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,