Hopsters: Nationally expanding brewery/restaurant featuring brew-your-own-beer experience

Karen Cooper

Founder/Owner

Karen is a recovering lawyer, who kicked Lee out of homebrewing in her Kitchen and helped him dream up Hopsters. Karen now runs brewery operations with a focus on Corporate and Customer Relations

Lee Cooper

Founder

Before Hopsters Lee worked in financial services in the field of organizational development, helping managers become better leaders. Now he spends his days trying to practice what he preached!

Christian Mosebach

Director of Brewing Operations

20 yrs experience Christian learned his trade at Weyerbacher in PA now he's braving the N.E Winters!

Investor Q&A

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What does your company do?

As a craft brewery with a brew-your-own-beer experience, bar, and restaurant all under one roof, we give patrons a place they can enjoy on any occasion. Whether it's a birthday, corporate event, or a fun night out on the town, there's always a reason to come back to Hopsters. Since opening in 2013, we've grown to two locations, including an incredible new 6,000 sq ft Hopsters in Boston's Seaport District that earned $1.1M in Q1 of 2018.

Where will your company be in 5 years?

We anticipate almost $6M of revenue from our two locations this year, but that's just the beginning. Why? We believe we're the first scalable brand that combines craft beer, a farm-to-table menu, and "brew your own" entertainment, making us perfect for both small parties and corporate events with Google, HP, John Hancock, and more of the countries biggest brands. With another location in Philadelphia in the works, our hope is to open 2 more locations in 2019 and have 16 locations by 2022.

What is Hopsters?

Hopsters is unique experience. You could probably call us a brew your own beer brew pub. What that means is you come in, we ask you what beer you like to drink, then we help you make 3 cases of your own handcrafted beer. It takes about 2 hours and it's a fun experience. You can do it with friends, as a corporate group, team building, on a date, or by yourself. During those 2 hours when you're brewing, we have a full restaurant, so you can eat and drink while you are making your own beer.

How did Hopsters get its start?

I was looking for a new career and I was interested in owning my own business. I was making my own homebrewed beer and got rave reviews, so I always thought it would be fun to have a career that involves beer in some way. I never really thought that was going to happen because I did a little bit of research and quite frankly unless you have a significant amount of upfront capital, it's very difficult to run a brewery that makes any significant amount of cash. With two kids, a family, and living in the suburbs, I needed to create a significant income for myself. I didn’t think that owning a brewery with the vast amount of capital was going to make the money that I need to be successful. I also didn't have a lot of experience putting together a commercial brewery. In my travels, I found these places that you can go and brew your own beer. I visited one with some friends of mine and as we were going through the experience of brewing our own beer, we came to the conclusion that it was great to be able to brew your own beer and get to hang out with other people during the process. With the downtime while you wait for the beer to brew, we thought it would be great if the place had a restaurant so we could eat while we waited. That was really the start of the genesis of the business. After looking into the numbers, I realized you could actually make some serious money doing this. It’s fun to have a restaurant and a bar and a brewing aspect. I did more research and found that there are only two places that that did this, and both of them were in Ohio. I didn't really find anything else around that. I had a few ideas that focused on the beer making piece of it. The places that I visited seemed to want to be a bar and a brewery, but they weren’t focused on the brewery aspect and used kettles twice the size as we use. With them, you brew six cases of beer and for a lot of people that is too much -- our concept uses a smaller kettle and allows you to brew three cases. Another thing I noticed is that these places were dingy and more like a warehouse type of setting. I realized that the demographic that was into craft beer was young professionals who are looking for an upscale experience. Along with using less beer in the kettles, we decided to provide a really fun, cool, upscale environment that catered to young urban professionals who were really moving and embracing the whole craft beer movement.After about a year or so we decided that we wanted to really brew our own beer and become a brewpub. So we got a brewpub license and we have pretty much been exclusively offering our beer at Hopsters for the last four years. We wanted to be authentic, and if we were going to have others brew their own beer, we wanted to be known as a place that produces great beer.

