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Memorial Day Construction Update

Submitted by josh on Tue, 05/26/2009 - 03:12
Lots going on these days at the building. The masons should finish the tuckpointing of the second floor this week, which is about the last heavy, messy structural component of the project left. With less dust being made, sweeping the floor actually seems to make a difference now. I almost forgot what the hardwood floors looked like for a while.

By far the most impressive work of the last few weeks has been all the plumbing rough-in. Adam and the other Polish guys from Public Plumbing have installed all the sanitary and kitchen waste lines and starting to work on water and gas. They have also discovered my secret stash of Zimne Pivo, which has livened up their lunch breaks. With the plumbing walls up you get the feel of the bathroom layout and the kitchen is also taking shape. Because I'm around a lot, I've gotten to give my two cents on a lot of minor issues like where to route pipes, which I enjoy. Now that all the plumbing is done, we'll lay down a waterproof membrane on top of the subfloor before pouring concrete and tiling. We are about a week away from this last, major concrete pour which will allow us to put the brewhouse in place at last.

Since water is the biggest ingredient in beer, I've taken a keen interest in plumbing through my experience as a brewer. I've also learned the hard way about the downside of a poorly-designed plumbing system. Owning a restaurant has included my share of cleaning the grease traps and dealing with backups. At Handlebar, we wash dishes in the basement and all that waste goes into an injector pit, which tends to clog up and break the sump pump (about once every 15 months). Not even to mention the pain in the ass it is to carry all the dishes up and down the stairs. The building's downspout runs to a separate sump in the kitchen and causes issues in heavy rains. We've also had our share of leaky and freezing water lines that could have been avoided. I chock a lot of it up to buying a used restaurant and to the reality of the business, but I'm doing what I can to build a better system this time around. One tiny feature I'm most proud of this week is the custom grease trap I engineered. While most traps sit on the floor (or in it like in the HBar basement)next to the sink, ours sits on a stand I built in the basement. All of the kitchen waste lines from above come together into one big trap in the basement. The cool part is that I welded on a bottom drain to the trap so it can be cleaned easily. Just put a bucket below the trap and let 'er rip. Sorry no picture at the moment, but I'll get one up. And yes, I know it is sad that I am excited about a custom grease trap, but that's my world these days.

In other news, we have one new steel flight of stairs installed (four to go) and a new penthouse for the future flights of stairs to walkout on the roof through. No, we won't have a roof deck for a few reasons including fire code capacity limits, the need to beef up roof structure and all the HVAC equipment that will be up there. But come on a tour when we open and check out the Sears Tower view:

Lastly, in the woodcrafty segment of today's show work continues on turning old douglas fir beams into seating for the future space. Here's one bench before final sanding and finishing:

I've been using a cruddy Craftsman electric hand planer and belt sander to smooth them down, but my neighbor/brewery investor Nunzio Pizza dropped by to show me the real way to do it: with a hand plane. "It's coming out smooth!"

And you know he was right in that it is definitely the right tool for the job. There's also just a nice zen feeling when you work with it and it was nice to close my eyes and pretend I'm Roy Underhill for a few minutes. And while I was searching for that link I stumbled across a new-to-me word that connects good old Roy with Frank Zappa. Now that's why I decided to start a blog, to learn about what a Galoot is. Does my lack of familiarity with this term mean I need get more into Roy or Zappa? Perhaps both at the same time. Good night.

Meet the New Guy

Submitted by josh on Thu, 05/07/2009 - 03:18

News travels lightning fast these days, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the blogosphere was tipped off that we had hired Jim Cibak as our brewer even before it was official.  For those who don't know Jim, he is not normally someone you would associate with lightning fast news or internet gossip.  He's a warm, genuine and painstakingly accurate kind of guy, and yes he is a South Sider if you couldn't figure that out.  I mention all that because he is going to bring the same painstaking commitment to the brew kettles when we fire them up in a few months. He's already helping to finalize recipes for our first brews and select suppliers of hops and barley.

Jim and I used to work together at Goose Fulton in the early days of that brewery.  He did all the hot side brewing, and I was a cellarman, minding the yeast and fermentation tanks. He went on to work at Three Floyds and then at the award-winning Firestone Walker on their extensive barrel-aging program. Most recently he helped open Crown Brewing in Indiana.

Sorry for the snowy picture Jim.  That's what happens when you use a flash in a dark dusty building, which is what we have at the moment. When not crafting recipes, Jim is helping to sweep up that dust to get our doors open this fall. 

Early May Construction Update

Submitted by josh on Thu, 05/07/2009 - 03:14

Although we have had a few slow spots, our gut rehab project is moving along at a good clip these days. After focusing on basement concrete, underground plumbing and building structure this winter, the interior walls are finally starting to go up. In a couple weeks, we should be finished pouring the brewery and kitchen floors and will start to put our equipment in place.  We lowered the brewery steam boiler into its final resting place last week and within minutes it was surrounded by metal studs with no chance of ever moving out in one piece. 

