Yesterday Jim and I brewed our fourth 'official' pilot brew in my basement, a batch of smooth drinking English Mild Ale we are calling Workingman.  For those unfamiliar with this style, it is a low alcohol brown ale that lands on the sweet side and has a nice toffee flavor from specialty caramel malts.  Bitterness is pretty low too, and although we both love 3F's Pride and Joy, we're not planning to wallop this one with dry hops.  'Session beer' is the in vogue term for beers like this, meaning you could have a few and not lose your tact.  Or you could have one for lunch and be back on task an hour later like everybody used to do in the olden days.  Not a bad choice for talking race relations at the White House either, since you'd want to stay clear of much bitterness.

Test batches 1 & 2 Iron Fist Pale Ale & Cross of Gold will be poured at the Break the Gridlock party at Todd's house tomorrow.   Both came out nice, and the Gold was especially enjoyable with plenty of body from Munich malt.  We brewed Cross of Gold again a few weeks ago and tweaked the mash schedule keeping everything else the same to see if we could make it a little drier, but I find that one a little too thin.  We'll do it again and get those temperatures somewhere in between to reach that happy medium.  I'm enjoying a pint of pale tonight, which came out a bit stronger than we wanted, walking the ladder from pale to india pale.  This is our standy, everyday pale so you gotta leave room to work up to in that department.  We were targeting 40 IBUs, but Jim says "tastes kind like 50 to me".  We dont have (and won't have) a spectrophotomer or a Beer Analyzer to double check his palate, but I think he's right. Still, it is a tasty brew. 

The concrete in the brewhouse and bathrooms is now complete and all the adjoining walls are up.  Most of the plumbing rough-in is also done and electrical is in full force.  Today the big pipes going outside for the new 1200 amp service were installed.  We're still waiting on ComEd to install the new transformer, but it looks like we are only a couple week away from hooking up the new service.  There's no wire in the pipes yet, so all you copper thieves reading this blog can go back to what you were doing. 

Unfortunately, due to the nice weather, the uncooperative concrete contractor didn't show up at our indoor job site today, so the kitchen floor will have to wait.    Upstairs we did get a new plywood floor for the back office and the malt room today.   The HVAC sub contractor has been a little slow getting going as has the iron guy, but he's expected tomorrow with the new front staircase.  It's the stair that will take you up to our second floor space that has yet to be officially named and won't be ready when we open anyways. 

In the front of the house, Jim and I have been working on the booths and the adjoining bar area drink rail.  Today we picked up a vintage quarter-sawn oak built-in hutch from Zina of Logan Square Kitchen.  She salvaged it and had it stripped, but didn't end up using it.  I'm going to turn into a backbar display for our host stand and merch area.   Speaking of merch, I've been getting more and more requests for hats and tees, but we are all out for the moment.  We'll get more soon and Todd has promised to get our online store going as soon as we start paying him for our website work. I would link to his new company's website offering Drupal website hosting, but alas, their site still needs some work.

Even more in front of the house, the plumbers finally brought the new water service into the building last week.  Since our beer will be mostly water, this is a good thing.  Here's a pic of the new 4 inch line entering the basement as seen from the street:

After the plumbers dug holes in the sidewalk and the street and got the line most of the way out to the city line, the Water Department crew showed up to make the tap.  Having never before seen this process, I was quite enthralled.  Visions of spouting water never materialized however and the whole process was done in about 45 minutes.  The main line in Milwaukee was maybe 10 inches, and they put a neat gasketed, stainless, clamp-style tee fitting on it:

Then they put a valve on the flange and hooked up an extendable air drill with a hole saw through the valve and cut open the city main.  The drill extended back out and they closed the valve without wasting a drop.  Not rocket science but impressive to see it done so smoothly and quickly.  The crew said they do about 4-5 a day and had to head to Hegwisch next, so they probably spent more time driving than plying their trade.  Now I just want to see how a Peoples Gas crew taps into the 24 inch monster of a gas main which was also in the street:

This is the kind of work to leave to the professionals.  Thanks to the neighbors for putting up with the sidewalk closure for a few days, so that the world may enjoy some tasty beer in a few months.