What is Hopsters’ Mission, and what are your core values?

Our mission is to enhance craft beer awareness for people in our community. We want them know more about craft beer, whether it's tasting or brewing, and enhance their experience for craft beer. That is what we get out of bed every morning to do. I have to say that Hopsters offers the best craft beer experience in the States right now. We also value the learning process, so when people come in, they can learn as much as they want. They can totally immerse themselves or just ask a couple of questions, all while enjoying the great selection of beer and menu items that we have in our restaurant. It’s a complete experience that they can enjoy. We like to call the learning process self-directed edutainment.The craft beer culture can sometimes get a little snobby, much like the wine culture, and we wanted to take that whole snobbishness out of beer. Where I grew up in England, beer is a working man's drink, and we want to create that easy going, fun, relaxing environment.We have four core values. The first three are learning, keeping local, and community involvement. We really want to be involved in our community. Even if we can’t give a lot of money within the community, we do like to donate kettles so that they can auction them out for community charities. We are able to do that for not a lot of money, so we do a significant amount of charity work within the community. Being a part of the community is very important to us. Craft beer if anything is local. People want to drink local fresh beer. Most people don't want their beer to come from 4,000 miles away if given the choice.The last value that we have for the locals is fun. So we really try to provide a culture around beer that is fun and lets people get away from their day to day life. We really feel that we've been able to bring those four aspects together because people are always having fun. They are drinking and making beer. Everyone that comes into Hopsters just has a really good time.By asking the community to put money into this fundraiser, we are giving our community a piece of Hopsters. They will have a stake in the business and can come to Hopsters, drink a beer, and say, “I own a piece of this!” It’s a circle of support, in a way. We support the community that will be supporting us.

What is the experience when someone comes into Hopsters? What is the process?

Our Newton location has 10 kettles that are all connected while our Boston location has 12. You can brew one kettle, which most people do, or you can come in with some friends and do 2 - 4 kettles. Each kettle is a different style of beer. When you come in, you're assigned a brewmaster and a number of our staff that will help choose the kind of beer that you would like to brew. That's usually a quick 2-minute conversation. We have a whole selection of 30 different recipes that we've developed over the years. If you have a little bit of experience and you want to customize the beer with maybe different hop choices or certain things you'd like to add to the beer, as long as we have those ingredients and it's not going to make your beer taste awful, we are happy to accommodate that. We offer a “flight of beers” that you can order to taste so you can get accustomed to the different flavor and different styles of beer if you are not a big craft beer drinker. For example, you may want to sample a Belgian beer because you have never had it. You can get a sample and that will help you to fine tune your beer choice. Once you've chosen a beer to brew, we take you to our ingredients room. We have canisters on the wall where you get your different types of grains. You will choose your hops and the various malts that go into your beer. In fact, you will get a laminated recipe card and the brewmaster will help you select those different types of ingredients. Once you have all the ingredients that you need for the brew, you'll go over to your kettle and start making your three cases of beer, which is about 7.5 gallons of beer. You get 72 12 oz. bottles or you can mix and match of bottles and cans. Our cans are 32 oz. (2 pints). If you are making a big strong Belgian ale, you probably don't want to can that, so you will probably fill up bottles when they come back later. The process takes about 2 hours and moves in sections. The first section, selecting the beer, getting the ingredients, etc., takes up to about 30 minutes. Then, you'll be boiling the beer for about an hour, which is when we will be keeping an eye on your beer. There may be times during that hour where you need add hops or some other adjuncts into the beer; if you are making spice beer you might be putting some cloves in, or if you’re making a pumpkin beer, you put in pumpkin. For the most part, you have about 45 minutes of downtime, and in that time we encourage you to order some food from the restaurant and get yourself a beer. Then you will go over to the kettles and we are going to transfer that beer into your fermenter, which takes about 10 minutes. What we're basically doing is taking your kettle of beer and getting it down to room temperature through the heat exchanger. It’s a fancy bit of equipment in the brewery, and it’s really easy to do; we kind of walk you through that process. The fermenter is a 15 gallon drum. Once you've filled up your beer, you're going to add the yeast into your beer. That's when we get some details from you to tie down your beer and take it downstairs to our fermentation room. The beer takes about a week to ferment. At this point, you can either keep drinking and having fun at Hopsters or you can go home. When you come back two weeks later, you get to try out the beer that you brewed. The great thing is that, with all of our recipes and our processes, the beer is going to be pretty good. It's a lot better than if you were going to homebrew for the first time. People are usually quite pleased with the beer that they get. At this point, you get to bottle your beer in the bottling line. There you sanitize your bottles and fill them through our bottling machines. Once again, you go home and that's when we send you an email with a link to our site where you can upload the design you would like for your labels. It is all included in the price. When you come back to get your beer, you will get to place your 72 labels onto your beer, and people have a lot of fun with that. Basically that's it. Once you've bottled your beer it's good to drink so you take it home and drink it.

