Brewery Update 8: 11 Questions with Casey Hughes

Instead of posting a normal update this week we thought it might be fun to let you get to know our Brewmaster, Casey Hughes, a bit better.  We sat down at the brewery today and asked him the tough questions.  So here they are, 11 hard hitting questions with Casey Hughes:

1. How did your brewing career start? 

CH: Luck.  I moved to Key West just after High School and at age 18 I managed to get a job working the bottling line at the old Key West Brewery.      

2. After Key West you moved up to Philadelphia to brew at Flying Fish.  What beer are you proudest of from that time in your career?

CH: I’m proudest of the Exit 4 Trippel.  That beer was the first time in my career I had free reign to develop a recipe and do whatever I wanted.  I was shocked when it won gold at Great American Beer Fest and was later picked by Men’s Journal as best Belgian beer in America. 

3. As you were looking at opportunities to go brew in Florida why did you choose this one?

CH: When I came down to Tampa to meet with Kent it just seemed like we were on the same page regarding how to do a brewery right.  We had similar ideas on equipment, beer, and what we wanted to do.  It just seemed like the right fit. 

4. Coppertail and Flying Fish both seem to depict sea creatures in their logos.  Why the policy of only working at nautical themed breweries?

CH: It has worked out that way hasn’t it?  I don’t know.  I love the water.  I used to do commercial fishing and lobstering when I lived in Key West.  I must just be drawn to nautical creatures. 

5. What excites you about Tampa and Florida as a beer market?

CH: Tampa is a really exciting place to brew beer because it has so much room to grow, but it has a good foundation in place.  It’s a relatively young market, but there’s already some great craft beer down here. Guys like Cigar City have already done so much to put Tampa bay on the map for craft beer.  And now there’s so many new breweries opening, and so much good beer being made down here, and the beer culture is growing.  It’s like where some of the more developed markets were 15 years ago and I think it’s going to be amazing to watch it grow and to try to be a part of that. 

6. Besides beer, what drew you to Tampa as a place to live?

CH: The water, the weather and the people.  I love boating and fishing, and this seemed like a great place for that.  And the fact that I don’t have to deal with snow anymore makes it even better.  People have been nice, too.  

7. Let’s say there’s a rematch of the 2008 World Series between the Phillies and the Rays? Who are you rooting for?

CH: No comment.  Next question. 

8. The Philadelphia area is famous for Philly beer week and its craft beer culture.  How does Tampa beer culture compare?

CH: I see a lot of excitement for great beer here which is like Philly.  I think in a few years Tampa is going to become an amazing destination spot for beer and could rival some of the better beer cities in the country. 

9. What kind of beer do you want to see Coppertail make?

CH: Balanced, floral, citrusy, dry IPA’s.  Neat, easy drinking Florida beers and some funky, fun, Belgian Saison’s, too.  I’d really like to play around with some barrel aged beers.  A little bit of everything.  I just want to make lots of good beer. 

10. Many craft beer fans can point to an “Aha” moment when a beer really surprised them and got them interested in craft beer.  Any Aha moments stick out in your mind?

CH: The first time I tried Sierra Nevada was a big Aha moment for me.  How did they do that?  It really made me want to get into brewing.  90% of professional brewers my age might have that same answer.  Also, my first Belgian beer, Chimay, was an eye-opening experience, and that started me down the road of making Belgians. 

11. We’ve noticed you like to blast music while you’re brewing?  Which song or type of music makes the best tasting beer?

CH: It’s a tie.  Rage against the Machine and NWA both do a great job of helping beer be the best it can be.

Brewery Update 7: The Brewer has Arrived

We’ve added another co-worker at the brewery since my last update.  Introducing Casey Hughes, our brewmaster.

Casey comes to us from Philadelphia where he was head brewer and director of production at Flying Fish in New Jersey.  After over 10 years at Flying Fish he wanted to return to Florida where he had started his brewing career, and be a part of the craft beer revolution going on down here.  You can read a more detailed bio here.  With his level of skill, experience, and passion for craft beer, I can’t imagine anyone better to lead production at this brewery.  We can’t wait to drink his beer.

So what else have we been up to the past couple weeks?  First of all, beer development is in full swing on our little 20 gallon homebrew system.   There’s lots of beer bubbling away in our fermentation fridges.  We hope to get some beer out there for people to taste, soon.

And, then there’s lots of tasting of previous batches to be done.  I never knew tasting beer could be such hard work, but these guys take the job pretty seriously.

Also, we’ve been trying to get out and talk to some other local breweries.  There’s an amazing spirit of comaraderie in Tampa’s craft beer community.  We honestly want to see each other succeed and take more market share from the giant industrial breweries.  Working together, I think we’ll do some amazing things in this town.