The City of Chicago has been installing a 'green alley' in the back for the last three weeks, which is both good and bad.  The old alley just dumped all of the rainwater into the city sewer system, increasing chances of a backflow problems when it rains hard like it did today. For the new green alley, they've dug an eight foot deep by four foot wide trench in the center the whole length of the alley.  It was lined with landscape fabric and filled with large gravel to serve as a big pool to hold rainwater.  They are in the midst of covering that all up with concrete and what look like 'fake' sewer grates which will just send water into the trench.  If the trench fills all the way up, there are underground concrete cisterns at the end of the alley to send excess to the sewer. 

Sounds like a neat way to build commercial alleys.  We'll see how it performs soon enough, but for now the main downside is that we haven't had alley access for weeks. That's made it hard to get deliveries and to do our own concrete work.  Today our concrete crew were a bit too creative in solving that problem.  If we can't get it in the back, let's just cut a hole in the hardwood floor and drop it down to the basement from the front!

Earlier this week, the plumbers started laying pipe for the kitchen and bathrooms on the first floor as well as making future connections for the second floor space.  Although we aren't opening the second floor right away, we are trying to minimize future disturbance required to get it open.  Later this week, the masonry crew will return to finish tuckpointing all the places where the brickwork will be exposed including upstairs.  Back in the middle of last century when it was home to a newspaper, our building was connected with the buildings on either side with passageways.  Some were closed up over time, but in one spot only a piece of plywood lies between us and neighboring resale shop Threads Etc..  While I'm sure the family that owns Threads would prefer for us to install a special tap just for them, the hole is finally getting filled.  

On the creative side of the project, I've been working away on our new sign.  Along with our name, there will be a big stainless steel fist clenching a shaft of barley that will go above the front door.  Still got to make a nice rusty star to go behind it. We've also hired someone to build our fancy new parallelogram-shaped bar.  Thought about doing that myself and then thought better of that idea. 

The Great Michigan Bike Trip

Submitted by josh on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 18:20
In the many moons it is taking to build out this brewpub, I've learned that you've got take some time off to keep your sanity. For example, now the construction crew is doing the structural framing, and even with six guys it is a slow process to install 80 or so new joists, many of which must be tied into the brick walls. I'd post pictures, but it isn't really that picturesque.

My recent bike trip with friends through the Great Lake State included much better imagery. Oh and we stopped at many a brewery along the way, so it qualifies for a proper retelling here. If you don't really want to read the whole story, the quick summary:

  • approximately 270 miles, easterly winds
  • 10 breweries
  • 1 flashed tit
The trip began when I trucked our bikes out to Ann Arbor before picking up old serving tanks from the original Bell's brewery. A few days later, we took the train back to my old college haunt, picked up our bikes and rode back to Chicago. The first night we crashed in town and visited a few pubs. While not a brewery, we happen to arrive on the first beautiful day of spring and had to stop at Dominick's to enjoy their garden. Rekindling the memories in the sun over a couple mason jars of Bell's Oberon was the highlight of the trip for me, although it wasn't called Oberon 15 years ago. I'd link to their website, but they don't have one, which doesn't surprise me. It's an old-fashioned staple of summer in A2 and they don't need to advertise anymore. There are few other beer gardens I've found with such splendor. As Michael said, "kind of like Moody's, but better".

That night, I visited Arbor Brewing and Grizzly Peak, located in the brewpub epicenter of town. While we dawdled at Arbor, Steve hit the new Blue Tractor brewpub across the street owned by the same folks as GP. I checked it out a few months ago and liked its neat modern decor. I worked briefly at Grizzly Peak in college, under the leadership of Ron Jeffries (Jolly Pumpkin). To me, it is a great example of the adage that a successful brewpub must be run as a successful restaurant. It is very efficiently designed and quite large since expanding into the adjacent storefront (R.I.P. Del Rio and your memorable bathroom walls). They have a Brittish-style brewing system with a freestanding mash tub (a bitch to grain out) and open fermenters in a "clean room" downstairs. They make use of the "Ringwood" varietal of top-cropping ale yeast, which gives most of the beers a buttery house character from the compound, diacetyl which it produces. Some people enjoy this flavor in English beers, but it's a turn off for me and most beer-geeks.

With three brewpubs with two blocks of each other, we made quick work of this pub crawl, which was further enhanced by a special beer tasting we stumbled upon at Arbor. A bunch of the breweries we would be visiting we represented, which made for some odd foreshadowing. I'll admit to acting a bit surly when we made it to GP but so it goes.