How much does the process cost? What is the split in the cost between the restaurant, the bar and the brewing experience?

It costs anywhere from $180 to $230 depending on the style of beer you want. A pale ale is $180 and a Belgian trippel is $230. That price difference is for the ingredients -- you need more product to get stronger beers and more hops to get hoppier beer. If you're coming as a corporate group, you're going to pay $125 per person. For that price, we bottle the beers for you, we stick the labels on it, and we drop it off at your company address for you to give to the people.

What are your margins?

Our average gross margin is 75% across both locations. In Newton, our EBITDA is 24% and our net income is 15%. In Boston, our EBITDA is 30+% and our net income is 20+%.Serving our own beer through our own taps has proved to highly profitable, as we have a 90% gross margin on all Hopsters–brewed beer served on-site.

How has the growth progressed, and what is the ceiling on your original location?

The Newton location is a 2,000 sq ft location that did $1.2M in 2015, close to $1.4M in 2016, and $1.3 in 2017. Our sales there are not really going to grow significantly, as we're maxed out at that size. In Boston, we did $1.1M in Q1 2018 and anticipate filing more than $5M in total this year from that location.

Why did you choose Newton for your first location? What is next for you in terms of growth?

No one had done this on the East Coast or in New England. We wanted a place that was affordable and that had good visibility on a main road so people could see it. You're never going to be successful doing something like this in the back alley. The Hopsters brewery in Newton is only 2,000 sq ft. One of our biggest challenges is hosting corporate events but having to shut the rest of the space down to the public due to our size.In Boston, our 6,000 sq ft location has the capacity for 180 people and boasts 12 kettle stations, a bar, a brew hall, and a full-service restaurant and kitchen. To save costs, all Hopsters beer is brewed in the Newton location. We built a strong brand in Newton, so our brewhouse, tap room, and corporate sales have all been strong so far. We expanded because we felt our margins and our sales would be that much higher in a bigger location, which has been the case so far, and gives us confidence in expanding our business plan nationally in the ensuing years.

Why did you choose the Boston area to expand?

We chose Seaport, which is an up-and-coming area in central Boston. It's the hippest, fastest-growing place in the city. There is development going on everywhere; condos and a nightclub, and we're right in the middle of all of it. Also, there is a brewery there called Trillium, you may have heard of Harpoon; their brewery is not too far away as well. It's a great location to be in.The location carries our target demographic of young professionals. We're right next door to the financial district and of course a lot of offices. This area has been significant for our corporate events, which can be five times as profitable as a standard restaurant.

Who makes up your team, and how are you qualified to do this? Who do you surround yourself with and why does everyone want to grow Hopsters?

