Full Swing at ECB

Things are in full swing at the brewery. We have received all of our permits, except or building permit, which we expect to have in about 2 weeks. We just resubmitted our plans with corrections yesterday, so by January 2nd we should be able to get cranking on the construction. We have done pretty much everything that we can now, so once we get the permits we will be in good shape.

The bar is nearly done, and it looks amazing!

 

We have also started installing the draft system.

 

There are 6 more of the secondary regulators, but we are waiting on parts before we can finish the install.

 

 

We have also received our 3-tap jockey box from Micro-Matic that will be used for events (Super excited to start doing events) and our draft line cleaning system. Next order of business is to set rebar in the trenches so we can be ready for pouring concrete!

 

P.S. Our blogging has been lackluster, and we apologize. All of our free time has gone into the brewery (both in the build-out and behind the scenes stuff) for the past couple months. We love updating the blog though because it helps us actually see our progress, and it always feels good after a blog post to see what we have accomplished.

 

Cheers

 

 

The latest

Hey all, its been almost a most since I have posted last, crazy how fast time goes by! Well, demo is pretty much done--walls are gone and floors are cut--and its time for the new stuff to go in. Our plumbing is installed, and we have started building the bar. We have been eyeing reclaimed lumber for the finish, and are also looking at ways to turn old wooden wire spools into tables for the tasting room. Hopefully in a few days we will have come up with some really cool ideas.

Our plan is to repurpose as much as we can; the story behind repurposed material is so much more interesting than for new material (new material stories are pretty boring in general (i.e. "yea, we went down to Home Depot and picked up this lumber on an orange cart and then stood in line and paid for it...").  Whereas the material we are looking at came from the inside of a barn in Wisconsin that was built in the late 1800s--much more interesting...

So, check back in the next few days for more updates, I promise to post them more regular.

Cheers!

Update to the most recent happenings

A lot has been happening here at Electric City Brewery. We have been working on finalizing our logo (still), obtaining our building permits, satisfying all of the licensing requirements,  and taking delivery of our various brewing equipment, and fabrication of our custom made parts. If you are interested in the details, read on....

To start, we have been working with Potamus Press in Temecula on our logo design, its still a work in progress, however we are getting closer to something we really like. The big news here, is, we were offered some graphic design help from a rather large company that has worked with Stone Brewery and Hangar 24, to name a few. We are saving the details on this for later. But for now, we have sent them the below logo for critiquing and alteration (as they see fit). We are VERY excited to see what they suggest!

 

Our permits are moving along, although at a snails pace. We applied for a construction permit last week, but were told that we can't get one until our CUP (Conditional Use Permit) is approved. The confusing part here is that we only need the CUP to operate the tasting room, not the brewery itself (And its the brewery side of things we need to start constructing). We were at the City Hall last Thursday negotiating a resolution to this "hang-up". We expect by Monday or Tuesday to have this issue resolved so we can build some walls and connect some pipe.

 

The ABC license went off without a hitch. They were most pleasurable to work with and everything was near seamless. Biggest problem (and the only one) was the plans we submitted to them weren't in the correct format; we changed formats, resubmitted, and all was well. They instructed us to call them two weeks before we open for an inspection of the premises. After that, we are 100% approved.

 

TTB is still "in-the-works". What this means is we have submitted it and haven't heard a thing since. Lets hope that no news is good news!  

 

The brewing equipment and brewhouse fabrication is coming along nicely. Our mill was delivered last week and its a big blue beast--we are super anxious to use it!!!!

 

 

Our auger arrived, too. The black circle on the left is the cork-screw-auger-thing-a-ma-jig that installs into the PVC piping (slightly visible on the left of the below picture). The auger installs onto the bottom of the mill and carries the milled grain upwards to our grist hopper. The grist hopper sits above our mash tun and holds the milled grain until we are ready to brew. 

 

 

 

The false bottom was a very interested piece of the puzzle. The false bottom is basically a big coffee filter that keeps the grain suspended a few inches above the bottom of the tank. This allows us to rinse the sugars with "sparge water" while leaving the grain behind.

