The Opportunity
By investing in Cartel Brewing Company, you will be supporting an emerging nano-brewery concept located in Lancaster, PA. We will focus on craft beer that is brewed in smaller batches to sustain a higher level of quality and freshness, while exploring brewing styles that push the boundaries of traditional categories, ingredients and flavor infusion. We have $75k in capital to get started, and with additional capital, we will renovate our brewery and purchase a larger brewing system.
Our Brewing & Blending Philosophy
In addition to offering a diverse variety of high quality beer styles and in house creations that hold their own on the tap list, we intend to create a unique and tailored craft beer experience through blending.
One thing that craft brewing has highlighted is the overwhelming amount of options that are available to the average consumer, allowing for nearly anyone to find something they enjoy. We plan to explore the endless possibilities when you merge craft beer with a degree of made-to-order personalization.
Let’s say at any given time we offered several single hop IPAs where everything about the recipe is identical, except the hop that is used. You would have 3 beer offerings that are great on their own, but could be blended at the taps to create entirely different flavors or 'blends' through the unique hop characteristics within each beer.
Do you enjoy fruited sours, like a Gose or Berliner Weisse? What if our base recipe was refreshing on its own, but we also had several rotating fresh fruit infusion options on tap that could allow for the freshest flavor infused experience on-demand?
How about a rich and roasty Stout or Porter? As is, in its purest form, or would you like to add a shot of espresso? Vanilla? Coconut? All three? You get the idea.
The age old ideas of black and tans, half and halves, and other variations of blending two beers to create a new experience is far from new. We just want to take it a bit further.
We want to arrive at a place where we offer a balance of in house crafted beers of all styles and flavor infusions as well as the ability for customers to create their own, allowing for nearly anyone to find satisfaction in our beers.
Offerings
- All of the dark beers (Stouts, Porters, Browns, Belgians, Barleywines, etc)
- Standard, Dry Hopped and Fruited Kettle Sours
- Yes, we will have IPA
- Lighter Ales (Cream Ale, Hefe, Blonde, Wheat, etc.)
- House blends and poured to order blends
- Barrel aged beers
- Miscellaneous merchandise
- 'Lite fare' cafe menu
- Pop up food events (think Lobster Rolls or 'Hopster' Rolls)
Target Market
Our target market will consist primarily of craft beer enthusiasts of all experience levels in Lancaster, as well as the central and eastern regions of Pennsylvania. We will focus on designing our recipes and releases to attract the more experienced beer enthusiasts while not excluding the constantly emerging populous of consumers who are new to the concept and culture of craft beer. No pretentious snobbery allowed. Eventually, we plan to expand into more of a destination brewery, attracting visitors from outside our immediate region as promotion of our libations reach the ears, palates and social media feeds of consumers all over the northeast and beyond.
We may also sell limited quantities of beer to select local bars or bottle shops that we have built relationships with in order to generate more awareness and availability of our beer. Our license allows for PA produced wine, liquor, beer, mead and cider to be purchased wholesale and sold retail. That, along with the ability to have several locations under one license will allow for additional profit centers and future market expansion opportunities.
Location
We signed the lease for a great property in a high traffic location in the stadium district on the northern side of Downtown Lancaster on March 1, 2020. This area is being highly developed with additional retail, hospitality and luxury condos/apartments. The brewery will be within walking distance of many residents, businesses, Franklin & Marshall College and the Lancaster Barnstormers Baseball stadium. The township approved our zoning designation request and will be issuing our building permits for the renovations we need to perform. We received our approval letters from the city for water and sewer capacities, are in process for the electrical service upgrade and have begun filing for our Federal and State brewery licenses. The community response has been very positive so far and we are excited to get to work.
About Adam
Adam’s resume outlines a successful Sales & Marketing career for the last decade. He has also been studying the craft beer industry for over 12 years. Throughout that time, he has observed the rise of craft beer popularity and production throughout the United States as well as predicted market trends that have taken place and are projected to take place in the coming years.
In early 2008, Adam brewed his first batch of beer (A Belgian Dark Strong Ale with Plums and Honey) with a friend, and quickly became hooked on the hobby. For a number of years, he developed recipes that often fell far outside the guidelines of classic beer styles, merging styles, flavors and ingredients that may have never been thought of before (At least not at the time). One of the more bizarre being what he called a 'Belgian Barleywine style Ale brewed with a heavy dose of fresh house made duck sauce and Sriracha from a local artisan Egg Roll cafe. Adam has built a local and national following through sharing his beers with enthusiasts all over the country.
In 2015, he was encouraged to enter one of his recent creations, a bold and rich imperial stout, infused with over 40 ounces of fresh pulled espresso shots from Passenger Coffee, into the Lititz Craft Beer Fest Homebrew Competition. This would be the very first competition Adam entered, and lead to a top 10 showdown and a first place victory by public vote.
Since then, he has won medals in professionally judged events, entered the Lititz competition a second time in 2017 to take second place overall, and received hundreds of objective reviews and feedback via Untappd, professional brewers, experienced beer enthusiasts, beer judges and a YouTube beer critic.
Adam’s understanding of sales, marketing and business combined with a keen sensitivity to craft beer market trends positions him to meet the current and emerging needs of a growing and evolving market.
About The Team
Our team is very strategic and brings a diversity of experience and partnership opportunities. Cullen Farrell and Kyle Ober both founded what is now a successful local cold pressed juice company that is starting to expand into the hemp infused craft soda market. Their beverage industry experience from this angle will enhance our efforts as well as allow for expertise and access to multiple fruit processing methods, fruit curation and freshness for our fruited beers. Xiang (Sam) Guo and his wife Cindy own and operate a local restaurant offering a fast casual Asian fusion experience. Sam has also been exploring home brewing and diverse flavor exploration in beer for several years. His restaurant and business experience along with a passion for craft beer adds tremendous value to our team.
**See our team profiles for more information about Cullen, Kyle and Sam