Mark here, it’s a brew day, so in between steps I thought I would take a few minutes to catch you up on what we’ve been doing.
So I just returned from an Intensive Brewing Science class at UC Davis. Can’t endorse the course strongly enough. Drs. Michael Lewis and Charles (Charlie) Bamforth conducted the majority of the lectures and they did great job of walking us through the scientific aspects of beer brewing. It was exciting to be talking about enzymatic pathways, isomerization, hydrophobic interactions and red-ox chemistry….I really do like being a geek.
Here is a great video of Charlie Bamforth, courtesy of the Brookston Beer Bulletin, talking about beer.
The attendees of this course came from a very diverse background ranging from professional brewers, breweries-in-planning and hardcore homebrewers. Met a lot of really wonderful, open and helpful people. It was great to hear what other people are thinking and doing as it relates to running or starting a brewery.
As part of the course we were treated to a VIP tour of the Sierra Nevada brewery in Chico. Fantastic facility that is clearly paving the way and raising the bar for the rest of us when it comes to making great beer, creating a positive work environment and minimizing the environmental impact of their operations.
One of the boil kettles at Sierra Nevada.
As for our progress, it looks like we will be signing a lease shortly. We were lucky to find a very reasonable landlord who was sympathetic to many of the challenges that we are facing given that we must first have a lease in place before we can really get the ball rolling with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (aka TTB).
We’ve also engaged the services of Peter Waring of Waring Architects in New Orleans. Our friends Erich and Jennifer Weishaupt put us on to Peter and his team after Waring Architects helped them with the opening of their latest Ruby Slipper location. Before we even sent them a retainer, Peter and his team identified how we can minimize our zoning headaches by declaring ourselves a “local brewery” for the purposes of filing our paperwork with Orleans parish. Very excited to be working with Peter and look forward to seeing how they can help us realize our “vision” for our tap room and brewery.
Well that’s all for now. Hopefully in our next post we will have signed our lease and we can reveal the our location in Mid-City!
Cheers,
Mark
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