 

We called around for a few weeks gathering information and getting pricing. We wanted to use perforated screen, but everyone told us it wouldn't work. They said it would crush under the load, but recommended a product called Wedgewire; its reportedly very strong, it does the job quite well, and it runs $3000 per sheet--the final product after fabrication would cost upwards of $6,000--for us, that's an expensive coffee filter.

 

We knew the guys at Aftershock Brewery in Temecula were using perforated screen so we went down there and got some great tips from the owner/operator/nicest guy around, Marvin. He recommended some parts and off we went to build it.

 

Our neighbor Dave from Terra Dynamics drew up the design--based of our rough explanation of what it should look like--on his CAD system, and after a few days of labor came to us with the final product (pictured below); it seems to be bullet proof! Each "pie" shaped section easily holds 400lbs (we tested it) and there are eight of these sections. We estimated 2000lbs of force on a huge batch of Strong Ale, so, at 3200lbs of theoretical capacity, we should be more than okay.  

 



 

 

Last, but not least is our HERMS coil. HERMS is an acronym for Heat Exchange Recirculated Mash System. It goes into the hot liquor tank and during the brew day we pump the liquid from the mash through it in order to maintain temperature. For some reason haven't snapped a picture of it, yet,  but we assure you, it is very cool.

 

[PICTURE COMING SOON]

 

 

That's the latest from Electric City Brewery, and we need to get back to work, so until the next interesting topic, Cheers!

 

It's cleaning--not demo--we promise...

Since we can't start demolition until we get our permits, we decided to do the tasks that are considered repairs more than demo. We removed the tiles and insulation from the T-Bar ceiling, and put down a Soy Based Cleaner to remove the glue that once held the flooring down in the front office and bathroom. We also removed the doors from the two walls that will eventually be demolished. These doors will be sanded down, stained a new color, and will be reinstalled on the new rooms we are building.

 

The waterproof fiberglass wainscoting that was in the restroom (you can see the glue from the old board in the picture) was removed and discarded. We are going to repaint, then install some new wainscoting, new toilet, new sink, and the rest.    

 

 

 

 

 



 

We also received another brew tank, and our grain mill and auger (the grain mill is blue, and is on the far left, next to the stainless steel grist hopper, which is next to the two brew kettles, which is next to the two fermenters and the bright tank). 

 

 

All-in-all, even though we cant start construction, its been a pretty busy week, and it feels like we have made some progress. Todays agenda has us scraping the floors and building the auger for the grain mill (its in a box, and is in about 1000 pieces), so, off we go to pretend like we know what we are doing!

 

Cheers!

That's the plan

We are working with architect Anne Parizeau to put all of our ideas onto paper (We were really trying to save money by drawing our own plans, but the city Building and Safety guy was "not in-agreement" with this plan. Bummer, because every dollar we save in permits and paperwork can go towards the equipment we sorely need, and we sorely need a keg washer!).

Anyways, below is the diagram that we submitted to the TTB. TTBs main concern seems to be brewery and tasting room separation and designation--they say that they want to make sure their revenue (taxes on the beer) stays protected. What this means is that there needs to be some means of deterrent to restrict non-brewery workers from accessing the non-taxed beer area. Nobody we have talked to knows precisely why this is a concern, but we have heard many of different guesses. Perhaps patrons were drinking from the bright tanks "tax-free"? If anyone knows the real answer, please, fill us in!

 

The hatched part of the plans is the actual brewery; it includes the beer production area, as well as the electric room, office, restrooms, utility-room, and the service-area behind the bar. The non-hatched area is the tasting room and observation area, which pretty much just means no seating (We weren't too keen with putting tables in front of the restrooms)... 

 

If we ever need to add more fermenters (Lets hope!), we could expand the production area into the observation area/entry simply by moving the 42" High Metal Rail over about five feet. Hooray for built-in expansion capabilities!! But for now, with 2519 feet of production area, we have all the room we need.

