Still 3 months to go.

“Hey less drinky, more worky.”

Three champs.  On the left, Leslie has been taping and mudding the place.  Middle, Ray Brinker, baddest brick layer in town and Jim Wohlrabe.  When you finally get to sit in our bar you will thank all three for the way the place looks.   

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Well, Carl (referenced in blog post one and blog post eight) is right.  I do suck at blogging.  But what I don’t suck at is working.  The reason, I haven’t been blogging much is I am basically an apprentice (carpenter, mason, concrete, astronaut (just seeing if you were reading) at everything and have been at the brewery from 8 in the morning to 1 at night most days.  Once this week, I left the brewery at 5 and felt as though I only worked a half day.  Of course, after meeting with a friend for a bit,  I headed back and met up with the reason why we are opening a micro-brewery (Dylan) and my freakishly tall (architect) Shamus, who was helping us set up the rebar for the concrete pad. What’s that you say?  That’s right, 2 tons of rebar landed at our place this past wednesday. Mike (the hero of blog post (It’s Concrete)) saw cut the concrete and we embarked on our last major project before several more major projects that will be followed by one or two major projects then a few small projects followed by a major project, which precedes the most important project of all.  Making people happy through the production of beer.  

This Saturday the 26th of March we will be pouring our 1284 Square foot pad.  Actually, Mike, his son and two other chaps will be smoothing it out and making it nice and pretty for our tanks.  Mike did the saw cut this past Wednesday.  On Thursday, my mom’s cousin from Bloomsdale, Jim Basler came up and provided the necessary tools to begin tying the rebar. He put in a good days labor as well. 

But just to bring you up to speed.  Here are the latest developments not mentioned above.  Our windows for the pub are in and we have a few doors yet to place in spots.  The entire place is quite close to being painted.  We will paint and then have a few tile floors layed and then comes the most important part... we will be able to have the water hooked up and plumbing turned on.  The lights have been ordered and soon we will add the all important electricity to the tasting room and exterior.  

The place has been spray foam insulated and it is by all means the best way to insulate an old warehouse.  It actually isn’t looking so old anymore.  

People often stop by to see it and say things along the lines of  “Wow, what the *&%*& are you doing in here?”  and “Look at that ceiling, it must have taken a master carpenter genius to install that!”  This last one always seems to slightly irk Jim, our savior real live Carpenter who has been working with me since October and has never in his life misplaced a tool, unlike me.  It irks him a bit because I installed the ceiling (Jim Basler, my mom and I stained all the boards) and it is quite impressive.  But as with most of my endeavors at the warehouse, the task I choose is actually the easiest and the most time consuming.  Jim has the hard task of putting on the finishing touches.  Jim designed custom milled Ash for the wood work in the Arts and Craft style to which I always say Artsy and Crafty.  That irks Jim a bit as well.  Jim has framed the bar and the nooks upstairs and when I give him a task that he thinks should be left out, he simply finds a way to do it and can somehow take what I was thinking in my mind and assemble it in front of me.  He does this without magic, which is a shame.

Jim’s son recently turned in a school project mentioning the kinds of places carpenter’s work.  Of course, the sentence “Carpenters work at Breweries” caused Jim to quickly correct his son.  “No, Carpenters smell like breweries.” 

I can assure you when you finally get to sit down in our brewery you will notice his incredible talent and attention to detail.  But you will soon forget it as you sip that beer and think of how incredibly talented Dylan is... and then you will soon forget that because I will be pouring your beer and I will become the most important person in your life with the easiest job.  Serving great beer in a great place.    

How do I know all that?  Well, I am direct descendant of Nietzche (most certainly not true) and director of operations at a place that isn’t even operating.  I have seen nations rise and fall, entire continents change, wars that made me wish every city in every town had a place where people could hang out and try to make at least the little corner we live in a better place.   And that in a nutshell, is what the Civil LIfe Brewing Company is all about.