The core team is my wife and I. I take the lead on the strategy and focus on how we drive revenue. My wife is takes the lead on marketing, social media, and how to get people in there to spend money. I’m also pretty good at figuring out how to make it all cool, fun, as well as how to take our values and achieve our mission while making money. What I've learned from the last few years is really about how to fine-tune the business. Karen focuses on the operations side. She manages the inbound relationships with people that want to come in on the corporate piece. We have an amazing chef whose been a chef for the last 10 years, went to culinary school, and he's owned his own restaurant. We're really working on providing a beer-centric menu for people. Not only do we suggest pairings, but we are always looking at ways to add beer to the food. For example, in the fall we have a beer fondue and a steak and ale pie. We have a very craft beer-focused menu.In terms of managing our beverage program in the front of the house, that falls to our front of house and bar manager, John. He has a hospitality degree from BU. He's been in the beer trade business and the beverage business for many years.We also have Cassidy as our Head Brewer. He came to us as a brewer with Sam Adams and is responsible for overall brewing operations.The core team passes between Newton and Boston. The strategic management and the weekly operations for Newton also falls to the staff in Boston. We don't brew our own beer in Boston, as we do that in Newton so we can double the capacity of the brewery in Boston, then we send our beer down to the Boston. We didn't want to use our 6,000 square feet to brew beer, we wanted to use it for the restaurant, the bar, and the customers.

How do you make money?

We have 4 major revenue streams at various levels of maturity. In Boston, our Q1 sales were 41% from our own Hopsters craft beer, 37% from food, 11% from the brew-your-own-beer kettles, and 10% from liquor and wine. In Newton, our 2017 sales were 40% from the brew-your-own-beer kettles, 25% from food, 23% from our own Hopsters craft beer, and 12% from liquor and wine.

How do you acquire customers?

We have a significant online social media presence that includes 17K Facebook followers, plus online advertising, outbound corporate sales executives, inbound sales executives, and inbound media executives.

What's new about what you're making? How is it different?

Nobody does what we do on the East Coast and we have virtually no competition nationally. We're unique in the fact that we have the brew your own experience with the emphasis on corporate events as well as the upscale brewpub restaurant/bar. Think "Foodertainment"-- Dave & Busters, etc.

How big is the market?

We believe there should be at least one or two Hopsters in every U.S. urban area and potentially overseas. If you are over 21 and looking for a fun experience with friends, work, or family, then Hopsters is for you.

Who are your competitors? How are you different?

You cannot brew your own beer, drink local craft beer, and eat in a restaurant all in the same location anywhere on the East Coast. For corporate events, people have other options such as Kings Bowling and F1 Formula Racing, but there's no brewing alternative.

What do you understand about your business that others don't get?

Our model yields tremendous profitability. In our restaurant, the majority of our revenues come from higher margin business, so we do not face the business financial challenges of a restaurant. We have much lower costs and much higher margins than that traditional business model.

What's your biggest risk? What keeps you up at night?

It's about execution every single day and as we grow, we will need to continue to bring in great colleagues. Plus, national licensing is always a challenge, as each state, city, and jurisdiction has different rules and regulations.

1	New Boston location filed $1.1M in Q1 2018 revenue while our original location does $1.3M in annual sales.
2	Raised $1.3M from 713 Wefunder investors in 2017.
3	Corporate events with Google, HP, John Hancock, PWC, Vertex, GE, HubSpot, Harvard, and other large businesses can bring in more than $10k of revenue a night.
4	Our average gross margin is 75% across both locations.
5	Net income of 20% and EBITDA of 30%+ in Boston, more than 5x as profitable as a standard restaurant.
6	Our prime Costs, Labor, & COGS run at 50%.
7	Opened in January 2018, our 6,000 sq ft Boston location has the capacity for 180 people and boasts 12 kettle stations, a bar, brew hall, and a full-service restaurant and kitchen.
8	Serving our own beer through our own taps has proved to highly profitable, as we have a 90% gross margin on all Hopsters–brewed beer served on-site.

