Running out of beer may not seem like a good thing if you own a microbrewery, but Matt Tilley is hoping it’s a sign of good things to come.
Tilley is co-owner of the Bootleg Brew Co. located on West Street in Corner Brook.
The microbrewery opened to the public this past weekend and on Monday a post on its Facebook page advised patrons that they had drank them out of beer and would not be able to open again until Friday.
To say business was flowing would be an understatement.
Tilley and co-owner Morgan Turner-Crocker had expected to sell between seven-10 kegs of beer on the weekend, but sold between 16-20.
“We kind of underestimated our production to start,” said Tilley.
“But it’s not the worst problem we could have had.”
There was a lot happening in the city over the weekend with Hockey Day in Canada celebrations, and Tilley said the microbrewery also attracted a lot of people who have been waiting for it to open.
With a bit of a supply on hand, he said, they will be able to open Friday and will make the call at the end of the night on whether or not they’ll also open on Saturday.
Starting Monday they’ll be kegging more beer.
“So we should be able to keep ourself going.”
But the plan for the next while is just to open on the weekends.
“Just trying to keep up with demand, but it’s something that you can’t just brew a batch and be ready the next day. You’ve got to plan ahead about two weeks.”
From brew day to when the beer goes in the keg takes 15-16 days.
The microbrewery has enough equipment to do a rotation of three batches a week. Each batch should yield eight kegs and as they become more efficient they should be able to get 9-10 kegs per batch.
The aim is to be kegging 24-30 kegs early each week.
“So we should have a pretty consistent supply once we get into that schedule.”
Then they can look at opening up during the week.