 

Cheers! 

 

 



Dabbling with a new logo

We ask almost everyone we come into contact with about our logo (The Cityscape logo with the Tesla Coil Sun in the background), and always get mixed responses. Some people like it, others are just "eh". And we have always felt about the same. The logo was okay, but never really grabbed us.

We always knew we wanted our logo to reflect the fact we are an electric brewery, but it was very hard to nail down a concept. We had asked ourselves many times: what does electric, or electricity, look like?  It was always electric bolts, tesla coils, or the shock waves that happen when a cartoon character gets electrocuted. All resulted in boring logo designs.

However, inspiration came to us when we weren't even looking for it! While installing a cities worth of 50 amp receptacles at the brewery (First Photo) we thought to ourselves, "hmmmm, could we turn one of these into a logo?".

So after a few hours on Microsoft Paint we came up with the below logo design (Second Photo). Our goal was to incorporate the electric receptacle into our logo design, while keeping it simple and clean. Obviously our logo designer will need to redo it professionally, but so far we think its pretty cool... 


50 Amp Receptacle







Rough Mock-Up of our Logo Concept Design

 

What does everyone think:

1. Did we nail it?
2. Should change something?
3. Did you like the other concepts better?

One more landmark reached!

We can check "File with TTB" off of our to-do list. The TTB is the U.S. Department of Treasury, and is concerned with protecting the tax revenue that a brewery produces. That statement may be the short of it, but its basically their function. Before starting a this brewery, we thought most of the work was in construction and brewing. Turns out, the bulk of the work is actually applications and permits. Luckily, after hours of boring paperwork, we can still go to the "lab" and brew test batches at home; brewing test batches always puts a smile on our face and reminds us of why we are going through all this paperwork nonsense in the first place!



 

Eye of the Storm

If you have been following our blog from day 1 you will notice things have been quite for the past couple of weeks. Its not so much that we haven't been working, its just that everything we have been doing has been really boring, paper-pushing, copying-and-collating type of work. Its definitely the "Eye of the Storm" right now. We have been filing sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much paperwork, and waiting for "this" before we can do "that", etc etc. Anyways, I assure you, things are going to pick up, and when they do it will be crazy!

Today we brewed a test batch for a Red IPA. Its 60 IBUs, 7.5% ABV and is made with British Pale Ale Malt, Crystal Malt, Victory Malt, and a dash of Chocolate Malt. We hopped it with lots of Cascade and Centennial hops, and plan to dry hop it a couple times to really get some good hop aromas. We even added 20 grams of Gypsum to it to help the hoppy-ness shine through. the next 14 days will be a nail biter until its ready.

What are we brewing next? Either our Cascadian Dark Ale, or perhaps a traditional IPA. Lots of IPAs brewing up right now.... But, hey, we like them!!

Cheers,

A few permits and applications have been checked off the list

Last week was spent filling out permits, applications, and checks. We got our sellers permit, filed for our conditional use permit, filled out our TTB permit, and made an appointment for Wednesday to submit our ABC application. We also filled out our business application, but was told not to file it until we are almost open. None of it was really exciting, but it feels great to be able to cross them off our list!

By Friday, the only task we had to do was pick up our pilot system. We still need to add the pumps, organize the wires, and add a 50A circuit breaker to our control panel, but we plan hope on getting it dialed in by Wednesday so we can brew our planned recipes (originally brewed on our gas system), with our new electric system. We anticipate having better hop utilization now, so we really want to brew each of the planned recipes at least once so we can get them dialed in!



New brew stand on the left, original one on the right.

Tanks have arrived!

Our fermenters and bright tank arrived today and we couldn't be more excited! They are all brand new and super shiny!!! Unloading them made me very nervous, but actually was quite uneventful. We got them placed in the brewery, and stared at them for many hours. I felt like a proud Pappa looking at my new born baby (I assume that's almost what it feels like anyways, lol).