We didn't get a chance to stop at Jolly Pumpkin the next morning because we needed to hit the road and they opened at noon. But that downer was soon counterbalanced when we arrived at Dark Horse Brewing in Marshall. Best brewpub of the trip hands down, and that is without even counting the flashed tit we received from a patron as we left. Their ceiling is lined with hundreds of hand-thrown mugs and the beer was super fresh. Even though we sell it at the Handlebar, I went for a Crooked Tree IPA that tasted like pure hop gold. And the calzone I had provides more than enough carbs to keep my engine running.

Terry, Chris, Mark & Kevin inside the pub(photo by John Greenfield):

Motorcycle parking outside:

We bunked at the "lovely" Econo Lodge in Battle Creek that night after a hearty meal at Arcadia Brewing. Although I've had some spotty bottles from them, all the beer at the pub was spot on from their Whitsun to the Double IPA. Not as over=the-top hoppy as Dark Horse but well balanced all around.

At the bar at Dark Horse we bumped into Jeff from Bell's production brewery who had previously helped me load my brewing equipment onto a truck for Revolution. He met us the next morning at their Comstock plant for a behind the scenes tour. I've blogged about how well-designed this this place is, so I'll just leave you with a picture of their newly-expanded fermentation cone room:

Chugging into K-Zoo, we had a lengthy midday stop at the Eccentric Cafe. I had a tasty smoked tofu sandwich, we all had beers, and Kevin fell asleep:

Making tracks, we hit Benton Harbor at nightfall and enjoyed The Livery, which is an oasis of tasty beer in an otherwise tough town. We hung out in the basement bar, while Kim Wilson from the Fabulous T-Birds (I'm Tough Enuff...do-do-do-do-dong) played in the cool-looking loft performance space upstairs. Steve, the owner-brewer is a big biker and played gracious host to us. The Paris-Roubaix pale ale was fittingly my favorite. Liked the red ale on hand pump as well. The next day, we made quick work of the Red Arrow Highway and passed the Shoreline Brewery which was sadly closed for Easter Sunday. Fortunately, the atheists at Three Floyds welcomed us travelers with open arms and frothy glasses. Having put in 90 miles a day for three days straight, we picked up the train in Flossmoor although the pub was closed. To get our brewery totals to 10 we hit Piece on the way and Todd where summarily excused for overuse of the TV-B-Gone. Don't you dare try using that at my place buddy!

Good trip!

Week 12: The Superstructure

Submitted by josh on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 03:18
With demolition in the rear view mirror, the various crews are getting to work making a building for our brewery. The masons built a new wall on the rear of the building that you can see off the alley. The spent grain, recycling and trash will go in the spot that was carved out.

In related news, we got notice this week that the city is installing a green alley this spring behind our building. Now is kind of a tough time for us to lose access to the alley for two to three weeks, but overall it's a noteworthy addition. With our job and the Logan Square Kitchen to the north both in heavy construction, the alley is full of trucks all day long. Work is supposed to start Monday, but the CDOT engineer on site seemed pretty flexible to postponement, so we'll see how it goes. I'm driving to Bell's on Monday to pick up four more serving tanks we purchased, so hopefully I don't have to keep them in my backyard while the new porous asphalt cures.

On Friday, these guys were beaming as they delivered the steel superstructure for our brewhouse.

Although all our tanks sit on thick concrete pads, the kettle and mash tun apparatus known collectively as the brewhouse sits on the first floor. From what I've gleaned, it weighs about 8,000 lbs. empty and 20,000 lbs. totally full of liquid. We didn't get a manual with this system (the manufacturer is out of business and I don't think there ever was one) and my bathroom scale doesn't go that high. So, there is a series of steel i-beams below to carry the weight straight to some new footings in the basement floor.

The third big structural action is all the carpentry that is set to begin next week. We received a load of about 100 laminated veneer lumber (LVL) joists:

You would think that an old loft building like ours would be strong enough to hold a restaurant without too much extra reinforcement, but it isn't. To get the second floor up to 100 lbs. per square foot. to comply with the Chicago Building Code we need to make the main beam wider. We also need to add lots of structure in the roof to hold up the new AC units, and more LVLs in the floors around all the new openings and to beef up our 2nd floor grain storage area.

Although the volume of virgin, engineered lumber we are using is astounding, I'm doing my part to reuse a bit of the old stuff we had to remove. I've been making tabletops out of the old 3x14 old-growth douglas fir joists. I'm leaving one edge in its rough, 100-year old state but the planer and joiner make the wood look brand new. It's no burled walnut or tiger maple, but compared to the fir you can buy these days, it has a pretty, tight grain. Once again, this is also just an excuse to buy some cool tools, but I'm happy with the results so far:

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