Pint Glasses, Tap Handles and Growlers... Oh My!

Willi Becher.

As we come into the final stretch before our opening, much time has been spent working on getting the Hess Brewing glassware and tap handles figured out. Rather than go with the traditional 'pint' glass, and as fans of the Honest Pint movement Mike decided to go with a glass that would hold a full pour, called a Willi Becher - like the one above. The one we're likely to go with is 21.5 ounces to the top. We also like it because (to be perfectly honest with you) it has a silly name. Now the trouble is figuring out where to get it screen printed / sand blasted with our logo and a fill-mark line at a .5L that won't cost us an arm and a leg.

Although we won't have them on opening day, what do you think about having some Belgian tulips or snifters for our Ex Umbris or Amplus Acerba?

Terrible, Terrible Artwork.

For our tap handles we're probably going to go the custom route. Skubic has been working hard and spending many hours figuring out how to go about making them... right now he's thinking of using Wenge as the wooden base then screen printing / stencil spray painting on the logos / labels. The arm is the hangup now, on the one hand we can go with wood, on the other, Mike may try and hone his metalworking skills and make a wrought iron handle...TBD!

Classic.

This is the growler we are going to be going with. Greg, Mike's brother bought him one of these for Christmas a few years back and it's been a favorite for bringing homebrew around to friend's houses. We love the big pour mouth and monster handle. It's from koch-usa. We think you'll love the look of this growler too, so bulky yet stylish too. It's going to look even better with our Hess Brew logo screened on the front!

We Fought The Law and We Won!

HUZZAH!!!!

This is some crazy stuff. We had starting to feel like we had inadvertently shut down all of the tasting rooms in San Diego last week - and maybe we did... Here's the story: When Mike got the 23 license from the State, our ABC rep said, "now go talk to the Department of Health." How were we to know that none of the breweries in San Diego operating tasting rooms had filed a plan with the Department of Health?

Meeting Time.

On Monday, after we met with the DEH (as our Facebook, Twitter and Blog followers know) we left there feeling that we were being held to a higher standard than all the other breweries we've ever visited - for Hess Brewing, the DEH wanted us to install SEVEN SINKS, self-coving floor tiles, floor drains, 8-10 foot high ceilings above all sinks and taps... it seemed quite ridiculous...

The Waiting Room - SD DEH

Well apparently on Tuesday they realized "Hey, we are not regulating ANY of the breweries in San Diego" and decided to go to both The Lost Abbey and AleSmith to hit them with Cease and Desist Orders until they could file a plan and get up to "code" (which included some nice fees, too!) On Friday, we got the news of the raids when The Full Pint reported that they had been informed that The Lost Abbey was shut down. Soon after this Tomme posted an excellent rant, which was unknowingly probably directed at us (even though we did not report any breweries; the fact we WENT to the Department of Health had the unfortunate consequence of letting them know that other breweries were not getting their plans checked through them). As you can imagine... we were crushed when his post hit. Later on in the day, AleSmith's Facebook page said that they too had been served with a C&D Order.

So now, besides realizing that Mike just didn't have the capital to come up to code to meet these overstepping and egregious requirements and were likely going to forego the tasting room, we realized we may have hosed our fellow San Diego craft brewers and drinkers. Unintentionally I remind you!

But now, we have some GREAT NEWS!!!!

Today, Mike spoke with State Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher's office, 75th District, to talk to him about getting an exemption for beer tasting rooms, just like wineries apparently are. His office thought it was an excellent idea and wanted to explore further writing up legislation to introduce at the beginning of 2011.

Not an hour later, just about 2:50 this afternoon, Mike got the best call - and most unexpected - he could have hoped for from the Dept of Health. Our new bestie, Jackie at the Department of Health called to say that because of the ruckus that we raised over the past three months and last week's activities (the raids and push back from the craft community) that she took it to the State for ruling. Can you believe this? The result? The county no longer regulates or has jurisdiction over beer tasting rooms in the county! This means we do not need the floor sink, three-tiered ware washing sinks and all the other CRAZY stuff we would have had to install to open up as a tasting room.

So to quote one of my favorite movies of all time which I feel is completely appropriate: "Just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this... AND TOTALLY REDEEEM YOURSELF!"

What's it mean? As soon as we get the new brewery up and running, we'll be filling kegs - and as soon as the kegs are full, we'll be filling your glasses and growlers!


Cheers!

Keg Collar Label Approval!

TTB Approved!

We got approval from the TTB, it took us a couple of tries, but thankfully the online COLAs submittal process makes it much quicker than snail mail. This was our third attempt for approval of our original label; we had left out a couple of things:

1. Alc. x% by Vol. (we forgot the "By Volume")
2. Added "-Style" behind Kölsch and Vienna, otherwise it is misleading--we are not from Cologne or Vienna. We don't want to mislead anyone...

