Now that our Kickstarter has been funded, it’s time to spend lots of money.

On cool stuff, though!

Firstly Kickstarter. The stickers and coasters are done, and now we’re focusing on the glasses and growlers. They’ll take about a month to produce, so we’ll likely be waiting on them before everything is ready. If you missed it, last week’s update has the design that will be on the glasses and shirts. The growlers and hoodies will have the CBW shield.

It looks so imposing, doesn't it? In a good way.

After that, well, we need to make beer, right? Unless we’re going for sex-in-a-canoe beer we’re going to need hops for that. The thing about hops is that they’re a crop. I’d say they don’t grow on trees, but they do grow on bines (vines with a cold) so it’s close enough to not be a good analogy. They are a finite resource. If you care about the hop character of your beer, as all craft breweries do, you need the specific kinds that you need. Saaz are not Northern Brewer are not Cascade. As such, we’re ordering hops now so we can actually, well, brew beer.

So then we’ve made beer. Great. We probably need something to put it in, right? Like, say, kegs. Kegs would be good to have! We’ve ordered kegs. As we’re a nano, and thus smaller, brewery, we’ve ordered 1/6 barrel kegs instead of 1/2 barrel. And, since we’re into trying interesting things, we’ve ordered from Plastic Kegs America. Sixtels, as they’re known are pretty much the size of five gallon corny kegs used in homebrewing.

Finally, where are we going to keep they beer we’re making? Coolers! (here you scream real loud)

No glass ceilings here! ...okay, that was a terrible joke, even for me.

This weekend was another cooler-fest down at the brewery. We’re getting close to the end: the three small coolers now have ceilings! All that remains for them is to put the same material on the walls and seal the floors and we’re good to go. The large walk in cooler was a bit more problematic, mostly because of the 11 foot ceiling. Whereas it only took two people to do the smaller room (or three if we wanted to make it easier on ourselves, or one if you’re Dave and crazy), the single panel on the ceiling of the walk in took four people, and five would have been even better. I believe I made a “how many brewers does it take…” joke but then I wasn’t holding the brunt of it.

We also have a shiny new solar powered hot water tank, which is currently neither solar powered nor filled with water. It will be!

And finally, there’s a short concrete pedestal that our brewing station has been moved to. It seems… regal.

And Ethan looks like Aslan.

Let him first be shaved.