Well, maybe not a beer...but a brewery was certainly born on 11/14/2011, weighing approximately 830 pounds and 12 ounces (ok, that might have gone a little too far!). Our company was officially created with the signing of certificates and legalese filled documents by all four owners around 5:45 this evening. While it may have seemed that we had fallen off the face of the earth the last several months, we truly have been working hard. Though much of it was difficult to blog about and describe in a way that would produce anything other than a powerful sedative effect on the reader, we have been diligently refining our business plan, evaluating our marketing strategy, meeting with potential realtors and finally giving our lawyer the go-ahead to produce the documents in a 6-8 month effort to establish a local Des Moines-based craft brewery. All of that hard work and effort (not all of the brewing business is about brewing and sampling craft beer!) has resulted in a 2 inch thick binder filled with about a quarter of an inch of paper officially declaring us a "business".
It may seem like I am leaving something out...like a name, perhaps? I am doing that intentionally as we need to verify that we can actually market under actual name of the LLC without infringing upon anyone else. So while our company does have a name, owners, etc. we don't want to get anyone referring to us by a particular name just in case we can't market under it. Rest assured, we will have all of that figured out in time and I will definitely publish it and let everyone know by screaming it loudly from the rooftops (free advertising, right??)...just not yet!
While we have been finalizing all of the nitty-gritty details, we have been brewing beer too! I have made more Numb Nut Ale (still love that beer) and have a Milk Stout quietly fermenting away; Ryan has been diligently working on producing a killer IPA that is absolutely wonderful with plans for a Ginger Pale Ale and another beer with coconut as a focus; Dave has produced a highly hopped American Wheat that is unique but extremely good; Brandon has been on a kick recently making a Belgian Quad, an American Wheat, an IPA and a couple others that I can't even remenber right now!
All in all, we are extremely excited to have made it to this point and to have taken this first large and significant step in the process to provide outstanding, flavorful beers to the people of Des Moines and (hopefully) beyond! We are getting to a pretty busy point in the formation of this brewery as many steps we simply could not take until the company was officially formed. Now that we are "official" we can move on to purchasing the brewhouse equipment, securing suppliers, locating and finalizing a location, applying for our licenses and many more exciting steps! Becoming official has, and I feel I can speak for all of us without hesitation here, really provided a boost of energy and excitement (not that any of that had really drained, but you can only reformat and rework a business plan so much before everything starts looking the same!) and I can't wait for the next steps!
Now, I think it is time to take a moment and reflect on the progress we have made before getting up again tomorrow and getting right back to it. I think it is only appropriate to have a nice craft beer! Cheers and good night!