It was interesting working with the TTB because the text content wasn't the only issue. The size of the text proved to be a challenge. Regulations said that the text in the Gov't Warning (on the left side of the label) and in the Beer Name section had to be 3 and 2mm high respectively.

However to measure the text, the TTB doesn't print out your art - they literally get out a ruler or calipers and measure the art on their screen. Yes, they measure the height of the characters on the monitor. If I say it again, will you believe me? Our graphics team was pulling out their hair when I found this out, but the solution was simple. No, I did not tell them to adjust the resolution of their monitor. We did have Patton slightly enlarge the whole label so it actually just appeared larger. Voila. Same label, larger, approved.

Now to be sure, the text on our label is 3.2mm and 2.7mm, well above standard, but only after pumping up the size of the file did approval come - once it appeared larger than 3mm on their monitors. It's a crazy world out there at the TTB, but we live in it...

In other news, we got our stickers from Sticker Robot and they look pretty dang awesome too.

Not For Sale.

We will not be selling in these bottles, they are for your viewing pleasures only (unless you are a bar or restaurant in which case I'll be bringing these by for sampling in the near future!) However, if you want a sticker - come on by!

Kegs Arrive!

Major Laser.

The kegs arrived a few days ago from Plastic Kegs America. They come with some nice etching on the sides. I'm wondering whether I should spray paint a big "H" on the side just for kick however... Neon blue perhaps.

Plenty of Storage.

240 Gallons worth of keg space, also known as eight barrels. Do you think that will be enough for distribution? 

Light Weight.

21 lbs empty versus 29-31 lbs for an empty steel keg. That is a 28% reduction. They are quiet too, which is great, but bad news for my steel drum band side project.

Remember.

The biggest issue I've heard of is that they are a little taller than a standard steel keg. Hopefully that will not be an issue.

Oh, and an Osprey Flew By...

SD World Beer Cup Winner's 2010

The World Beer Cup list of winners is out. San Diego did a mighty fine job this year. I can't wait to get our brews out there! This year SD got 9 Golds, 7 Silvers, and 5 Bronzes. I've tried the majority of these brews (still need to try four of them) and I can say they are all world class.

Best Small-Sized Brewery & Brewmaster:
Ballast Point Brewery - San Diego, CA

Belgian Pale Strong Ale:
SILVER: Revelations - Pizza Port Carlsbad

Other Strong Beer:
SILVER: Stout - Green Flash Brewing

Out of Category - Traditional Brewed Ales:
GOLD: Fathon IPL - Ballast Point Brewery
SILVER: Hot Rocks Lager - Port Brewing

English-Style Brown:
SILVER: Longboard Brown - Rock Bottom La Jolla

Wood or Barrel Aged Strong Beer:
GOLD: Bourbon Aged Piper Down Scottish Ale - Ballast Point

Scottish Ale:
GOLD: Wee Heavy - AleSmith
BRONZE: Reed's Wee Heavy - Pizza Port Carlsbad

South German-Style Weizen-Bock:
GOLD: Decadence 2009 - AleSmith

Irish-Style Red:
GOLD: Red Trolley - Karl Strauss
BRONZE: Rag Top Red - Rock Bottom La Jolla

Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout:
SILVER: Port Truck Stout - Pizza Port Carlsbad

German-Style Dopplebock / Eisbock:
GOLD: Broken Skeg - Breakwater Brewing

American-Style Strong Pale Ale:
GOLD: O'Brien's IPA - Alpine Beer Co

American-Style IPA:
BRONZE: Duet - Alpine Beer Co

American-Style Red/Amber:
GOLD: Rudolph's Red - Rock Bottom La Jolla

Baltic-Style Porter:
BRONZE: Token - Alpine Beer Co

Imperial Red:
BRONZE: Shark Attack - Pizza Port Solana Beach

American-Style Stout:
SILVER: Sticky Stout - Pizza Port Carlsbad

Oud Red:
SILVER: Red Poppy - The Lost Abbey

International Pale Ale:
GOLD: Sculpin IPA - Ballast Point

P.S. I would also like to let everyone know that Lawson's Finest Liquids of Vermont won a Bronze for their Maple Trippel. Way to go Nano!

The Installation of the Brewery.

Greg loading up the Burner and Whirl Pool Stand.
The stand fit perfectly into the back of a standard full-sized truck. Almost like we engineered it that way.

Old Dominion Dropping of the Conicals.
Our four 60 gallon conicals arrive via freight. I think Old Dominion is my favorite trucking company. Such a great name.

