Today we closed on our $2.25 million loan package with Banco Popular funding our building acquisition, construction and equipment. After two years of soliciting investors and pitching banks, this is the last financing hurdle to clear. All contractor and sub-contractor bids are in and I expect work to start as soon as next week.
I first made contact with Banco Popular a year ago this week at a Christmas party in Oak Park of all places. After being rejected by 12 other banks, I was in a pretty dour mood, but my former co-worker Paul Levin at the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce dragged me out to this party with the promise of meeting some higher ups at Banco. I got to shake the regional bank president's hand and more importantly, met Nelson, an in-your-face business banker who took a liking to our project. He fought hard to overturn the initial rejection of our loan and to get approval from their board of directors. Our funding roller coaster had a few more ups and down and today that ride thankfully came to an end.
What's Next
Construction is by far our biggest task ahead. We'll be starting with interior demolition of the old plaster walls and cutting the big hole in the floor for the two-story fermentation cellar. The big hole will enable easy access to the basement for all the concrete excavation ahead. In addition to all the new drain pipe, we are digging down a couple feet for a walk-in cooler for the six 8-foot tall serving tanks that will feed the bar. We're also carving a trash enclosure out of the rear wall of the building early on, though that may need to wait for decent weather.
Our application for a city liquor license was formally received by the city last week and we've submitted our federal application for a brewer's notice to the Tax and Trade Bureau (formerly the BATF). We won't get our city license until our construction passes final inspection, but we had to apply to get the building permit approved. Partner Nunzio Pizza and I went and got fingerprinted this morning at City Hall as part of the background check done on owners of liquor licenses. When I was printed for the Handlebar, we had to go to the west-side lock-up at the Area 4 Harrison Police Station, but now it is all digital and they take care of it downtown. Quick and painless, but not nearly as interesting an experience this around.
And finally, now that we have cash on hand we can shop for the few pieces of brewery equipment we still need and other toys. If you are reading this Santa, I would like a 48-volt, 4000# capacity sit-down electric forklift with a triple-stage see-thru mast and side-shift. Color is not important, but red would go nicely with the drapes.
Happy Holidays,
Josh Deth
Okay I promise to cut the sentimental stuff out real soon, but I've had this up on the wall in the basement office for a while and now as a constant reminder to keep the nose to the grindstone. Let me tell you, every little bit helps. Cheers to craftiness...Josh
I took the train to Michigan Thursday and rented a UHaul Friday morning to cart the small pieces and parts back to Chicago. A semi-truck came on Saturday to haul the brewhouse, fermenters and serving tanks. The general plan was to remove the storefront glass to lift the brewhouse out and then cut a hole in the floor to extract the boiler and serving tanks from the basement.
So Friday morning I parked behind Bo's and as I walked around the front I glanced in the trash dumpster and saw a pile of broken glass. Walking around to the front, I confirmed that their workers had just smashed the front tempered glass into cube-like pieces and we're in the process of sweeping the mess up. It seemed to me that taking the panes out whole would have made more sense, but I guess they thought this was quicker or easier. Oh well, at least it was tempered glass.
Here's a pic of the brewhouse following the removal of the glass:
I began by tidying up the small parts in the basement for shipping and deciding what was worth taking (pretty much anything stainless) and what wasn't (used plastic tubing). Given the out-of-control hop prices, I kept looking around for the secret stash of leftover hop pellets but never found them. All of the raw materials were long gone, and Wayne Burns, the former brewer had done a pretty nice job of organizing and cleaning things out when he left.
The glass story shows how removing a brewery is not always a pretty task. The next job was to disconnect the utilities before physically moving the equipment. Water, steam, electricity, hvac and the food grade glycol coolant system used to keep the beer from warming up were dealt with one by one. Soon enough, I was coated in slippery glycol and grain dust while trying to keep from bloodying my hands on the everpresent glass.
Around 6pm John Mallet and Jeff Carter from Bell's Brewery showed to help out with the more difficult items. In addition to being Bell's head brewer, John is a former brewery equipment manufacturer and frequently helps remove and install brewing systems. Jeff runs Bell's maintenance department they've both worked together for years on breweries large and small. Things started to move quick with their expertise around. Wires were labeled, cut, and pulled. Copper pipes were cut and stacked away. Bo's guys removed the awning and a temporary wall to keep it all safe overnight. We all crashed for the night and came back the next day to meet the truck.
On Saturday morning the first job was to lift the 7000 lb. brewhouse skid with the telescoping forklift we rented. We had to drive on the sidewalk to get enough leverage to lift it up, but it came out of the building without much difficulty. The mood was light:
Once getting it out of the building, John drove back into the street and then lifted the skid over the parking meters:
Next up was removing the cooling system from roof. Refrigeration systems are often the first parts of the system to breakdown and this piece has certainly seen better days. Living unprotected up on the roof for 11 years left a fair amount of surface rust, but we took it anyways. If we can replace a few components and make it work then we'll save a few thousand bucks, otherwise it will hit the scrapyard in a year or so. This shot is taken from the roof looking down:
The fermenters came out pretty quickly after that:
While we grabbed lunch, Bo's deconstruction crew came back to start ripping a hole in the floor. This took a little while but ended with the forklift making the final pull to yank the tile and concrete sub-floor up after the joists were cut:
Next up we slid the serving tanks under the hole and rigged them up to the boom:
Going up:
The boiler was the heaviest piece coming out of the basement, but I didn't grab a shot of that. It has some surface rust too, but since it's cast iron, we should get some good use out of it going forward. Around 7pm we had fully loaded the semi and box truck and left Pontiac for a pit stop in Kalamazoo. Got a little tour of Bell's amazing Comstock production facility and enjoyed a pint of Debs Red Ale.
I was back on I-94 in the UHaul early Sunday morning and made it to town just before the semi-truck showed up at California & Milwaukee. Getting into the alley was a tight squeeze:
Once again, the big brewhouse skid was the toughest nut to crack. It's 15 feet long, and the alley is only 16 feet wide. The Chicago moving crew put it on skates and pushed and pulled it into the space:
Now everything is just sitting in the corner waiting for construction to begin. Kind of an anti-climactic end to a busy weekend but it's good to see everything in it's new home.
Now I'm getting teary thinking about the recent family trips up to the Copper Country, the 