Showtime for the Carpenters

When the Carpenters come to town...Jim (pictured left) is our lead carpenter and is fast with the screw gun.  Matthias pictured below (left) next to some guy (right) who had a sign at the intersection of Chippewa and Gravois that said, “Will work for beer.”  Note new front doors below.

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Jim, our lead carpenter, has been working at the warehouse since the first week of October and this past week we had another Carpenter,  Matthias added who will be with us the next two weeks as we begin framing out the tasting room and the time travel chamber.  

This coming week we will begin work on our Beer garden which will span the 60 feet across the front of our building.  Mike, you have seen him before in the literary masterpiece “It’s Concrete” will be back on Monday to begin tearing up the front for our new patio.  

We are also in the process (attempting) to get the front of the building painted. Unfortunately, our painter has gone MIA and well, time is running out to get it painted before the winter.  My apologies to the neighbors for the delay.  We are definitely moving forward with work on the building but as Jim’s (carpenter) wife said, “It looks like crap.”  Well, small victories have been won but mostly we are still losing.  That is until it gets a coat of paint. 

On another really exciting wonderful note, we found out we get the joy of breaking up a good 1500-2000 square feet of concrete in our main brewery space as our current floor will not hold (at least long term) the weight of the tanks.  This is obviously great news!  When people ask me what opening a business is like, I tell them it’s like being Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke when George Kennedy and him go fisticuffs in the common area at the prison.  In the scene, Paul Newman never quite succumbs to the smack down George Kennedy continuously delivers.  He keeps getting back up and fighting until even the giant George Kennedy grows tired of pummeling him and wanders away.  He then goes on to earn the respect of his fellow prisoners and most importantly he eats 60 eggs,  which fortunately isn’t anything like owning a business.  So the only advice I have is to forge ahead with whatever you really want to accomplish.  Nothing happens in a day and nothing easily accomplished seems to be worthwhile.  But this you already know, I am really just reminding myself.  

We are also in the process of filling out all of the necessary paperwork for the TTB as if we don’t get it filed soon we may be in the odd predicament of having a brewery without the ability to produce beer.  Legally that is and that legal requirement is pretty important these days.  

Keep your nose in the glass and your ear to the ground... but not at the same time.