After meeting Khris at Green Bench in St. Pete, Casey was invited to help with the install of their beautiful new brewhouse.  Installation went well and we hear they should have some beer for us all to drink in September.

Speaking of equipment, ours is still on order and getting closer to being ready.  Our friends Jan and Uwe from Rolec flew out to meet with us recently and go over the drawing and designs of all the equipment.  They’re still on track to ship equipment to us in November.  Which means we have to get floor drains in and make a few other modifications to the building before then.  There’s still time to get it all done, but the clock is ticking.

Building renovations are moving forward a bit more as guys have started showing up and putting up framing for new walls.  Meanwhile we’re busy getting bids and trying to get permits on the other work.

That’s it for now.  Thanks for checking in on us and we’ll post again soon.

-Kent

Brewery Update 6: Dave and a Port-O-Potty

Introducing the newest member of the brewery team, Dave Iwansky. 

We needed a little eye candy around the office so we brought my friend Dave in to keep the books.  I’ve known Dave since we were kids and there’s no one I trust more to watch over the money.  His past experience includes working in accounting for USA Today and the Airline Tarrif Publishing Company, both in the Washington DC area.  We lured him and his family down here with the promise of backbreaking physical labor in addition to the usual accounting stuff, and the occasional half priced beer in the tap room.

Dave is a numbers guy who is passionate about craft beer and excited about helping the craft beer community in Tampa grow.  Also, he sometimes likes to stick brewery stickers on his butt after drinking too much craft beer. See!? He really does this. 

The other big news is renovations are officially underway.  We even have a fence and a Port-o-potty to prove it. I never thought I’d be so happy to see a Port-O-Potty on our property.

Our friends at SALT Construction are working on some demolition.  Then, they’ll renovate the brewery area and build out the tasting room.  As I write this people are taking the fire sprinkler system in the back room apart.  We should have some dramatic progress  pics in the coming months.

And, on Dave’s first day on the job, he managed to hit one of the new fences, shattering his side view mirror.

Nice first day on the job for Dave. Don’t worry.  We do not intend to dock his pay for the damage done to the fence. Also, the planning stage of this brewery is just about done.   Our Architect-Extraordinaire, Joe Hafner just sent over some updated layout drawings.  Here’s a pic of the brewing area:

And Rolec, the company making our brewing equipment, just sent over some cool 3d imagery of what it should look like.

I sure hope Casey knows how some of this stuff works. Our friend Charlie Schiller, of Charlie Schiller design and Schiller’s Salvage recently stopped by and gave our office a complete makeover.  I’m sure the new energy of the office area will be reflected in the beer.  Thanks, Charlie!

Office area reborn thanks to Charlie Schiller. We almost look like a real company now.

Lots of things going on around here the last few weeks.  We might just make this craft brewery happen!  And, I envision, the next few weeks will be even busier.  Brewmaster Casey Hughes allegedly starts work on Monday.  I should be back with more updates soon.  Drink a cold one for me on the 4th and thanks for checking in on us!

– Kent

Brewery Update 5: Wheels in Motion

Kent in the warehouse that will be demolished.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here over at Coppertail Brewing Company. So many things have been going on that we’ve neglected our updates, our apologies. However, we’ll try and be extra diligent and pump one out each week or so.

Construction is set to begin soon, within the next few weeks, and we’re gearing up to really get rolling in July. Blueprints are being finalized, even for the tasting room. A few designs have been haggled over but the plans are in place for what we need to proceed with.  

Demolition is set to begin on our warehouse next to the office areas soon, and it looks like workers will be out fencing off the needed area possibly tomorrow. Sometime this year our parking lot and tasting room will be in its place. Electrical fixtures and wires as well as sprinkler piping will have to come out before the whole building comes down. Some of the beautiful wood located on the warehouse ceiling will hopefully be able to be saved and reused. Kent will want to operate the bulldozer or wrecking ball I imagine, but really-who wouldn’t?  

Last week, Cintas cleaned our floors and walls in our warehouse behind the office area all the way back to the loading dock. They did a great job and it really cleaned up well, it’s no longer embarrassing to bring guests back there. Unfortunately the steam from the cleaning process damaged the fire panel resulting in the fire dept. getting involved and many phone calls to the alarm company and Fire Marshall. Despite that, it’s certainly well worth it and was fodder for a good chuckle. No use sweating the small stuff.

The Cintas Cleaning Trucks.

Our blog received some updates to make it more usable. Readers can now Facebook “Like” a post directly on the blog page itself and reach our Facebook and Twitter page directly from the blog. Plus some other cool stuff was done. The increased functionality is really impressive and will help us communicate and share what we’re trying to do.   Business cards also came and we’ve been having fun letting the local community know our plans while we hand them out.  

Our newly cleaned ware house floor.

