Construction Update 10-30-11

The old saying goes that when planning a construction project you should count on it taking twice as long and three times as much money as you planned....or is that twice as much money and three times as long.  Either way it is a painfully true statement.  I like to believe that I have made appropriate accommodations for the money side of things, but the timing side of things gets on my nerves sometimes.  I started getting the drawings for the brewery together in late July.  Permits were applied for in early September.  After some revisions and a trip back to the architect they were approved a few weeks ago.  Great, now I can get to work doing the modest amount of renovations needed to make the place inhabitable....sorta.

So last weekend we did some framing.  By we, I mean my brothers-in law, with me fetching tools for them.  It took all day but we (they) got it done and I must say it was nice to see something substantial being done in the space.  We also have to frame a new entry door, but due to an ordering snafu on my part, I had to return the original door (special order) that I bought so we did not have it available.  Rather than potentially framing it incorrectly we decided to wait.  So why am I telling you these minor details?  Well it all adds to the "time lag" that is the source of my primary frustration these days.  Even though I have the general building permit in hand, I can't just start swinging a hammer at anything I want.  Everything has to go in a certain order.  Right now the order goes like this:

1.  I can't get the electrical work done until everything is drywalled.
2.  I can't hang drywall until the framing passes an inspection.
3.  I can't get the inspection until the aforementioned doorway is framed.
4.  I can't frame the doorway until I have the door (which I just got a few days ago).

So something as simple as ordering the wrong door has plugged up the whole works.  I've been staring at a pile of drywall for a while now and I can't do anything with it!  Please don't misunderstand.  I don't mean for this post to sound like a rant against the building permit process (I'm not quite to that point yet).  I'm just learning as I go so this is another in what will be a long line of "learning experiences".  However, I am very optimistic that things will jump into high gear soon.  Once the framing gets the OK from the city I'll be able to drywall and work on covering the ceiling.  That will definitely keep me busy for a while.  Plus, the plumber is coming tomorrow so we can lay out the trench drain for saw-cutting.  I can't wait to get the saw fired up!

It ain't much but it's a start!

All Hail the Coming of Yuengling....except me.

OK.  In my first post for this blog I mentioned that I might occasionally diverge from my ramblings about starting this brewery to other random thoughts on the "state of beer" in this city and beyond.  I've yet to do that so far.  The imminent arrival of Yuengling in Ohio seems as good a time as any to start.

Let me first start by saying that I in no way intend to offend anyone with these occasional diatribes.  If you find something in one of these posts that you feel is a personal affront to your sensibilities then I apologize in advance, as that is not (and will never be) my intent.  End disclaimer.

I don't hate Yuengling.  I've had a few of their beers a few different times.  Any brewery that can survive as long as they have and still be a family run operation is aces in my book.  I applaud their success and careful expansion into new markets when they feel the time is right.  That being said, I can't see what all the fuss is about.  The beer was......OK.  A fine example of what American Lager is supposed to be.  It's a better beer than Budweiser/Miller/Coors.  In the end though, it is still plain old American Lager.  But for as big a deal as everyone is making out of them finally coming to Ohio you would think it is the most amazing beer ever to grace this Earth.  People that aren't even that "into" beer come up to me and say how excited they are about Yuengling coming to Ohio and they've never even tried it before.  I know way too many people that have made road trips to Pennsylvania or Tennessee to fill their trunks up with the stuff and then stash it away and hoard it as if it was Pliny the Elder or something.  I even know a guy who buys it to stock his fridge and he doesn't even drink beer.  He just likes to give it to people when they come over to his house.  He proceeds to rave about how good it is and harps on the fact that you can't buy it here as if he is doing you some great service by giving you this "rare treat".  Weird.

I just don't get it.  Is it the nostalgia of it?  (I refer to this as the "Burger Beer" effect - "My Dad used to drink XYZ beer so now I do too")  Is it the scarcity of Yuengling that has elevated it to this mythical status around here?  Is it the allure of being able to drink a reasonably priced lawnmower beer that didn't come from the big corporate behemoths?  Is it because a Bud/Miller/Coors guy finally has something else he can drink that doesn't "offend his tastes" like other craft beer?  I guess we'll see.  Once the novelty of not having to drive to another state to get it wears off, will it still be the coolest thing around?  Who knows.

Again, I am not begrudging Yuengling at all.  I hope they are very successful in Ohio and beyond.  I'll even drink one myself occasionally.  I just don't get why everyone is going so crazy over it.  If we were just getting Leinenkugel's or Old Style or Iron City into this market would everyone be so damn excited?  Besides, there are a lot of things happening in the local craft beer scene that are getting overshadowed by this "big news".  Just remember there are only so many tap handles in a bar.  Bud and Miller will still have theirs.  Now a third "fizzy yellow water" (to borrow a phrase from Greg Koch) will be on tap at a lot of bars too.  Who's the one who loses out?  That's right.  The tap that used to have that nice local Pale Ale or craft IPA (for example).  Taste diversity is a great thing.  The coming of Yuengling may set this town back a bit in that department.....

