Here's our tap handle made by Aaron the bar builder:
Sparks flying, barrel wall, Uncle Sammy's OK
Submitted by josh on Thu, 10/01/2009 - 03:17The HVAC team welded the black iron hood duct today. I took a little video of Carlos going to town while perched on top of our new twenty foot kitchen hood. There was also some welding in the front related to our new facade as a couple new tube steel columns went into to support new transoms and folding windows. Tomorrow the flange bases of those new columns will get covered in concrete as we pour new entryways and bases for our flower planters. The windows themselves are special orders and won't be installed for a while, but it is real important that we move this piece forward since it is lagging behind compared to the interior. The concrete crew poured the last of the staircase pans inside today including the 'grand' staircase going up to the raised booths and 2nd floor space:
The full scale drywalling of the interior begins tomorrow with the arrival of 250 sheets of rock. The tin ceiling will go up next week and then we can really begin the finish work like building booths and bringing in the new bar when it is ready. One thing that we banged out this past week is the first of several bourbon barrel walls. Using cast off barrels from Goose we deconstructed the components and are using the charred amerian white oak staves as wall coverings. Here they cover the drink rail across from the bar. When you come in and the bar is full, this is where you will be with a place to put your drink down.
Lastly, but most importantly we got our federal Brewer's Notice approved yesterday, which means we have Uncle Sam's OK to brew beer and of course pay our appropriate excise taxes. Now we just need state approval to be fully permitted to manufacture some brew. The final license is the city license to actually sell retail beer to all you lovely people, but we have 10 or so inspections to pass before we get that....
What happened today...
Submitted by josh on Fri, 09/25/2009 - 02:16Jim brewed our third basement batch of Cross of Gold today, mainly because that was what we had ingredients to brew. We wanted to brew pale ale, but we were short a few ingredients and got started early at 8am, long before Grow & Brew opens. This incidence of poor planning convinced me that it is finally time to place our first monster order of malt, hops, brewing spices and other accoutrements we need to start brewing on the big system. It is nice to run around town (or mail order) for brewing supplies at the homebrew level, but it is much nicer to have a truck pull up to your building with 4000 pounds of freshly malted barley and several hundred pounds of spicy, fruity hops.
Unlike hops, which have come down in price recently, one thing that you really don't need to spend too much money on is yeast. Keep it clean and you can reuse the part of the previous batch and occasionally get a new batch to grow up. Or get a fresh squirt from a friendly neighborhood cerveceria (thanks Chris). Brewer Jim was very proud of his new wide mouth yeast container that was a big improvement over the half gallon growler:
Now that we have electricity at the building we should be able to test out the grain handling system next week and it will be helpful to have a couple bags of malt around for that. Unlike the water service which thundered through the pipes with a thud (although we still don't have fixtures) the electric juice came in but didn't really go anywhere at first. Slowly, the electricians have been running a little wire here and there and lights start working. Where you once had to run two 50' extension cords to power a saw, there is now an actual convenience outlet. Yesterday we bought a wood/electric smoker and today 'Danny Boy' the Romanian electrician decided to wire it up and came down to the basement asking us "Are you ready to smoke?"
The other exciting arrival of the day was the dishwasher hood. Before starting this project I hadn't even thought that such a device existed to alleviate the constant humidity in the dish corner that creeps everywhere else. Sure, it is just one more thing to buy and feed power to over time, but it will also help create happy campers. Gotta keep that dishwasher happy.
Construction Update: 9/10/09
Submitted by josh on Fri, 09/11/2009 - 03:00Sure would have been cool to open up the Revolution on 9/9/9, but we're not there yet. However, we did celebrate this mini-milestone by ripping off half of the building facade yesterday. After and arduous two-week wait for the scaffolding company to show up, the not-so-original yellow textured brick is gone and we've got a temporary plywood wall to look at for a change. Next we've got to make the 3 front doors handicap accessible by removing the one step and ramp up to our building floor. Then we'll pour concrete where the new planters will sit and then get started building the new glass storefront. I think 3 storefront companies have come by in the last day trying to sell us their services. I respect the intrepid entrepreneurs angling for business, but who goes ahead and rips out their storefront without a storefront company lined up already?
I think we broke a record Wednesday for the number of guys working in the building at once (19), and yes it was all guys. The electricians are over halfway done with their rough work and we have new worklights in the brewery, which make the dusty tanks look even dustier. Our big staircase going upstairs is getting close to doneness and almost all of the rough framing is finally complete. We are supposed to have some city inspections soon, but Im not sure exactly when they are showing up. Just heard that Half Acre passed all their inspections and is getting close to having their liquor license for their tasting room. Head honcho Gabriel was relieved and said once the inspectors found out it was a brewery, they were real laid back. Let's hope for the same good mojo.
Chef Jason and I are working on the menu and picking up a few pieces of equipment like this heavy-ass 60qt Hobart mixer. It is built like a tank, which a good thing, because shortly after this picture was taken, it titled over in the pickup as we rounded a corner at low speed. We lost a little tranny fluid from the gear box but otherwise it doesn't seem too worse for the wear.
We're still hunting for a little smoker. Some smoky menu items we're planning are the ubiquitous pulled pork sholder sandwich (for my wife), a smoked tofu sandwich for the vegheads and hickory-smoked chicken wings with a maple glaze. We will definitely brew up a smoked porter sometime during the year to complement the flavors.
Construction Update: 8/26/09
Submitted by josh on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:04August has been a pretty strong month with a lot of progress inside. Rough framing is finally complete. Here's a shot of the kitchen showing the raised platform for the pizza oven which arrived a few weeks ago:
Last week I went and picked up three beautiful, 12-foot tall stained glass windows that came out of a church somewhere. They had been sitting in a barn for twenty or so years and are in pretty good shape for their age. We're going to use them to frame the opening of the brewery viewing window and also in the back bar. I think they'll add a nice touch of class to the joint.
Brewer Jim and Chef Jason are working part-time helping to get the place in shape. The three of us have been building walk-in coolers lately. Here's a shot of the inside of the tall 1st floor cooler that we'll be able to store pallets of kegs in:
And finally, last week after having to move them many times to get them out of the way, we moved our brewhouse, fermenters and serving tanks into their final place. The water is now on, but we still have about 6 weeks before we can start test brewing on site.