Finally, we’re really looking forward to doubling the size of our Coppertail team! Two new employees will officially be joining us starting in July. In fact, a couple of new phone lines were installed this morning just for them. Casey Hughes, our brewmaster extraordinaire, will be moving down with his new bride Jules from Philadelphia. He will be invaluable during our construction phase, recipe development, and brewhouse operations. Dave Iwansky, our new money and finance guy, is already on his way from Virginia with his wife Kim and their two kids. Hopefully Dave will be able to wrangle some of the financial and other business obligations away from Kent to free him up for other duties, keep us both from spending like drunken sailors (good luck Dave), and provide another passionate craft beer voice to help guide our vision.    

Thanks for reading and we’ll be back soon!

Robb Larson

VP and Resident Beer Dude

Coppertail Brewing Company

Brewery Update 4: The Brain Trust

This was a big week at Coppertail.  All the architects, engineers, contractors, brewers, concrete experts, etc. met in one room this week to try to get the renovations kicked off.  With many of these experts being paid by the hour, it was easily the most expensive meeting I’ve ever had.  But it will be worth it if it speeds us up.   As you may recall, our equipment will start arriving in November, and we need to have this old warehouse ready to function as a brewery by then.

The Brain Trust in Action: Todd Whitworth, John Rosende, Robb Larson, Tom Dixon, Dave Fraser, Casey Hughes, Mark Benzaquen, and Joe Hafner figuring out how to build this brewery.

These meetings were so important, in fact that our brewmaster, Casey, chose to skip his honeymoon and, instead, fly to Tampa to meet with us.  Now that’s a man who loves beer!

We made some great progress toward getting this building ready during our meetings.  We discovered that our concrete floors can withstand 2-4 thousand pounds of pressure per square inch before they crack which should be more than adequate for our beer tanks. Wohoo!

And, most importantly, with brewers sitting in on the meeting we were finally able to answer all those little questions about the amounts and locations of steam, electricity, glycol, natural gas, etc. necessary for our operations.  Now we can move forward with filing our plans, getting our permits and getting those shovels moving.

This concrete floor is officially strong enough to hold tanks of beer.

All we need to do is upgrade our electricity, get gas service to our boiler, dig trench drains below the brewing areas, coat the concrete floors, raise part of our ceiling, fix up the walls and roof, repave one parking area and create another, and build out a tasting room.  And get it all done before the brewing equipment arrives.  I’m sure it will be a piece of cake.

While Casey was in town we made good progress planning out the beers as well.  We’re looking at a core lineup of 4 styles, with seasonals and special releases to be added later.  We want the first four to cover a good spectrum of beer flavor:  some hoppy, some malty, some easier drinking, some more intense, etc.  We want to be able to go through a beer tasting or beer dinner with our four core beers and have at least one in there that will appeal to just about any craft beer drinker.  Click here for the lineup.

The brewing experiments are multiplying.

Also, in recipe formulation we’re trying to stay true to the motivation behind this brewery.  We want to make beer that is balanced and flavorful.  Beer that you finish and want to drink another one.  Beer that tastes good in the Florida sun and fits our lifestyle.  We have a group of basic recipe ideas.  We’ll be tweaking them and asking for tasters over the coming months.

And, lastly, we bought a bottling line this week.  It’ll be delivered in 4-6 months.  Why bottles?  Why not cans?  That’ll be the topic for another post.

We are getting closer, inch by Inch.

– Kent

Brewery Update 3: Spreading the word and Frozen Beer

As a brewery, we don’t really exist yet.  We have a dilapidated old warehouse and some equipment on order.  We have months before we can sell beer.  We haven’t done anything to promote ourselves or made any grand announcements or media stunts.  Yet people are finding us.  It’s a testament to the growing enthusiasm for craft beer in Tampa.

We got our first local media hit ever on Monday when John Tesmer of Tampa Bay Brew News came by to interview us and check the place out.  John’s a homebrewer who’s very excited about craft beer and was good fun to talk to.  He got a kick out of being our first “media” interview.

Then Jenn from the Brandon Bootleggers homebrew club invited us to come out to their monthly meeting Wednesday night.  We found the back room of a local restaurant packed with craft beer enthusiasts.  She asked us to say a few words.   What should we say?  We don’t have a carefully crafted marketing message.  So, we did the best thing we could think of.  We decided to just be us, a couple of homebrewers who are passionate about great beer, hoping to turn pro.  Just like many of them.

I offered up one of my homebrews in sacrifice to their beer judging skills and got some valuable feedback.  I also sampled lots of good homebrew.  At the end we stood up and told the group about our project.  It was great to connect with other people who care about good beer and we greatly appreciate the warm welcome they gave us. After that meeting, I’m more convinced than ever that Tampa is on the verge of hitting a critical mass as a craft beer town.

