The Cold Room.

I used to enjoy twitter, now I am a believer. It was through twitter I came across a listing on Craigslist for a walk-in cold room for cheap. It had fourteen tap handles (probably more than we'll ever need, but extra space can't hurt) and two glass door merchandisers. Really a prefect fit for our size of operation. Thanks so much @abeeraday for the heads up! 

I called up Iron King on a Monday to begin negotiations and figure out some logistics. We would probably need to rent a 26' truck from Penske and get a car trailer for the ride back. Luckily our good friends came through and we were able to borrow a 12' trailer + a full size pick-up.
He decided to take off some extra cash since we were going to drive out there and pick it up ourselves. So we began our 14 hour journey at 5:00AM on Friday.

Here are some pictures from the journey:

5:00 AM 

Don Quixote would love this place.

Raw Power.

Who?

Bummer!

Rising Up from the Ashes.

7th St, 11 AM.

Almost Full.

By the hair of our chinny chin chins.

Long Distance.

Getting Dark.

Sunset.

I'll be sure to post picture from the build out and the completed cold room. Unfortunately it is going to take us a little long to get everything up since we just talked to the DEH on monday and it turns out we need to install a floor sink, a mop sink, and a hand washing sink. So that will put as at a total of 7 sinks in our small space. We will be sure to have clean hands and pint glasses though!

Rye Imperial Stout - Experiment #1

Bottles of Rye Imperial Stout. 

Hand bottling 22 ounces of beer is a very time consuming process (even with Blichmann's BeerGun) it takes 1 minute 34 seconds to fill and cap each bottle on average. One of those $1,000,000 bottling lines is looking more and more enticing. We are probably just going to be filling kegs in the beginning anyways, so it wouldn't make too much sense. Plus, I don't have a million dollars laying around.

Appearance: Dark, almost jet black and turns a shade of coffee around the edges. It has thick, tan, bubbly head.

Aroma: Complex with a good amount of rye and hops.

Flavor: Many different flavors, standouts are dark chocolate, coffee, caramel, and toasted rye malt. Not aggressively alcoholic, but you can tell it is 7.9%ABV.

Mouthfeel: Full-bodied and moderately carbonated. This beer is thick, but not syrupy.

Overall: A very big dark intense beer.

We are still designing our logo/labels and creating a REAL LIVE WEBSITE at the moment. We are meeting with Mr. Patton on Friday to discuss this in greater detail.

I've also been discussing purchasing a used cold room from Phoenix, AZ with a man ominously/awesomely named Iron King. I'll keep you all updated on that as I find out more info, but I have to imagine that Iron King looks something like this.

All 60 Stouts in the Fridge.

Experimental Brewing Session #1

This is our first of many "Experimental Brewing Sessions."
Saturday brewing started at the crack of dawn today. 5:30AM and we had plans to brew an IPA split it into two batches and test two different yeast strands on it. In about three weeks we will be able to have a blind tasting of the two and see how they hold up against each other. We also wanted to brew a very BIG beer, we decided on a Rye Imperial Stout.
Pictued Above: IPA split in two batches, one with 1450 & the other 1968. Our second batch was a Rye Imperial Ale. This is going to be a heavy beer. Starting gravity of 1086, it should ferment down to about 10% ABV.
Pictured Above: The Mash Tun full of TONS of malts. 7 Different types!Mike trying an erlenmeyer flask full of the Rye Imperial Stout.

I can tell you that it is going to be a very full flavored beer. It has seven types of grains from Chocolate to Pale. This will be a beer that we are going to want to age. We'll likely put away 10 gallons and save it for our one or two year anniversary.

I'll be sure to update you on their progress.

The Continuing Story of an ABC License.

Today we visited the San Marcos branch of The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Twice.

Twice because we forgot to bring our corporate paperwork (secretary of state filing number, stock issuance, etc...) so we had to go back down to our offices to get them. Luckily they were not busy today and we were able to schedule an appointment for after lunch.

Once back we talked to Vicky, the friendly ABC worker, for about twenty minute. After updating some information, correcting a few details here and there, we were done. Just had to wait for them to enter the info into the computer.

While we waited we headed downstairs to talk to the Board of Equalization (in soviet russia-board equalize you) to talk to them about getting a seller's permit and whether we need to obtain a surety bond or not. Turns out they have no idea...

Headed back upstairs and they presented us with this pretty little piece of paper we need to post for 30 days. Overall a productive day.

The Equipment Is Getting Setup

We moved the equipment in on Wednesday and are working on setting it up at the moment. Lots of cleaning to do. Lots of plumbing & electrical work to be done as well. Contacted the planning department since we will need permits to change plumbing lines and add more drains. We are good to go since we are in a IL 2-1 zone.

We are in the process of acquiring some larger fermentors and brew kettles, looking at a couple different vendors: PBST Beer, Bitter Creek, Stromberg Tanks, and a few more.

It will not be too long before we can start to brew. We finished the Alcoholic Beverage Control paperwork today, and we will be setting up an appointment to meet with them next week. Now onto the TTB & DEH paperwork!

Label Design

We are beginning to talk about branding and direction our brewery is going to take once we are up and running.

Today our good friend and excellent graphic designer got us five drafts for our label concepts. Unfortunately I cannot show you the designs quite yet, since I would have to kill you, you see? I can say that they are going to be great.

As with any alcoholic beverage we will need to eventually get the designs approved by the FDA/"The Man" before anything is final. This involves showing the alcohol content by volume, recycling info, net fl.oz, that no animals were harmed during the making of, etc...

Once we are more sure of the direction this place is going to be headed I will be sure to share it with you. Until then... CLASSIFIED.

Home Sweet Home

WE MOVED INTO THE OUR WAREHOUSE!

This is the biggest move forward we have made to date, besides registering our fictitious business name.

I am excited to get this show on the road and actually having a space to call home will help push us in the right direction. Next up, dealing with the DEH to pass codes and whatnot. I hear that is going to be the toughest/most costly aspect of getting the business up and running.

I'll be sure to post more pictures once we actually have the place set-up. It might not look like much right now, but give us a couple months and you'll be surprised how great the beer this little place will be putting out.

Just remember, it's not the size of the brewery that counts. It how you use it.