This past week brought a few exciting developments.
First, after months of deliberation, and negotiation we FINALLY signed our official equipment purchase contract for our brewing equipment. We had already reached a verbal agreement earlier in April that got our order into the queue. (With all the new craft breweries springing up in the U.S. all the major equipment manufacturers seem to be running 6-10 month lead times. Yikes!) But it was nice to see it all in writing, so we could sign on the dotted line and finally put that issue behind us.
We hope our equipment arrives in November and if we’re really lucky we may still hit our goal of producing some beer on our new system by the end of the year. My fingers are crossed.
The second exciting bit of progress was when an engineering firm showed up and started drilling holes in our concrete floors. It turns out before you put giant steel tanks full of liquid on an old dilapidated concrete floor it’s a good idea to make sure the floor can support lots of weight. We don’t want our shiny new tanks tumbling to the ground the first time we fill them up. (Although the ensuing beer tsunami would be undeniably cool to watch.) So far the core samples look encouraging. We’ll learn more when we get the report later.
Robb and I could not be any more anxious to get our building renovations going. We can’t start the renovations until we have permits and we can’t get our permits until we submit a site plan, and we can’t finish the site plan until someone can answer all the little questions like, “Where exactly is the steam boiler going to go? Where will all the steam piping and glycol lines run? ” All questions I can’t answer off the top of my head. I thought we could figure a lot of this stuff out as we go along, but apparently the city doesn’t roll that way.
We’ve planned a meeting later this month with our architect, engineer, and our fearless brewmaster, Casey. Together they should be able to annihilate any question the city can throw at them. The clock is ticking. The equipment arrives in six months. We have to get those shovels moving.
– Kent