The U.S. Small Business Administration has created a website and blog that focuses on the Affordable Care Act and how it relates to small business owners.

According to the news release, the website will offer "a glossary of key health care reform terms, an interactive timeline with dates for when certain reforms will be implemented, a state-by-state breakdown of health care options, and how to learn more about specific tax provisions and regulations."

Health Care Business Pulse, the new blog, will contain updated information about the Act.

“The Affordable Care Act provides small business owners with access and opportunity to provide affordable health care options for their employees,” said SBA Administrator Karen G. Mills. “SBA’s new Affordable Care Act web page and blog will serve as a resource for small business owners who want learn more about how to take advantage of these benefits.”

Source: SBA

Veterans and other members of the military community could be eligible for a variety of low-interest loan programs, according to Raleigh SCORE, a nonprofit association that offers information resources, training, and free counseling.

The Patriot Express Loan Pilot Loan Initiative, created by the U.S. Small Business Administration to provide expedited loans of up to $500,000, is the most popular, according to a recent Raleigh SCORE blog entry. To qualify, at least 51-percent of the company has to be owned and controlled by veterans or military community members.

“Patriot Express loans feature the SBA’s lowest business loan interest rates—generally 2.25 to 4.75 percent over prime depending upon the loan’s size and maturity,” the blog entry states. “The loan can be used for most business purposes, including start-up, expansion, purchases of equipment and/or inventory, working capital, or business-occupied real-estate purchases. Following approval by the lender, most Patriot Express applications receive SBA approval within 24 hours.”

The SBA and its resource partners can also help reservists prepare their business before deployment, manage their businesses, sell goods and services to the government, and obtain other SBA financing and financial assistance.

Veterans can learn more about financing and other small business issues from Raleigh SCORE. For more information, call Raleigh Score at 919-856-4739 or visit its website here.

This post below is from John Frank, our weekly craft beer columnist.

The giant, gleaming steel tanks and touch-screen control panels standard at a professional brewery seem like Disneyland to a homebrewer.

The amateur brewer stirs wort in a dented stock pot on the kitchen stove or spends good money to upgrade to a propane burner on the porch. No overhead tubes shooting grain into a mash tun like a deposit to a bank teller and no yeast culturing laboratories for mad-scientist tinkering. These are only dreams to homebrewers -- many of whom wish to open their own brewery one day.

John Federal knows the feeling. Like many professionals, the general manager and brewer at Raleigh Brewing Co.started at home. But in more ways than most who progress to brewing Disneyland, he wants to keep the homebrew spirit alive in his new venture.

"We are creating a brewtopia here," said Federal, who worked for years at American Brewmaster, a Raleigh homebrew shop.

Other Triangle breweries maintain links to homebrewers -- whether Lonerider's annual competition in which the winner gets to brew on the professional system, or Mystery Brewing Company in Hillsborough, where owner Erik Lars Myers organizes a monthly homebrew club and operates a small supply shop around the corner.

Raleigh Brewing Co. is doing the same -- and then some.

The new microbrewery -- located on Neil Street across Hillsborough Avenue from Meredith College -- is home to Atlantic Brew Supply, which opened earlier this month as the area's largest homebrew supply store in terms of square footage, if not goods, too.

The shop offers 34 hops, 67 grains and dozens of different yeasts, as well as malt extract by the ounce, a first for local shops. Atlantic will offer classes for those new to the craft and the employees will double as brewers. "Everyone who works here has to brew," Federal said.

At the brewery's tasting room -- which is aiming for a late-February or early-March opening -- two taps are reserved for homebrewers who master their craft.

One is a "community tap," as Federal calls it, for top-notch recipes from local homebrewers made on the professional pilot system. And the other is dedicated for the ultimate winner of Federal's four-times-a-year homebrew competition, called the Carolina Quarterly Brew Off. The best in each competition will compete in a taste-off at the end of the year for a chance to see their creation on tap at Raleigh Brewing Co.

(The proceeds from the homebrew taps will go to local charities because it's illegal to sell homebrew in North Carolina.)

The brewery's owners, Kristie and Patrik Nystedt are homebrewers, too, so the team doesn't mind turning over precious tap space.

"Homebrewing is a community thing," Federal said. "Our main goal is to get the community to rally around us."

What I'm drinking

In my mind, nothing is more exciting than discovering a new craft brewery -- particularly one in North Carolina. So I didn't hesitate when I saw Blind Squirrel Brewery on the shelf at Peabody's Wine & Beer Merchants during a recent visit to Boone.

The small craft brewery opened six months ago in Plumtree, a hour southwest of Boone. Brewing under the collective name "Earl the Squirrel," they offer seven of the most common varieties, from pale ale to stout, and just recently began distributing 22-ounce bombers to select locations like Peabody's.

I picked the Tripel. It's a true-to-style, Belgian beer with a golden hue brewed with Trappist ale yeast and tettnang and saaz hops. The yeast's complexity shines in a simple recipe with a sweeter taste than most in the category and a slight alcoholic flavor that hints to the beer's potent punch.

Stats: 9 percent ABV, 34 IBUs, 22 ounce bottle. More information at blindsquirrelbrewery.com.