 

Fermenters and Bright Tanks Ordered

Today we purchased two new 7 barrel fermenters and one new 7 barrel bright tank from PBST Beer in Los Angeles. They have dual zone jacketing, meaning we can keep the flocculated yeast in the cone-bottom at a different (cooler) temperature than the beer at the top. This will help keep the yeast happy until we repitch it in a later batch.

These fermenters are significantly different than the cheap plastic conicals I was forced to use during my stint as a commercial brewer. These stainless steel fermenters are actually sanitary, they hold pressure (which means we can transfer with CO2 rather than a pump), they have a sampling port, a manway so we can get in them and scrub, a CIP ball (acronym for Clean In Place), a 4 inch port for dry hopping, and on-and-on. Needless to say, we are VERY EXCITED about them!!!!  

 

P.S. We are very super ultra happy excited about these!!

P.S.S Is it weird that I am also  anxious to clean them?

Please welcome us to the 21st century

Hey friends, we have joined Facebook! Like us at www.facebook.com/electriccitybrewery
and watch for the latest updates and maybe even some special offers!

Cheers!

For those of you who are interested in the history of craft beer

INTRODUCTION TO CRAFT BREWERIES

The oldest surviving recipe in the world can be found on a 3,800 year-old clay tablet, as part as a hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of brewing. The recipe? For beer of course! It is believed that beer was the original motivation for planting the first wheat crops, not for baking bread as initially suggested. For millennia since, beer has inspired progress, and is responsible for some of earth’s greatest achievements; including math, poetry, pyramids, modern medicine, labor laws, and has altogether helped shape America into the country it is today.

 Beer has evolved since the beginning of time. Once brewed with herbs and spices, and then prayed upon until the start of fermentation (fermentation was called “God is good”), brewers today understand the science behind the craft, and beer has been retooled to [traditionally], include water, grains, hops, and yeast.

 Styles are generally lumped into two main categories: lagers and ales. These styles are dependent on the type of yeast selected and the temperatures at which they are fermented. Lagers are cold fermented. Ales are warm fermented. Prior to the advent of refrigeration, these characteristics dictated the brewing schedule, and ales and lagers were brewed according to the season.

The first half of the 20^th century saw periods of prohibition of alcoholic beverages in several countries. Much of the impetus for the movement in the Nordic countries and North America came from moralistic convictions of pietistic Protestants. Prohibition movements in the West coincided with the advent of women's suffrage, with newly empowered women as part of the political process strongly supporting policies that curbed alcohol consumption.

 After several years, prohibition became a failure in North America and elsewhere, as bootlegging became widespread and organized crime took control of the distribution of alcohol. Distilleries and breweries in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean flourished as their products were either consumed by visiting Americans or illegally exported to the United States. Chicago became notorious as a haven for prohibition dodgers during the time known as the Roaring Twenties. Prohibition generally came to an end in the late 1920s or early 1930s in most of North America and Europe, although a few locations continued prohibition for many more years.

The years following prohibition brought low alcohol, nearly tasteless lagers to the market. The largest macro-breweries were seemingly competing to have the lightest--what they colloquially referred to as “less filling”--beer possible. Adjuncts such as rice and corn replaced much of the grain, and the hops where seemingly waved past the beer. This product was cheap and non-offending to most, but largely unpalatable to beer aficionados. Instead of selling beer by it merits in taste, the macros convinced consumers through clever marketing that their product was cool. The macros brought us such gimmicks as the Clydesdale Horses, the talking frogs, cold-activated cans (as if it is no longer possible to determine adequate refrigeration by sense of touch), the vented widemouth can, and so on.

Today is different and the beer revolutuion has begun! Small, traditional, and independent breweries are bringing back the flavorful beers of our forefathers. New styles and techniques abound.

The consumer’s palette has become more sophisticated and they desire unique and robust tastes in beer. With the increased interest in beer came an increased interest in variety. Books, magazines, and internet sites devoted to beer have gained popularity as beer drinkers choose to learn more about the beer and the brewing process. Beer connoisseurs are learning which beer pairs well with which food. Seasonal flavors appeal to unique tastes and add to the allure of specialty beer. With certainty, the craft brewing movement is not a fad, but a fixture.

