We Are Doing It!

Its been awhile.  Things are finally starting to normalize and equalize around brewLAB...kinda, sorta.  We have finished all of the construction, and the building inspector came and did his final inspection.  We fired up the walk-in refrigerator, hooked up the draft lines, got the interior light fixtures dialed, uncovered the bar, brought in some tables and chairs, cleaned up all of the debris left over from construction, set up a POS system, and..........we have officially started selling beer!  We had our first soft opening two weeks ago on September 26th.  We were open Friday and Sunday of that weekend, and that Saturday we poured beer at the SOL Food Festival.  The following weekend we were also open for two days - Friday and Saturday.  We are now getting ready to open up for two more days this weekend - Friday (10/10) form 5:00p-9:00p and Sunday (10/11) from 3:00p-8:00p.  Our hours are very select, and likely will be until around Thanksgiving; we will have different hours each week that will be based on current inventory, and each week we will be posting our hours on Facebook.  We are brewing a lot, but we are still only brewing on our ten gallon pilot system, as we have been waiting for a piece of equipment to be custom made for our larger, 1.2 bbl system.  That piece just arrived and next week we should be completing the build out of that system, and then hopefully the following week we will be brewing our first batch of beer on that system.  We've purchased 100 brand new 1/6 bbl sanke kegs, and 6 brand new 55 gallon conical fermentors from Stout Tanks in Portland.  We also ordered all of the hardware to build our own keg washer, including a big ol' 3/4 hp pump - which will also be used for our Clean In Place system for our kettles and fermentors.  The pump just arrived a couple days ago, as did our first order of cleaning chemicals from Shepard Bros down in Los Angeles.  We were recommended to Shepard Bros by Rincon Brewery as well as Telegraph Brewing Co.  We have planned out a rough brewing schedule for the next 5 weeks, and we should be receiving our first bulk order of grain and hops from Country Malt Group at any moment.  We do have a few sour projects aging, although it will be awhile before those get released.  Once we get the larger system going, we will be starting many more aging projects.  On that note, I should also mention that we acquired 5 more wine barrels, all white wine.  We now have 6 wine barrels - 3 Trousseau Gris, 2 Savignon Blanc, and 1 Cabernet Savignon.  We recently brewed a Berliner Weiss - sour wheat ale - to which we added a little bit of Lemon Verbena and Wild Chamomile (also known as Pineapple Weed).  After 6 days in the fermentor it is already tasting nice and tart.  That beer should be released in the not so distant future.  brewLAB is looking for artists who are interested in hanging their work on our [mostly] bare white walls, so if you know anyone who might be interested, please have them email their work to brewlabcraft@gmail.com.  It feels great to finally be at this point, but there is still so much work to do all the time.  To stay updated on hour tasting room hours check our Facebook page: facebook.com/brewlabcraft.

Cheers!

-Rob