In other news this week, our friends from Roy Farms sent us some new, experimental hops to play with, named only with a weird combination of letters and numbers.  You may glance briefly at this picture of hops, but try not to stare at it.  It’s top secret.  We’re looking forward to brewing up some test batches with it soon.

Also, we’ve been working on providing tons of information to the federal government in hopes that they will one day say we’re allowed to sell beer.  They’ve been asking me to answer weird questions like, “Describe the amount and composition of all liquid wastes produced during your processes along with procedures you have in place to monitor the effluent.”  I started to write about our restrooms before Casey told me I had misunderstood the question.

Iced Beer Anyone?

And, probably my favorite moment of the week, we accidentally froze a beer solid during fermentation.  Anybody know if ale yeast can survive freezing temps?  We’ll find out soon.

And, of course, we’re still working on getting the building renovations going.  We had roofers out here today working on our leaks.  We’re still hoping to finalize site planning this month and get some real progress going.

Happy Friday everybody and thinks for checking in on us.  I’m heading to Datz in Tampa to sip a cold beer.  Cheers!

– Kent

Brewery Update 2: Equipment and Concrete

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

Brewery Update 1: Recipes, and Equipment

Casey just flew down to Tampa for a quick weekend pow-wow on brewery planning.  He saved us lots of money by pulling unecessary items out of the equipment budget, and tweaking the layout a bit.  (Evidently, the giant cowboy hat and rubber paddle ball set I wanted are not strictly necessary to produce great beer.)

We also discussed what we’re trying to do with the beer lineup so we can nail down hop contracts.  With more and more breweries entering the craft brewing scene,  and all of them looking to make heavily hopped beers, we expect access to hops to get tight.  Contracting with growers ahead of time may be the best way to make sure our cold boxes stay filled with hoppy goodness.  I honestly don’t remember all the hops we decided on, but I can say we’re trying to get ahold of some varieties that are so new to the market, they have code numbers instead of names.  So, hopheads, rejoice!  We should have something new and exciting for you later this year.

For the full details on the beer lineup we decided on click here.

After all that meeting we were parched, so we headed over to The Tampa Bay Brewing Company where the seasonal pale ale proved to be exactly the restorative we needed.

Casey’s on his way back up to Philly now where over the next two months he needs to: finish planning his wedding, get married, find a place to live in Tampa, and move, all while working full time at his previous job and continuing to field random brewing questions from me.  Piece of cake, right?

So that, gentle reader, is the update for now.  This week I will turn my attention toward figuring out how to get the building renovations moving.

Cheers!

– Kent

No Turning Back

I passed the point of no return today. I signed our lease and took possession of a giant warehouse. For the last four months Coppertail Brewing Co has been a company on paper only, little more than a bank account and a collection of expenses. After a few strokes of a pen the brewery suddenly became a place. I got the key, rolled up the doors and surveyed our kingdom this evening.

I left foot prints in the black grime coating the floor as I walked. It looked like the place hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. Paint bubbled and peeled off the concrete block walls and blood stained the wood of the rusted rat traps in the corners. Had that wall always had a big crack running through it?   And why was the office door off it’s hinges?  Without the previous tenant’s belongings to shield the building from view it looked like a dump.

I stood staring into the filthy emptiness for a few moments in silence. I didn’t want to admit it but my first big decision as founder of this brewery was starting to look like a huge mistake.  But as I stared, shapes emerged from the darkness.   Shiny steel tanks stood in rows, clean red hoses ran across spotless floors, a conveyor belts shuttled empty beer bottles past. The bready aroma of barley seeping in hot water wafted along the air. People crowded around a bar, pouring back pints of a new, local Tampa beer.

The building is a dump. But it’s a dump on the on the southern edge of Ybor with enough square footage to do whatever we want, right across from Ikea and steps from the Columbia restaurant. The size and location could not be better. It just needs some work. And a whole lot of vision.

I  finished my tour of the new premises and started locking up. I pressed the down button to close the last electric roller door but less than halfway down the thing clanked to a stop and no amount of button pushing, door wiggling or cursing would get it to move either up or down again. The warehouse door was stuck open. I had no ladder, tools, or any idea how to fix the mechanism. I couldn’t even reach it. I called the repair company number from the sticker on the mechanism but was greeted by an after hours recording. I couldn’t believe it. I broke the new warehouse the very first day I took possession of it.

I stood in front of the open door for a long time wondering what to do. I haven’t moved anything in, yet, and the place is already a wreck. What’s somebody going to do? Go in and clean it up? I drove away, leaving the warehouse open to the night. I’m hoping it won’t be vandalized or filled with squatters tomorrow morning. And I hope my inability to fix the door malfunction is not a sign of things to come.

Bad omen or not, one thing is certain: there is no turning back now.

Kent Bailey
President and Founder
Coppertail Brewing Co