Early Days

From the moment we started on this adventure, people have been telling us to blog. Every time someone would suggest it I would cringe and think about all the time it might take and wonder if it was really worth it. Sitting here now in front of this blank page I realize it was a fantastic idea. We’ve been through so much and chronicling it as it was happening would have been so much better than the way I’m about to approach it now. In some way our facebook page gives you a general outline, but not very much.

So here it goes! This will be the first post with another tomorrow to correspond with our kickstarter launch.

Ben and I decided to open our own brewery when we were on a trip to London in 2005. We had just been on a brewery tour of Youngs and were feeling giddy after generous samples of double chocolate stout. Ben had been a homebrewer for years and in the year we had been together I had become his “assistant”. I was finishing up my bachelors in business and had the “I can take over the world” mentality that sometimes comes from higher education. We both knew that we wanted to have a business of our own and we loved drinking/brewing/exploring beer. The idea was so natural for us that I don’t think we ever had a moment of hesitation.

Ben at Young's Brewery in London 2005

For the next year we traveled to breweries all over. We started to plan the majority of our outings according to beer. Someday I’ll have to take the time to compile a list of all of the brewers, owners and managers we talked to send out a giant “thank you”. Even the smallest tips we got have come together to provide us more insight then we could have gotten anywhere else.

In late 2006 we incorporated. By early 2007 Ben was off to Seibel for a brewery course and I was starting to get the initial paperwork ready that would become our business plan.

I’ve come to regard our business plan as my masterpiece. This 13 tabbed, 75 paged monster has been a constant source of both pride and agony for me. It comes only second to the monster that is the brewery license application, but that is a story for another day.

The Seibel course was a great way for Ben to learn more about the brewery business model and many of the industry standard practices. By the time he came back we had decided what type and capacity system we wanted and we began to look.

To be continued…..