1	Any projections of future performance provided to you may prove to be incorrect. The financial projections of the Company and projections relating to the future market for the Company’s potential products are based upon current assumptions as to future events and conditions which the Company believes to be reasonable as of the date thereof, but which are inherently uncertain and unpredictable. The assumptions may prove to be incomplete or incorrect and unanticipated events and circumstances may occur. Because of such uncertainties, and the other risks outlined herein, the actual results of the Company’s future operations can be expected to be different from those projected, and such difference may be material and adverse. Potential investors should consider the projections in light of the underlying assumptions, reach their own conclusions as to the reasonableness of those assumptions and evaluate the projections on the basis of that analysis.
2	The Company is dependent on its management, founders and sponsors. The Company is dependent on its management, founders and sponsors to execute its business plan. The success of the Company will depend on its ability to compete for and retain additional qualified key personnel to enhance the growth. The Company's business would be adversely affected if it were unable to recruit qualified personnel when necessary or if it were to lose the services of certain key personnel and it were unable to locate suitable replacements in a timely manner. Finding and hiring such replacements, if any, could be costly and might require the Company to grant significant equity awards or incentive compensation, which could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s financial results and on your investment. The loss, through untimely death, unwillingness to continue or otherwise, of any such persons could have a materially adverse effect on the Company and its business.
3	Factual statements have not been independently verified. No party has been engaged to verify the accuracy or adequacy of any of the factual statements contained in this offering statement. In particular, neither legal counsel nor any other party has been engaged to verify any statements relating to the experience, skills, contacts or other attributes of the managers, officers and employees of the Company, or to the anticipated future performance of the Company.
4	The Company’s brew pubs could have licensing, legal or regulatory problems. Some or all of the Brew Pubs could lose their licenses or be unable to acquire licenses to sell alcoholic beverages or have their hours of operation curtailed as a result of hearings of the licensing boards in jurisdictions where they are located or as a result of any changes in legislation governing licensed premises in the various jurisdictions in which Brew Pubs are located or may be located, with a material adverse effect on the Company’s financial results and on your investment.
5	A disruption in brewing activities could have a material adverse effect on the Company. A prolonged disruption to brewing activities (e.g., due to fire, industrial action or any other cause) at a particular brewing site could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s ability to brew its products, which in turn could cause a material adverse effect on the Company’s financial results and on your investment.
6	The cost of establishing and operating the brew pubs may be higher than expected. The costs of establishing and operating the Brew Pubs may be higher than expected. Although management of the Company has undertaken projections and opened and ran a smaller location, costs may be greater in the U.S. locations and may increase as a result of economic or other factors beyond the Company’s control, with a resulting material adverse effect on the Company’s financial results and on your investment.
7	Changes in the economy could have a detrimental impact. Changes in the general economic climate could have a detrimental impact on consumer expenditure and therefore on the Company’s revenue. It is possible that recessionary pressures and other economic factors (such as declining incomes, future potential rising interest rates, higher unemployment and tax increases) may decrease the disposable income that customers have available to spend on beer and/or alcohol consumption and may adversely affect customers’ confidence and willingness to spend. Any of such events or occurrences could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s financial results and on your investment.
8	Increased costs could affect the company. An increase in the cost of raw materials or energy could affect the Company’s profitability. Commodity and other price changes may result in unexpected increases in the cost of raw materials, glass bottles and other packaging materials used by the Company. The Company may also be adversely affected by shortages of raw materials or packaging materials. In addition, energy cost increases could result in higher transportation, freight and other operating costs. The Company may not be able to increase its prices to offset these increased costs without suffering reduced volume, sales and operating profit, and this could have an adverse effect on your investment.
