of good beer will save you. Open in an area with strong existing pub competition and you're back to fighting for a share of a finite market — exactly the problem this book has been warning you about since Chapter 3.