800 Pound Gorilla...Check!

Call it what you will, an "800 pound gorilla", "red tape", "royal pain in the ass", "elephant in the room"...whatever you call it, we have had it.  Ever since we started the hunt for a location we had heard the possibility that we would have to have a grease trap installed at whatever location that was.  We thought that this "requirement" was due to a misunderstanding of the liquid waste that we would produce and that we could talk to either a person or representatives for various city agencies and they would realize that we had no need for one.

Then we found our location and thought that we had everything covered because it appeared a grease trap was already in place.  Sweet!  Now we don't have to worry about it and we could go forward!  Well, not so fast, we learned.  Turns out that there was no grease trap...just a few floor sinks.  Then we began formulating ideas, hashing out plans and generally chasing our collective tails.  Should we apply for a financial variance and try to get by with smaller grease traps under our brewing area and bar, should we seek out other sources of funds to just bite the bullet and pay for it, should we pack it up and find a new location (meaning there was virtually no way for us to open this year) or should we do something else?

Well, whatever frustration and discouragement we felt over the last several weeks while dealing with this uncertainty has finally come into focus.  We have a definitive plan and the support of our landlord who, throughout this entire process, has been absolutely wonderful to work with.  From the initial lease negotiations to this most recent issue he has been up front, honest and very willing to work with us.  Being a small business still trying to get off of the ground, that has been extremely helpful.

Soon we will begin the installation of a large in-ground grease trap and subsequent piping which should allow us to obtain signoff by the WRA (Water Reclamation Association), which (we believe) is the final signoff we need in order to get our building permits so that we can start building instead of demolishing!  While I am in no way suggesting that we have seen the last of the red tape and frustration, this has been such a huge deal (and potential deal-breaker!) that it is an incredible weight off of our shoulders.

I am really starting to feel like we are picking up steam right now.  It is helped out a lot by the fact that our brewhouse equipment (boil kettle, mash tun, hot liquor tank, etc) are currently in transit and should be at home in the brewery this Friday.  Additionally, we hit the final submit button on our TTB application which officially notifies the federal government that we are planning on opening a brewery and we need them to certify us and give us a license to brew!  On top of all that, this Saturday Dave is coordinating the volunteer army to help the Iowa Craft Brew Fest run (VIP tickets are currently sold out, but regular tickets are still available...get em now!)!  What an incredible week!

Cheers!

Delivery!

Those of you that have found our Facebook and Twitter pages (kudos to you, by the way!) know that we got a pretty large delivery the other day.  Though we have talked about it for awhile, we figured that the Craft Brewers Conference was a good time to unveil those outlets.  So, those of you who have found us, thanks for the follows and likes and for those of you who haven't found those outlets yet, we are going to be periodically updating things via those outlets...so give us a follow or a like (just no pokes...yet!).  So, back to the point of this post...yes, it was a large delivery, but was still rather comical that it took an entire semi to deliver it to us given the actual size.

Here comes the goods!

Dave doing his best to guide the driver

Though it looks like they are intentionally ignoring the driver, they truly did discuss the truck positioning!

Hopefully we were the last stop for this driver (and not the only one!) as the trailer was pretty empty, albeit for a couple of pallets with shiny stainless steel attached.

Brandon showed up a little late...but in style!

Frankly, it was all a little surreal.  Yes, we had a signed lease, a place to call home as well as a lot of paperwork indicating that we were a brewery.  True, we had written some pretty big checks many months ago when we ordered our equipment, but we couldn't really point to anything that proved that we were starting a brewery.  We could just be a few random people leasing a commercial property with an LLC.  That all changed recently with our shiny new fermenters.  First, however, we had to get the friggin' things off of the truck and into the building!

We did think ahead a little bit and adjust a furniture mover to accommodate our new arrivals 

Delivery driver pulling the first one off of the truck

Ryan doing his best to help out...appears the driver is doing more work than Ryan!

We all had pretty big grins on our faces as we inspected everything to make sure it met our requirements

Of all of the pieces included with these fermenters (we purchased fittings, racking tubes, valves and other equipment along with the fermenters themselves), we were only missing one single nut on the manway hatch.  Pretty successful, I'd say!

All 3 fermenters positioned outside the front door...now, how to get them in the building?

So, the first step was to remove the wooden guards that had been constructed around the fermenters.  The wood wasn't especially high quality, but they didn't skimp on the fasteners!!  As we removed the wood, I'm somewhat amazed that none of us got injured when things like this were everywhere!

After removing from the original pallets, we put them on our improved furniture dolly and rolled them in the front door.  Had we gotten anything bigger, there was no way in the world that they would have fit in the door.  So, when we are able to increase capacity and get a 7 or 10 barrel fermenter, we'll have to figure out a different way to get the silly things into the building!

First fermenter has entered the building!

We repeated the process with the remaining two fermenters and finally had all three fermenters safely inside the building.

Now, since we are still doing some demolition and still have some construction to do within the building, we wanted to make sure that we protected our investment from all of the dust.  Granted, we still will need to clean them thoroughly to remove any oils and materials left over from manufacturing, but we want to minimize any contamination that can get in there before we clean them!  So, after finally being unveiled to us, we had to wrap them back up with furniture pads and a really large roll of saran wrap from CostCo!

Brandon wrapping up fermenter number two.  You can see #3 pre-wrapped with saran wrap to close up all open ports.

So, it took a little while, but we now have three brand new fermenters just waiting for some freshly prepared wort.  Hopefully we will be able to fill them up somewhat soon and put them through their paces!  So, as mentioned earlier, though we all know we are starting a brewery and we have been working towards this point for quite some time it is really hard to describe how cathartic a feeling it is to have some of this equipment finally delivered to its new home.  Step by step, we continue to move towards our final goal...delivering hand crafted specialty beer to the Des Moines area.  Or, to throw out the tagline mentioned on our business cards, we wish to provide "exceptional beer for exceptional folks".  Look out Des Moines, we are on our way!

Cheers and have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!

Iowa Craft Beer Festival 2012 is coming!

I don't know about you guys, but I love beer. And I love bridges. What could be more f'ing awesome than drinking beer ON A BRIDGE? Not a stupid viaduct. A real bridge that crosses water and everything!

Are you going to be in or near the state of Iowa on June 16th? The second annual Iowa Craft Beer Festival is coming up and you need to be there. Seriously. A metric truckload of delicious, handcrafted, Iowa beer, a bunch of amazingly talented Iowa craft brewers to serve it to you, a signature bridge in Des Moines, and most importantly - you - are going to all hook up with live music in the background and make sweet, sweet love to each other that day from 1-5 (2-5 if you aren't a VIP - you should really be a VIP, and it'll only cost you an extra 5 spot to sample beer for an extra hour). Tickets are available now, and if you don't get your money out of this, well, let's just say you'll get your money's worth out of this. Come out and enjoy the camaraderie that we, as craft beer lovers, enjoy. Mingle with the breweries that bring you delicious beer. And, most importantly, drink beer. On a bridge. You get to drink beer, ON A BRIDGE. Seriously. A real live freaking bridge! There might even be whales*.

*there probably won't be whales.