 

Without the craft beer industry this wouldn't have been possible.

 

 

 

 

 

First Logo Concept

We are working with a local print shop to have our logo designed. The first concept is below and is based off of some drawings we had brought to him (one of a city skyline and the other of an electrically powered robot). We are still working on this concept but I think its a really neat start! If anyone has any critiques feel free to tell us.

 

 

We Officially Took Ownership of the Building!

Today I met with the building owner, shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and got our keys! In celebration, we kicked off our shoes, poured ourselves a pint of Ginger Wheat, and posted this update with an ear-to-ear smile. After almost two months of looking at commercial properties its very exciting to actually have a home for our brewery! Tomorrow I will go down to the property for some preliminary cleanup, take a few measurements, and also go talk to the city to get the ball rolling for our CUP (conditional use permit (code for $3,000 fee). Not sure if I will be able to sleep tonight, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, I cant wait to go play with all our new toys!

 

 

Signed and Sealed

The building is officially ours! Now its time for demo and cleanup. The actual shell of the building is nice, everything else is pretty much garbage. Part of the lease agreement was that the owner would repaint the interior, which was white, but I feel like a color change is in order. Our building is actually a concrete tilt-up, and these buildings look beautiful when unfinished (in my opinion anyways). Since sanding the existing paint of the walls would be an insane proposition, I am choosing to repaint them a light(ish) grey color. I chose a color that was light enough to feel warm, but dark enough that the stainless steel tanks would stand out in front of the walls.

I want to rearrange the walls inside to make the building feel more open, and I want to add another bathroom or two. The smartest thing to do would be finish these improvements, then have painting done, but the coordination of that would be most difficult; so, paint first then demo, then paint again.

Pound Puppy

Our third tank (the 330 gallon boil kettle) came in and it was NOT as nice as the sellers pictures suggested. It was dented, gouged, and possibly thrown from the top of Mount Everest at one point. Being suckers for love, we felt bad for this poor girl. Its like that sad, old, abused dog from the pound, she just needed a little love.

Someone else hated her before, but with a little TLC we can give her a new home as a grist hopper; all she needs a name of her own now...

Logo Being Designed

I went to a print shop in Temecula and talked with them about logo design and printing. They have an outside guy  they use for more complicated logos and said he does really good work. I dropped off some ideas I had and hopefully by Monday I should have some initial designs.

My idea:

I spent a few days wondering to myself what Electric City Brewery looks like. I considered the obvious choice, electric bolts, but that's been done before...

The name comes from the fact everything we have is powered with electricity, hence, electric city, so I am thinking of a logo with a city skyline--maybe skyscrapers and smaller buildings--but instead of actual buildings, they will be fermenters and brewing equipment with windows in them. Random lights can be on to signify electric, maybe a burst of light (similar to sun rays) behind the city???

Something like this...

Anyways, its off to the designer to see what he can do.

Cheers,

Canada is NOT a local call

Today I found out that my cell phone carrier loves when I call Canada. I was charged $15 for what couldn't have been more than a five minutes long conversation with a supplier in Toronto. Wait until my wife sees the bill for this month because I talked for at least a few hours to various Canadian suppliers over the past few days.

Also, a few people said I should post more pictures, so here's a bunny...

Busy busy busy

We haven't signed the lease yet, but hopefully by Wednesday. I spent the weekend ordering items for the new electric pilot system we are building;  As of now, I am waiting on parts.

This morning I dropped off my old brew station (pictured below) at the welders so he can use it as a template to build another one (One very happy member from my brew club bought my old gas setup).

The first stand I built--I will miss you girl (sniffle) 

 Since I was at the welders I took some measurements of the tanks we are working on so I can get the parts ordered. I noticed (well, was reminded) that one of our lids was missing so I called Ager tanks. apparently it left Oregon with two lids but only arrived with one; the delivery driver must have forgot to mention that he lost my 5' diameter stainless steel lid going down the freeway at 65MPH. Luckily Ager tanks offered to send a replacement, no problem.

