{"id":840,"date":"2018-04-02T18:36:07","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T18:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/craftbrewerylegalblog\/?p=840"},"modified":"2020-07-31T13:29:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T13:29:13","slug":"legal-basics-starting-a-brewery-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/craftbrewerylegalblog\/2018\/04\/02\/legal-basics-starting-a-brewery-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Basics: Starting a Brewery 101"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Breweries are sprouting up all over, just like we hope spring is!<\/p>\n<p>If you are contemplating joining the craze, here are a few tips to keep in mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Get your limited liability entity set up properly at the start. Do you want it to be a C corporation? S corporation? Limited liability company? Various factors including tax treatment and your long-term plans will affect this decision. The C corporation may involve some double taxation, but did you know that under certain circumstances you might be able to pay zero tax on a sale of the company down the road if the company is set up as a C corporation?<\/li>\n<li>Make sure that equity ownership in your brewery is documented properly. You don\u2019t want to let your co-founder own half the company unless his ownership is tied to continued provision of services. What if your pal has a change of heart after 6 months and leaves for Timbuktu? The company needs to be able to take back that equity if your pal flakes out on you (or gets hit by a bus).<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you have enough funding. Building out a brewery is expensive. You may need to raise funds by selling equity in the company, selling convertible or non-convertible notes, or getting a bank loan. Raising money from friends and family can work, but be sure to comply with federal and state securities laws.<\/li>\n<li>Put a good operating agreement or stockholders\u2019 agreement in place, to make sure that you don\u2019t end up with co-owners you weren\u2019t looking for and to maintain control of your board.<\/li>\n<li>Protect your intellectual property. File to register your trademarks and make sure that any employee creating website content, brew recipes, or any other intellectual property has signed a proper assignment of that work.<\/li>\n<li>Get your licensing in place. No beer can flow without that!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you follow these tips, you may soon see your brewery \u201cspring\u201d to life!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Breweries are sprouting up all over, just like we hope spring is! If you are contemplating joining the craze, here are a few tips to keep in mind: Get your limited liability entity set up properly at the start. Do you want it to be a C corporation? S corporation?&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[88,82,87,89,81,84,85,83,86],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-owning-the-brewery","tag-brewery","tag-c-corporation","tag-equity","tag-intellectual-property","tag-limited-liability","tag-limited-liability-company","tag-llc","tag-s-corporation","tag-taxation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Legal Basics: Starting a Brewery 101 - At the Bar With Bowditch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/craftbrewerylegalblog\/2018\/04\/02\/legal-basics-starting-a-brewery-101\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Legal Basics: Starting a Brewery 101 - At the Bar With Bowditch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Breweries are sprouting up all over, just like we hope spring is! 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