ADDENDUM 11-5-11

I was just in a Kroger perusing the beer aisle as I am known to do and I couldn't believe what I saw:

They have actually cleared a space on the shelves in *anticipation* of having Yuengling 10 days in advance!  I really think this has gone too far.  Anybody in the beer business will tell you that grocery store shelf space is a VERY valuable commodity.  And yet here it sits....empty.  Are they purposely trying to drum up more excitement by this ploy?  Couldn't you put some craft beer on this shelf at least until the 13th?  There are a lot of small breweries out there that will KILL for this shelf space...even if only for a little bit.

ADDENDUM TO THE ADDENDUM 11-10-11

Sometimes I hate it when I am right....Today I was in a local tavern that I occasionally visit and noticed they now have Yuengling on tap.  No big deal, that's happening in a lot of places these days.  This particular establishment has 12 taps and a relatively OK selection including DogfishHead 60 minute, Left Hand Sawtooth, and a few other good craft beers to go along with the requisite Bud and Miller taps.  They also carry Rivertown and Mt. Carmel.  Guess which tap the Yuengling is now on?  That's right, they bounced off one of the locals.  In this case Mt. Carmel.  So at least for this bar, my prediction came true (unfortunately).

Of course the bar has the right to do what they feel will sell the best, and maybe Mt. Carmel was the slowest moving beer there.  Still, makes me a bit sad.  I'd rather drink a Mt. Carmel than a Yuengling anyday.....

Bureaucracy is a four letter word.

So I haven't posted in a while.  I've been busy.  Unfortunately I have not been very busy doing anything that I would consider constructive.  Instead of actually building a brewery, I've been dealing with the various bureaucracies involved in building a brewery.  I knew I was going to have to deal with it at some point and I knew it wasn't going to be pretty.  Still, no amount of preparation can prepare you for the mundane business end of starting a brewery.

There are two distinct areas of bureaucracy I'm dealing with at the moment.  The first deals with the whole "making alcohol legally" issue.  Funny how they just don't let you do that on your own.  There are state and federal permits that must be filled out in duplicate.  However, you can't fill out the state application until after you do the federal one.  That's where the TTB comes in.  They used to be called the ATF but after the government reshuffling that took place post 9/11 the TTB was created to handle the tax side of the ATF's functions.  The TTB is more the paper-pusher side of things as opposed to the regular ATF who are door-kicking-in kinds of folks.

So that's what I've been working on....for about three weeks straight (and off and on for a month before that), filling out the TTB Brewer's Notice.  There's a pile of forms asking every form of personal question you can think of.  You have to provide financial statements for every month in which you have spent money on the business, as well as five months prior to that purchase.  You have to get a bond to insure that the government can get their excise taxes even if you can't afford to pay them yourself.  You even have to make statements about how much garbage you will generate and what you plan to do with it (I'm not kidding).  It's a lot of stuff, but in the end it seems pretty straight forward as long as you follow the directions (which are split up amongst several different and not all that easy to find pages on the TTB website).  Thankfully I can say that as of a couple of days ago it's done!  Now we wait about three months (or more) for them to process and approve it...

Less fun so far has been the building permit process.  The brewery is an old warehouse space so of course it needs a little work.  Electrical and plumbing upgrades as well as a bathroom need to be added.  The walls need drywall.  All in all it's actually not that much work...but you still have to get a permit.  To get a permit you need stamped drawings from an architect...done.  You also have to be a city registered contractor in order to get a permit for a commercial space in Cincinnati.  That one I wasn't expecting.  So rather than pay a contractor to put up the drywall that I can put up myself, I ended up paying the fee and voila!  Blank Slate is now a city registered contractor!  Just don't call me to put an addition on your house.  I'm too busy.  Now we can finally get a building permit application filed...but then it gets rejected (which is apparently common on the first try).  So now its back to the architect for some very minor revisions.... 

Oh well, like I said I knew it was going to be this way...it still sucks though....

                                           TTB application.  Over an inch of fun fun fun...

What's your hook?

I know (or know of) a lot of people that are in various stages of starting a brewery in and around Cincinnati right now.  Sure some may be all talk, some are ready to launch, and some are someplace in between.  The most common question I get asked by people familiar with the brewing "scene" is:

"So what's your hook?  What's going to make you different from all the other guys?"

Good question.  In the craft beer world marketing isn't about football and Swedish bikini teams and "frost brewed" and "triple hopped".  It's about telling a story and finding your niche.  So what is Blank Slate's niche?