9	An investment in the Company is speculative. Subscribers of the Units offered hereby may not realize a return on their investment and could lose their investment. Subscribers should carefully review this Agreement and these Risk Factors and consult with their attorneys, tax advisors, and/or business advisors prior to purchasing the Units offered hereby.
10	Subscribers of the Units offered hereby may have to bear the risk of their investment for an indefinite period of time since there are substantial restrictions on their resale. The Units offered hereby have not been registered under the Securities Act or any state securities or blue-sky law and constitute “restricted securities” under applicable federal securities laws. As a result, Subscribers of the Units offered hereby may not sell or otherwise transfer those Units except pursuant to registration under the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption therefrom. By investing in the Units offered hereby, you are agreeing to significant restrictions on the liquidity of your Units for the foreseeable future. As a result of all of these restrictions, Subscribers of the Units offered hereby must bear the economic risks of their investment for an indefinite period of time. An investment in the Company is suitable only for sophisticated Subscribers who can afford to bear the risk of a complete loss of such investment. A purchase of the Units should be considered only by persons financially able to maintain their investment and who can afford a loss of all or a substantial part of such investment.
11	The Company may incur debt. The Company may incur debt secured by the land and/or the assets of its brewery to open other locations, and it may incur debt (including secured debt) in connection with opening and/or operating Brew Pubs. Complying with obligations under such indebtedness may have a material adverse effect on the Company and on your investment.
12	The Units offered hereby may be diluted by future issuances of Units of the Company with superior rights. It is anticipated that the Company will need additional rounds of financing for future anticipated expansion. Additional funding would likely adversely affect the current equity owners by diluting their equity interests in the Company. The Company cannot guarantee that the necessary funds will be made available to the Company. Thus, there is no assurance that the Company will be able to continue to develop and fully implement its marketing plan nor continue to operate if the necessary funding is not available.
13	The Company has broad discretion in the application of the proceeds from the sale of Units. The management of the Company has broad discretion to adjust the application and allocation of the net proceeds of this offering in order to address changed circumstances and opportunities. As a result of the foregoing, the success of the Company will be substantially dependent upon the discretion and judgment of the management of the Company with respect to the application and allocation of the net proceeds hereof.
14	The foregoing risk factors do not purport to be a complete enumeration or explanation of the risks involved in an investment in the Company. Prospective investors are urged to consult their own advisors before deciding to invest in the Company.
15	Our future success depends on the efforts of a small management team. The loss of services of the members of the management team may have an adverse effect on the company. There can be no assurance that we will be successful in attracting and retaining other personnel we require to successfully grow our business.
16	Increasing our sales and profits depends in part on our ability to open new brew pubs in cities and at sites and on terms attractive to us, which is subject to many unpredictable factors, including, but not limited to, our potential inability to locate and secure new brew pub sites in locations that we believe to be attractive, difficulties in hiring and training top performing employees, delay in new site construction, and difficulty in negotiating leases with acceptable terms. If we are unable to open the number of new brew pubs we plan, or delay or forego any planned brew pub openings, our growth strategy and our expected resulted may be adversely affected.
17	If we are unable to build the customer base that we expect for new brew pub locations or overcome the higher fixed costs associated with new brew pub locations, new brew pubs may not have results similar to those of our existing restaurants and may not be profitable.

Date	Amount	Security
	$0	Custom
01/2017	$241,000	Priced Round
09/2018	$559,500	Priced Round
02/2017	$1,069,997	Priced Round

$300,000	We currently expect to use approximately 95% of the net proceeds from this offering on operational expenses and working capital requirements and the remainder of the net proceeds to pay the Wefunder intermediary fee.
$1,070,000	We currently expect to use approximately28% towards brewing and restaurant equipment; 67% towards construction of the Restaurant and the remainder of the net proceeds to pay the Wefunder intermediary fee.

Class of Security	Securities (or Amount) Authorized	Securities (or Amount) Outstanding	Voting Rights
Series A 2 Units	22,869.517	22,869.517	Yes
Common Units	43,611	43,611	Yes
Series A 3 Units	1,109	1,109	Yes
Series A 1 Units	13,519.4	13,519.4	Yes

Director	Occupation	Joined
Lee Cooper	CEO @ Hopsters LLC	2013
Karen Cooper	Marketing @ Hopsters LLC	2013
Gretchen Wilson	National Accounts @ 9th Gear Technologies	2017

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