I also talked with the water department. Well, two of them really. Rancho Water supplies our brewing water, and Eastern Municipal handles our waste water. We will need to set up accounts with Rancho Water for billing, but need to get permits from Eastern Municipal for sewer... Its odd and even they were confused. Since I was there I  asked for a water report from Rancho Water so we can see what our brewing water looks like. They didn't have it handy so I am waiting for a call from the Regional Senior Water Quality Manager--yea, I made that up...

Lastly, my partner and I went over some of the ABC requirements and are currently finishing our LLC with the state of California. They need to know every detail of your life so there is lots to fill out.

I ended the day calling for quotes on logo design, fermenters, bright tanks, glycol chillers, and keg washers. This stuff adds up quickly so you really have to do your homework. I originally planned on 4 fermenters and 1 bright tank, but I think at first I may only do 2 fermenters and a double stacked bright tank so we can carbonate two beers at a time, or carbonate and age another. This setup will be allow us to produce 28 kegs of beer every 2 weeks. Of course, if capital allowed, it would be best to get 4 fermenters, a serving tank for each of our styles, and a carbonating tank just for kegging.

ps. If anyone knows a good logo designer, please, let me know!

Cheers!

First of the tanks have arrived!!!

Our Hot Liquor Tank and Mash Tun arrived today, they are 450 Gallons of pure beauty! We had the tanks shipped directly to the fabricators to be fitted with heating elements, a manway, and a false bottom.

Its finally starting to feel like we are becoming a brewery; I can almost taste the beer now!

Pictures of our beauties (the tanks, not the delivery guys):

A Bit Nervous

I talked with the real estate agent and everything is good on our application but we need approval from the OA (Owners Association) before we can sign the lease. I've lost a bit of sleep over this as I know there's always one dud in the group that's opposed to all things alcohol. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for now, but as I have come to learn, I am preparing for the worst.

In the meantime I plan to meet with the water and health department today and submit the necessary applications. And by the way, for those of you planning to open a brewery, the word "application" is apparently a shorter way of saying "pay money".


  

Incorporating Electric City Brewery and Meeting with ABC

Yesterday we got the ball rolling on the incorporation, and today we are meeting with ABC for the pre-application process. Apparently there is so much paperwork the just a good old application process isn't sufficient. From what I understand, they ask us what kind of business we have and then line us up with all the correct paperwork.

I know there are lawyers out there that specialize in this sort of work, and claim to expedite the process, but according to the ABC the process is idiot proof, and I think I can handle that!

I Have the Powerrrrrr!!!!!

My electrical engineer came out yesterday to verify our power capabilities, and well, we have lots of it! 400 amps and 480 Volts. Sounds like we should have no problem powering our electric brew system, the pumps, a glycol cooler, the air conditioning system, our lights, and the hundreds of miscellaneous other machines a brewery needs that are all powered by means of electricity.

 

$50,000 pint, anyone?

I woke up this morning to a budgetary quote from Chromalox, an electric immersion elements manufacturer. Yesterday I spoke with them regarding our needs for some heating elements and a control panel, and they engineered a solution for us. A $50,000 solution!! Those elements better brew the beer themselves for that price. I know Brewmation.com has a complete setup for $20,000, but even that is 3 times what I plan to spend.

These prices are crazy when I only need a handful of heating elements that cost no more than $600 for the best ones. Needless to say I'm going to keep searching for alternate suppliers.

Electric City Brewery Coming to Murrieta!

Since we will be an electrically powered brewery in an old auto electric shop, we thought the name  Electric City Brewery would be quite appropriate--also, the name looks really good in writing! 

Cheers from Electric City Brewery!

Thales Pale Ale?

