Paperwork can be a pain, but a needed piece of continuing to grow your brewery. When growth into a new space becomes an option, making sure your paperwork is in order can be a task you may not look forward to. But it’s not as much of a headache as you may think if done right the first time.
Trent Fargher, the COO for Shades Brewing, said that the Utah brewery hires consultants and lawyers to help.
“Our last move (adding Shades on State), the paperwork wasn’t too bad for the TTB,” he said. “They wanted the water profile from the city, a copy of the lease if not the owner of the building, a building layout and security plan,” Fargher said. “They also wanted city and state consent as well.”
Launching in 2013, Iowa’s Big Grove Brewery has seen its share of paperwork. Currently, with three open locations and a fourth being added later in 2023 with a Cedar Rapids spot, Dave Moore, the brewery’s COO, shared with Brewer that it always costs extra money but working with a lawyer or consultant can save you on time and accuracy to get the paperwork done correctly.
“If you factor how long it will take us internally if it’s 10 hours you spend on paperwork, it’s 10 hours you could spend on the business,” Moore said. “We’ve tried to do it ourselves and it was tough and likely cost us more money.”
Fargher said it was a curious case of “the chicken and the egg” in getting approval, but it was worked out.
“The paperwork was a bit of a process with the state as they require the federal approval but the feds require state approval first,” he said. “Ultimately, the fed — after explaining — was cool and gave us the OK to get the state paperwork done and sent back.”
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