What's on tap

*Raleigh Rare and Vintage Beer Festival
3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Tyler’s Tap Room in Raleigh
The event is sold out so if you can bum a ticket from a friend it’s worth the $65 to the truest of beer enthusiasts. Taste 40 beers that few others ever get a chance to try including a few special local releases. Info: raleighrarebeertasting.com

*Cackalacky-Fullsteam beer release party
3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at Fullsteam Brewery in Durham
Fullsteam Brewery is joining sauce masters Cackalacky of Chapel Hill to launch a collaboration beer. The first commercial batch of Cackalacky Ginger Pale Ale debuts at the brewery Sunday with plans to distribute to select areas in the Southeast later this year. Info: fullsteam.ag/beer/

Contact John at jfrank@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4698

The Wake Tech-Wells Fargo Center for Entrepreneurship Speaker Series is offering a free opportunity to learn about the entrepreneur within all of us on Tuesday. The series targets future and current small business owners.

Carl Nordgren, visiting associate professor at Duke University, will be speaking at an event titled “Exploring the Entrepreneur Within.”

Nordgren is a creative populist and has written a book, “Welcome to the Creative Populist Revolution.” Nordgren is also a serial entrepreneur with a founding role in ten companies, including two pioneer cellular telephone companies and two highly innovative marketing services agencies. He teaches creative entrepreneurship at Duke. His new mission is the Creative Populist Revolution—each of us and all of us must be creatively entrepreneurial.

The event will be held from 8:15 a.m. to 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Wake Tech Community College, North Campus, building E, lecture hall 204. The event is free to the business public, but registration is required.

To register or for more information send an email to entrepreneurship@waketech.edu or call 919-532-5525.

Venture capital funding for Triangle startups hit a 15-year low in 2012, although the numbers increased in the second half of the year.

According to a report from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, Triangle companies raised $11.8 million in the first quarter of 2012 compared to $53.6 million in the fourth quarter.

Read David Ranii's story here.

The City of Raleigh is hosting its annual free small business expo.

According to a press release, the event will provide disadvantaged and women business owners an opportunity to get advice and information on purchasing and acquisition. Representatives include the City of Raleigh, Wake County Schools, area general contractors, end users and more.

The expo will be held on Jan. 17 from 4-7 p.m. at Southeast Raleigh High School at 2600 Rock Quarry Road in Raleigh.

Contact the City of Raleigh at 919-996-3840 for more information.

It's flu season again. How will your business operate during a flu-related staffing shortage?

The Small Business Administration is offering tips on how to prevent your employees from getting sick and how to operate if people are out.

1. Appoint a point person: Assign someone on staff to be responsible for setting up steps on how to deal with sick staff members. This person will also seek advice from health workers on how to deal with and prevent the flu.

2. Review sick leave policies: Remind employees about company sick policies. Also, set up a plan that allows workers to telecommute in case of an illness or an illness of a family member.

3. Get your employees a flu shot: Offer a clinic that allows your employees the opportunity to receive the flu vaccine. Also, the Centers for Disease Control offers free marketing materials that explain flu prevention and precautions.

4. Establish a list of essential employees and business functions: Set up communication plans with these people in case there is an interruption in business due to an illness.

5. Communicate with employees: Use your Intranet and office to spread the word about flu-related plans.

6. Have a continuity plan: Come up with a plan so the flu doesn't interrupt your business operation.

7. Have a communications plan: Create a communications plan that spreads the word to suppliers, customers and employees in case of an illness.

For more information, go here.

source: SBA

Since I started writing for Shop Talk two months ago, I have recognized two key components of successful small businesses.
The first is a business owner’s ability to identify and connect to customers. The second, especially for new entrepreneurs, is a realistic business plan that helps the owner understand how much of the goods or services needs to be sold in order for the business to make money.
There are many local organizations, such as SCORE and Small Business Centers at Wake Tech and Durham Tech, that will help small business owners put together a plan.
The U.S. Small Business Administration has also created a “Build Your Business Plan” tool that can be found here.
For a less formal introduction to creating a basic business plan, check out a previous blog post here.

A new dinner series has launched to help raise funds for beginner farmers and new food entrepreneurs in North Carolina.

It is called Funds to Farms
and here is how it works: diners pay $15 at the door for a buffet meal and listen to presentations from five people seeking funding for their farm or food business. The diners will vote on which person should get a micro-grant. That person will take home the money raised from ticket sales and donations at the door.

These dinners are a collaboration between The Abundance Foundation, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and Slow Money NC.

The first dinner will be 7-9 p.m. Jan. 27 at Fullsteam Brewery, featuring soup and salad from Vin Rouge Bistro and Piedmont Restaurant and bread from Ninth Street Bakery. Plus, Fullsteam will be donating $2 for each pint sold of their new beer, Cackalacky Ginger Pale Ale, at its launch party from 3-5 p.m. Jan. 27.

And if you would like to be one of the five applying for a micro-grant, applications are due Jan. 16.

For tickets or information, go to fundstofarms.com.

The Small Business Lending Fund, a fund set that promotes lending to small businesses and was created as part of the Small Business Jobs Act, has increased its lending to North Carolina small businesses by more than $205.3 million.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department's report, those participating in the SBLF have increased lending for six straight quarters. Nationwide, "SBLF participants have increased lending by $7.4 billion overall and $740 million over the prior quarter."

“Community banks participating in the Obama Administration’s Small Business Lending Fund have consistently increased small business lending over the past two years, resulting in increased access to capital for thousands of small and family-owned businesses across the country,” said Neal Wolin, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.