Since I'm going to be brewing with an electric system I figured I should learn a bit more on the subject. There are lots of interesting people related to the history of electricity, including guys like Pliny the Elder, Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday, Malcom and Angus Young, and so on. But the one who caught my eye the most was Thales of Miletus. Born in 624BC, Thales was a 7th century thinker like Cicero and Aristotle, he was a business man, a scholar, and (Read more here if you actually want to know).

Most relevant to an electric brewery, however, is two key points: 1) Thales was the earliest know researcher into electricity. 2) Thales hypothesized about the nature of matter –  that all of the world's objects are composed of a single element substance: water (aka, everything is created from water).

To me, this was very intriguing. Our brewery, if nothing else, is two things: Its electric; and, it turns water into beer.  We considered (very heavily) naming our brewery Thales Ales, but, we feel that the concept may be a bit too obscure of a reference, and sort of hard to remember. With certainty, however, Thales Ales will be worked into the brewery in some degree; perhaps Thales Pale Ale?

Here is a statue of Thales at Union Station in Washington D.C. (notice the electric bolts in his arms)

Electric brewhouse it is and update on the tanks

We have decided to power our brewhouse using electric immersion heaters, and we are quite excited about it for two reasons.

One, because the building we are looking at is already setup to handle a system like ours. Being an old electrical shop, it comes prewired with the correct amperage, voltage, and gigawatt needs we should require.

Second, being in Southern California, we have 362.5 days of sun a year. By installing a solar panel, that is 362.5 days of brewing energy we can use to turn water into beer. If only your Prius could do that!

*Update on the tanks:

I talked with the guys from Schier Equipment and Ager Tanks and they said the tanks are set to arrive next week. They will be going directly to the welders to be modified. I don't have an exact date of arrival yet but stay posted, I will definitely include the customary picture of the brewer in the brew tank....

Found a building and negotiating for a lease!

After looking at a few possible locations that all turned out to be way to small or had insufficient parking (read: two spots total), I moved onto the last building on my list: 41537 Cherry Street in Murrieta. The unit is 4500 square feet, has two roll-up doors, very high ceilings, and used to be an Automotive Electrical Shop. This is perfect because the have hundreds of electrical outlets, including quite a few 220V outlets will be precisely what we need for brewing with electric.

At 4500 sqft, parked with 2 parking spots every 1000 square feet, we would have around 9 spots. The amount of parking spots we are allotted directly correlates to the size of our tasting room as per the city's conditional use permit (CUP). What this means to us is, the more parking, the larger our tasting room can be!

Temecula is similar, but rather allow a percentage of the buildings square foot, something like 10 or 15%, to dictate the size of the tasting room. This is why Wiens has a huge tasting room, and Aftershock and Iron Fire have smaller tasting rooms--it all boils down to a formula. For now, though, Murrieta is a little more flexible in that they look at every possible factor, including things like peak hours and location.

We are quite found of this Cherry Street location. Cherry street is the last street on Jefferson before you leave Murrieta and enter Temecula. This means we would be easily accessible to both city's. And best of all, we will have direct freeway access once the Date Freeway ramp is done in a few months. Directions will go like this: take the 15 freeway to the Date exit, go across Jefferson and turn right into the second driveway (The first driveway is the Off-road warehouse). Easy as that. Downside is we are in the building in the back, but that's nothing a few signs wont direct you to.

We put in an offer and are asking for a few concessions. If the owner is quick to respond, and if all goes well, we will be in this unit in the next couple of weeks. Cross your fingers!

A few pics:

Natural Gas Heating Vs. Electric Heating

After scouring the commercial real estate in Murrieta I've come to decide that finding a building with natural gas in the unit is going to be a few-and-far-between scenario. Not that I am saying its impossible, but its improbable. A simple solution is to open in Temecula instead--they seem to have natural gas stubbed to every building (cited using no particular source). But, Murrieta is my hometown, I love it here, and natural gas or not, this is where I plan to set up shop.

In brewing, you have a few options for heating your brewing liquors. You can heat through jacketed tanks or calandria using steam, which is heated through a steam boiler, which is usually heated with natural gas. You can heat with direct fire, which is fueled from either propane or natural gas. Or, you can use heating elements inside the kettle powered via good ol' electricity.

