Mechanical engineer turns hobby into a business as beer brewing industry continues to grow

An engineering education can lead an engineer in unexpected directions.

“I figured I’d start this as a little hobby job and it took off,” said John Blichmann, founder and president of Blichmann Engineering, a design and manufacturing company that sells engineered beer and wine brewing products. “I started this in my garage.”

Blichmann, 59, grew up in Dubuque, attending Loras College before transferring to Iowa State University for a degree in mechanical engineering. His professional career began at Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, in technical sales.

“Our Cat dealers would call in and have questions about a product: ‘How do I size a radiator for this? How do I install a generator?’” he said. “Just lots of different questions like that.”

After a similar position in the petroleum industry in Texas supplying oil field drillers, by 1992, Blichmann was back with Caterpillar and back in the Midwest, in Lafayette, Indiana.

“We were thinking it’s time to settle down and have a family,” he said.

Blichmann’s was still a pretty typical career path for an engineer until he and his wife were invited for dinner at the home of one of her coworkers. He encountered home-brewed beer for the first time and was soon brewing his own beer. Needing a small fermenting tank, he applied his engineering expertise to his new hobby, fabricating a few of the conical stainless-steel vessels.

“It’s such a niche hobby,” Blichmann said. “I sold on eBay, (thinking) I’ll make enough money to pay for the two that I wanted.”

A visit to his favored brewing supply store in Indianapolis came next.

“The gal there said, ‘Have you ever thought about making these for the industry?’” he said.

Around the year 2000, Blichmann began fabricating small tanks for most steps in the brewing process.

“I had some local shops do the laser cutting and other stuff, and I assembled the final components,” he said. “I set up a little web page with an order form.”

Two years after launching his business, “it was getting pretty busy,” Blichmann said. He decided to manufacture and sell brewing equipment full time.

“I’m really enjoying this, the entrepreneurial thing and running a business,” he said. “I decided I was going to stay home. I’ll be a Mr. Mom and grow the business. I’d load all the shipments for the day in the minivan and drop them off at FedEx, and then go to the daycare.”

Blichmann’s timing was fortunate. The number of breweries nationwide went from less than 300 in the late 1980s to 1,564 in 1999, at the start of the craft beer boom. That number soared to 9,709 in 2022, according to the Brewers Association, an American trade group that “promotes and protects small and independent American brewers, their craft beers and the community of brewing enthusiasts.”

Blichmann hired his first employee in 2004 and moved his business out of the garage into a 1,500-square-foot space in Lafayette. Business “exploded” during the 2008 recession.

“We had years of 100 percent growth,” Blichmann said.

By 2015, Blichmann’s business shifted to commercial craft breweries. Incorporating his homebrew systems’ features made them attractive to small startup breweries.

“We started focusing on that size because it was fairly underserved,” he said. “We scaled up our homebrew stuff. It’s familiar, and way less expensive. We just put in the program features that were needed.”

That’s what attracted Tom Olberding, founder and owner of Textile Brewing. He had no homebrewing experience until someone suggested opening a brewery in Dyersville.

“I was just doing my thing as a pharmacist,” Olberding said. When a former sewing factory built in 1906 — the scene of a labor dispute immortalized by Dubuque author Richard Bissell in the Broadway musical and film “Pajama Game” — became available, “I did a crash course and spent 12 to 15 months making as much beer as I could.”

Olberding said Blichmann’s mother forwarded an article in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald to her son, who called shortly after.

“I thought, ‘Here’s another equipment company looking for me to buy their equipment,’” Olberding said.

The two men established they’d attended ISU at the same time, but it was Blichmann’s simplicity and flexibility that sealed the deal. Olberding likes Blichmann’s electrically heated brewing vessels, avoiding the expense and maintenance complexities of steam or natural gas.

“His equipment was pretty much exactly what I was looking for,” Olberding said. “It’s affordable. It’s basically homebrew systems (made) much larger. There’s not much to go wrong with them.”

A five-barrel Blichmann system (a beer barrel holds 31 gallons) was installed in the old pajama factory, and Textile opened in July 2019.

“We try to do interesting and traditional beers, and also have the stuff that people are trending to,” Olberding said. “We have 22 beers on tap.”

Other Eastern Iowa breweries with Blichmann equipment include Kalona Brewing, Allerton Brewing in Independence, Contrary Brewing in Muscatine, Jubeck New World Brewing and Catfish Charlie’s in Dubuque, TLC Brew Works in Holy Cross and River Ridge Brewing in Bellevue.

With its equipment in more than 500 breweries, Blichmann Engineering now employs about 20 at its own 35,000-square-foot offices and warehouse in Lafayette, home of Purdue University and its noted engineering program.

“That’s been great for getting interns, but we’ve also hired interns from Iowa State,” he said.

Blichmann’s innovations, many of them patented, include the use of lighter, more flexible hoses instead of piping to move beer between brewing, fermenting and bright tanks. Brewing systems are available from one barrel to 30 barrels, delivered ready to install.

“Most companies didn’t make anything bigger than 20 gallons,” Blichmann said. “We kind of helped create that market with a very inexpensive brew system. That got us started in the pro side.”

Blichmann staff are available for on-site consultations when needed, which is rarely.

“By and large, the systems are so straightforward so you really don’t need it,” Blichmann said. “You can just pick up the kettles with a few guys and move them.”

About 70 percent of the company’s supplies are manufactured in the United States.

True to his homebrewing roots, Blichmann makes a niche for smaller operations — microbreweries (typically producing 30 or fewer barrels a year) and even smaller nanobreweries with their own taprooms.

“Most people would say there’s no way you can have a go at it brewing less than 30 barrels,” he said. “But you’re selling it at a retail margin, there’s no distribution costs, you can brew less and make as much money. Most of the people starting these breweries I know or have met from the homebrewing.”

And he still brews the occasional batch himself.

“Less than I used to, because the business has gotten pretty crazy,” Blichmann said. “We have a kegerator in the office.”