There are some (extremely good) "breweries" around here which I'm told are "recipe only," i.e., the actual physical site/equipment used is that of another, larger, brewer.
However I'm not sure exactly what that really means... do they typically really just give the recipe over to the larger brewer and say "make this!" or is the "originating" brewer more involved in the actual brewing process, just using the larger brewer's equipment?
I'm not in the industry, but I understand that those are generally called "contract brewers", and the originator of the beer recipe may be more or less involved as the contract brewer begins production, but they definitely don't continue to be unless they find that the product isn't up to snuff.
Again, take that with a lump of salt, I hope somebody who knows more will chime in.
Right, as far as I understand it, that's a general pattern for breweries expanding production beyond their current capacity, or to geographically remote areas.
What I'm talking about seems a little different though: it's very, very, small craft breweries which don't have any of their own equipment (except presumably small-batch/homebrew equipment used in creating their recipes in the first place), and do all their actual production brewing on the premises of another brewery, usually located in the same city.
Maybe they work the same way, but I can't help but think that the latter type would be more involved in the process... :]
There are some (extremely good) "breweries" around here which I'm told are "recipe only," i.e., the actual physical site/equipment used is that of another, larger, brewer.
However I'm not sure exactly what that really means... do they typically really just give the recipe over to the larger brewer and say "make this!" or is the "originating" brewer more involved in the actual brewing process, just using the larger brewer's equipment?