One of the runners in my group wants to make his own microbrewery. What kinds of knowledge/background skills do you think you'd need for something like that? And what B/R skill would you use for setting up a fermentation system?

Also, what weird things have your PCs decided to build in their spare time?

Here are some thoughts:

Small Business Economics, Marketing, and Beer Brewing. That should probably get him started. I wouldn't use a B/R skill, just Beer Brewing, because he isn't really building or repairing anything, right?

He's buying all the part to put the brewery together himself. All the piping, vats, the yeast, dealing with hooking up the water supply etc etc... He's doing it all himself (well, the rigger in the group is helping, but it's mostly the Scottish Troll Samurai who's building everything).

Then I guess just Beer Brewing, and Electronics B/R. I imagine that a brewery in 2063 is pretty hitech, and has pretty good matrix instructions to follow... Just curious, are you giving him the Day job flaw when he gets it up and running?

I had a player set out to create his own, small-scale ordinance manufacturing operation. Basically, enough to keep him and his team well supplied with ammunition, and enough to sell on the streets to make back operation costs. Then, he started working on learning how to program pilot programs from drones. He was already a skilled drone rigger and mechanic.

The campaign was ended before he got to his next step. He was going to combine his ability to manufacture ammunition and explosives, his ability to manufacture cheap, simple drones, and install a pilot rating. He was then going to present me with this combination, saying, "look at me, I can make missiles! No more 50k nuyen missiles for me."

I forever admire that player for all the wacked out ideas and combinations he can come up with that work.

My flatmate is brewing his own beer right now. He's never done it before so he's doing it from a kit with instructions. About one or twice a day he checks on it but apart from that it just stays where it is. Obviously if you want someone to have a larger scale cycle of kegs going they'd want to spend more time checking each of them and have a reasonably hygenic environment rather than a bucket and keg in a closet. A day-job flaw would probably be nessecary if the task is automated at-all.

Personally I'd put Beer Brewing as a knowledge skill and not bother with any B/R skill as you don't really have to do anything complicated equipment-wise (Pour beer from bucket to keg without spilling). I'd say that Distilling would be under the the same category as Chemistry and thus a knowledge skill..

You could use the b/r shop price guidelines to actually set up the bar itself. Rather than create a new active skill, Id just use the knowledge like an active, since there is little actually active in brewing your own brew, at least at the basic state. Granted, there is something of an artform in selecting your own hops, bitters, aeromatics and grain type, but a dissertation on my success and failure as a home brewista is probably not where this ought to be going.

Brewing in and of itself is just a matter of waiting after you combine/cook the relative ingredients. A brewery/pub could be an excellent cover for a runner bar, if you wanted that sort of thing for your PCs. If they have a kitchen, a walk in freezer makes a convienent interrogation room, and hidden rooms can always be built in for going to ground... And I imagine using awakened plants as hops could produce some *interesting* brews.

If you want some guidelines from my own brewing experience, it costs me about $30 (give or take) to produce 5 gallons of beer, and takes about 3 weeks from start to finish. The cost is about the same for producing honey wine (my favorite), but takes about a month for it to be drinkable, three for aging it nicely. Maybe a skill roll every month, the more successes the better the brew?

You could probably even count a bar as a secondary lifestyle choice for the PCs, whatever choice they make determine the quality of shop they end up getting into. For quick and dirty purpouses, 100k a month probably sets up a luxury quality bar/cafe/whatever as well as a luxury style house.

If your PCs have enough rep in the shadows for jobs to come to them, having their own personal hangout could be a great (and friendly, well armed and well bugged) place to do buisness for the team.

A few thoughts at any rate.

As yet another aside, homeade strawberry wine gets you laid.