Brew Stand is in Place.

Slowly but surely this place is coming together. 

Mike and Jorge working on the Kettles.

You can see more of his work on JplusE.com, the man is an artist.

1.66 Barrel Brew System.
Almost complete. We just need some Stainless Steel Tri-Clover fittings and some hoses and we will be in Business! 

The Tasting Area - Part 2

Baby on Board.

Luckily we had the brute strength of two lovely ladies and a baby to get this bar off of the truck. It was pretty darn heavy--probably 350 pounds +/- before the 360 pounds of concrete was even added! 

Melamine Forms.

Skillfully and calculatedly designed melamine forms to shape and transport the concrete countertop to San Diego from Redlands, CA. 

Fresh Concrete.

Five Man Job. 

Perspective.

Huzzah!

The bar is finished, and I have to say, it looks pretty good. Not bad for our first attempt anyhow. I just have to add a few more coats of Buddy Rhodes to the concrete and it will be ship shape. 

The Bar - Part 1

Safety is our middle name.

I headed to my hometown of Redlands this weekend to build a bar (I mean "Tasting Area" for our followers at the ABC.) Luckily one of my oldest and best of friends happens to a be a skilled craftsman. Without him and the help of many of my other friends I don't think we would have a bar as tough as this one. 

Nailed!

Stained!

The bar is almost finished. We are going to be pouring a concrete counter top for it this weekend, letting it sit for seven days and then bringing it down to San Diego. I cannot wait to test this bad boy out!

The Build Out: Brewery Structure

Mike, Greg, Mike and Mike.

Well, we made it to San Jose, up to San Fran, out to Walnut Creek and back again all in one piece (well, the brew structure is in two pieces, but that was intentional.) The trip was a lot of fun and a lot of work. Friday we took off at about 6:30 am from San Diego towards San Jose/Redwood City; from there to San Francisco where if you go a few miles east you will hit Sierra Graphic's headquarters.

Born in '23

My favorite piece of equipment ever.

Mike's brother Greg owns Sierra Graphics Services, a printing machinery repair and sales business that has all the machining equipment we needed to build our brew structure. There was one piece of equipment I particularly liked: The 1923 Racine Shear-Cut - it's been around for 87 years and is still going strong. It has this crazy Dr. Seuss/Rube Goldberg mechanical sawing motion that I wish I could show you. You have to see it to believe it.

Cutting through 2x2" Stainless Steel.

Setting the Work.

Engage!

To get Racine to engage you have to throw your shoulder into the silver handle protruding to the right of the arm while simultaneously using your knee to push in the big T-shaped switch AND locking the black knob into the correct position AND locking the wench down. It's a complicated process but it is actually pretty fun.

Big Greg, Mike the Welder and BigJoe

We started building the structure on Friday night after dinner- we cut up the first stick of 304 stainless steel (we used 2x2 with .180 wall thickness) and got the welding station prepared (it involved a large precision machined metal plate, improvised electrical outlets and a BigJoe mechanical lift.)

Here Comes The Sun.

304 Stainless Steel melts at 2,552 degrees Fahrenheit. The weld arc is about the same strength brightness as the sun. Note the crazy masks.

A Very Skilled Mike.

Hot Suede and GemFire.

We had to customize our tippy dump mechanism design when we realized we had ordered about 2 feet less steel than we needed. Some quick thinking and a revised mechanism later we had this:

New Tippy-Dump.

Originally it was going to be a nice triangle because that provides more strength, but then we remembered that these welds can hold up to 70,000 pounds per inch, so I don't think our 1,000+/- lbs will be breaking them anytime soon.

Greg Setting Up the Mill.

Mike's Dad, Grinding the Bit.

304 s/s Stainless Spirals.

Clean Up.

We started most days at 8AM and didn't finish up until 10PM. Who knew building a brewery would be so labor intensive? 30 hours of work later we ended up with this:

Mike, Greg, Daft Punk, and Mike.

I cannot wait to get the kettles built so we can fire this guy up. What should we call it?

Home Again.

p.s. You can see more photos on our Facebook page.

Brewing Structure.

We are going to be building our brewing structure up in the Bay Area with Mike's brother this weekend. The kettles are being built down here in San Diego by a local stainless steel fabricator. Everything was designed by Mike, so hopefully it works!

I'm looking forward to checking out a couple of the breweries: Magnolia, Pacific Coast, 21st Amendment, Anchor, Speakeasy, Beach Chalet. And hopefully some Beer Bars: La Trappe, Toronado SF, Alembic. What are you favorite breweries and/or beer bars in Bay Area?

I'll be posting pictures from our trip and the building process once we get back.