Well of course handcrafted quality beer is a must.  This is the starting point for anyone in this industry (or at least it should be).  Beyond that everything is wide open.  I brew what I like to drink and I hope everyone else will enjoy it also.  I like to drink seasonally and a big focus of the brewery will be to rotate beers as the weather changes.  Very few people like to drink a Russian Imperial Stout when it's 100° outside so why bother brewing it until the winter?  (I only say this because now that it's 50° outside I am drinking a RIS and thoroughly enjoying it.)  Sure there are a few styles that are good year round and we'll have some of those too.  There will be some "big beers" but I am also a believer that the session beer has become a lost art in American craft brewing.  Sometimes it's nice to sit around and drink two or three pints and not worry about having to drive home afterward.  Oh yeah, barrel aged sour beers are on the agenda too.

So all this may sound a bit scattershot, and yeah, maybe it is.  On the surface it doesn't really seem to answer the original question of "what's your hook?"  Well maybe that's the answer.  Maybe the hook is that there is no hook.  Maybe being a small self-distributed operation doing whatever feels right is a hook in and of itself?  Maybe the answer is right there in the name.....

I'm starting this thing with an open mind and a Blank Slate.....We'll see what falls out of it...

The backstory....part 2

So what makes me think I have what it takes to be a successful commercial brewer?  I've asked myself that question many times over the last few years.  There are a great many homebrewers around here that brew amazing beer.  I am by no means the most decorated homebrewer in this town but I have won my fair share of medals.  The truth of the matter is that's just not enough of a resume to run out and start a brewery.  So I started studying.  Reading brewing textbooks that remind me a little bit of my old organic chemistry book has become the norm around my house.  I've taken some classes at the Siebel Institute which is America's oldest brewing school.  A couple of years ago I became a certified beer judge (yes there really is such a thing), and earlier this year I became a Certified Cicerone (the beer equivalent to a wine sommelier).  I've volunteered, consulted with, downright pestered and learned a lot from some of the other local brewers along the way.  (Thank you Mt. Carmel and Rivertown).

Does any of this mean I've got what it takes to do this for a living?  Who knows.  I haven't even touched on how much "fun" learning the business and accounting side of things has been, let alone dealing with state and federal licensing bureaucracies, city building permits, or my least favorite part, preparing to make sales calls.  Thus the "scary" part in the tagline of this blog.  What I do know is that I have a passion and desire to do this that has been building inside me for years and it isn't going away.  I've been learning and working my way to this point for quite a while now and there's no turning back now.....

The backstory....part 1?

I had my first "good beer" when I was a sophomore in college.  I was going to school in Cleveland Ohio at the time and my roommate and I were out celebrating something that was probably not very important (since I can't remember it).  A Friday night for us usually consisted of splitting a case of Busch Light Draft or something similarly watery.  Iron City Light anyone?  Instead, on this night we had a Great Lakes Dortmunder on tap at a local establishment (it had just won its third Gold Medal at the World Beer Championships).  We both took a sip and looked at each other and simultaneously said "where has this beer been all our life".  We soon learned that you could get just as drunk on a 6 pack of decent beer as you could a 12 pack of Busch and you wouldn't have to pee as often!  Sure we were getting laughed at when we showed up to parties with ONLY a six pack, but we managed to convert a few others to our way of thinking along the way.  We found a cool little beer store near our dorm that had all kinds of great imported (and a little craft) beer and we were off and running.  Old Peculier became a particular favorite of mine...

Fast forward a few years.  Somehow I got into a discussion about beer with my boss at my co-op job (now back home in Cincinnati) and he said I should come to one of his homebrew club meetings.  Another co-op and I accepted and we attended our first meeting of the Bloatarian Brewing League at the Brew Works brewpub in Covington Kentucky.  There were many tasty homebrewed libations to sample, but it was all downhill after the Brewmaster Tim Rastetter put a half barrel of Velvet Hammer in the middle of the room and said "Have at it boys"...Man I miss that place....I started homebrewing the next day.

Many batches later (some good, some bad) and after a brief hiatus from brewing to renovate a house, I got serious about starting something beyond the basement.  I started researching everything I could about the industry from equipment to licensing.  I figured there had to be a reason why there were no small craft breweries around (at that time), and I found plenty of reasons.  It's a whole different world brewing commercially.  I have become partial to the mantra that "you have to be able to make good beer in order to go pro, but just because you can brew good beer doesn't mean you should go pro".  I quickly learned that this was not an endeavor to enter lightly so I took a few years to learn everything I could.......

to be continued....

What's all this about then...

I've been homebrewing for about a dozen years now.  Like most homebrewers who have brewed more than a couple of batches, I have thought for quite a while about doing it professionally.  I started brewing in college and quickly had a "great" idea about how to start a side business selling my beer (until I figured out there was about a dozen things in my plan that were illegal).  Fast forward about ten years and a few more false starts later, and now I'm in the process of starting a small production brewery in my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.  I want to use this blog to chronicle this adventure (or maybe disaster) while letting everyone in on my philosophy about the state of the beer world here locally and nationally as well......