After a little research, I found that brewing with electric, while expensive when compared to natural gas, is also very efficient. Every bit of every thermal unit is being used to heat the brewing water or wort; and, with solar panels, this type of heat can be made affordable and can be easily renewed. Additionally, while brewing in summer, the heat is directly immersed in the brewing liquors, rather than heating up the room. When I was working at the brewery last winter, I would warm up the warehouse by boiling some water. The inefficient heat of a direct fired kettle was more than enough to bring a 45F warehouse up to a comfortable 75F in an hour!

Another plus is I can put an electrically heated brewery anywhere I choose. With this information in hand it looks like I'm going back to the drawing board on some of the buildings I originally crossed of my list.

Location, tanks, and silly things like a name.

As to date, we are three weeks into looking for a building in Murrieta to lease. Lots of things come into play, like: Is there gas? Is there sufficient parking? Is it zoned properly? Does the landlord want a brewery/tasting room? Does it have a roll-up door so we can get our tanks into the building? Lastly, is the price and overall location a good fit?

By far, the hardest part has been finding a building with natural gas. I talked with the gas company and it can cost upwards of $30,000 to run gas 40' from the street--that 30K would buy a handful of really shiny fermenters!

Anyways, after scouring the city, we have narrowed it down to a few buildings on Jefferson Avenue (all without gas of course). Jefferson avenue seems like it would provide easy access, it's a good landmark road, it's close to Bulldog Brewery (and another not-yet-to-be-announced-other-new-brewery-in-Murrieta). Plus, it's just a 5 minute tour bus ride from any of the Temecula Breweries which is a huge perk. Here's a sneak peak at one of the units we are considering:

For now, everything is in the agents hand. Offers are out, calls have been made, and now, we wait....

But, there is good news!! We have purchased the brewing system (Pictures Below). It is going to be a bit of frankenbrew set up, but once we get it to the welders it will be solid. The Hot Liquor Tank and Mash Tun are both 15 barrels open top tanks that came out of a Rockbottom Brewery in Nashville. They are insulated and jacketed, and will hold heat very nice. The Boil Kettle is a 7 barrel domed top dairy tank coming over from Bad Axe, Michigan (BTW, Bad Axe would be a cool name for the brewery). Its a 300 gallon single wall tank on stainless steel legs.

You may be wondering why we have two 15 barrel tanks and one 7 barrel tank? Well, we got a good deal on the large tanks (made by Specific Mechanical).  By having these larger tanks we will be able to double our future capacity by only replacing one tank, our boil kettle. But for now we can brew 7 barrels (1 barrel equals 31 gallons) at a time which will insure that we are only selling the freshest of beer.

The system is being shipped directly to the welders--Steel Nuts Fabrication in Murrieta--to be fitted with some manways, stainless steel legs on the HLT and Mash Tun, a whirlpool port, a wedge wire false bottom, and since these tanks will be 6 feet tall, a platform.  Steel Nuts built my homebrew system and does the best work I have ever seen. They have a welder who is certified to work on stainless steel, and these guys always go above and beyond where quality is concerned.

That brings us to the name. Every brewery will tell you, this is by-and-large the most difficult part of the process. Well, some people just name there brewery anything crazy, but we want something that fits who we are, and who our target audience is. Problem is, there are thousands of breweries in the world and only so many names. All of my favorite names seem to be taken. People say I have a very large head, so, I though Fat Heads would be a great name! Apparently so did someone else, and they did a wonderful job with the branding. So I consulted a thesaurus, and tried Big Head; also taken. I mixed it up with Nodding Head; taken... and so it went. I tried other names (Shipwreck, Sledgehammer, Red Horse) and they were names of beers themselves.

So you see, each brewery out there owns a bag full of names, and this is why we have brewery names like Monkey-footed Mouse or Ninja Horse. Both of which I actually kinda like, hmm.....


Anyways, off to look at some more buildings, cheers!!

Justen Foust