Remember last week when I said it would probably be about four weeks until we were selling beer? That was pretty awesome.

Right after I took this picture Rudy told me how much fun it was and so I paid him $20 to let me do the rest

I also said that there was quite a lot of work to do in the meantime. We have run directly into openingtodolist.xls*, yelling “Leeroy Jenkins” and fervently hoping that the reference we’re using isn’t dated (* this is slightly inaccurate: it’s a Google Doc). I personally spent about 13 hours at the brewery this weekend, and when I left on Saturday Rudy and Greg were still there. When Rudy left he emptied a large garbage can which we found full upon our arrival Sunday morning.

What have we been doing? My personal list of accomplishments:

This caulk had the consistence and color of cream cheese frosting. I really wanted to eat it. In hindsight, maybe we should have cracked a door while we painted.

• Helping Rudy paint the sides of the coolers
• Climbing on top of the cooler to paint the top
• Not wetting self upon realization I had to climb off the cooler when I was done
• Caulking the edges of the ice and water shield at the bottom of the coolers
• Numerous “caulk” jokes

This doesn’t even include mention of Tim, who has spent an incredible amount of time building the cooler in which we’ll be storing our kegs for filling growlers despite not being an owner. We’ve made quite a lot of progress. Are we done yet? Oh no. Work has been going on all this week and the weekend will bring more marathon sessions. It has begun, and it will not stop for a long, long time (it turns out that once you open a brewery people expect you to produce beer?).

It’s not just physical construction that we’ve been spending time on. We’ve been talking about various logistical issues, such as what to do as a launch party, and what we’ll be naming our beers. Names are important, although Ethan’s facetious idea of naming them Product 001, Product 002, etc does tickle me a bit.

My attempt to show some label cleavage, sadly, failed

Here you might be saying to youself, “What about In C?” Well, the titular component of that beer is the citra hop, which is unavailable in all but homebrew-sized amounts until the 2012 harvest. You’ll be seeing In C, albeit possibly with a different name, but our initial offering will be a different and yet still incredibly tasty pale ale.

Behold: a growler suit! For when your growler has to go to fancy dinners or weddings. Like the growlers themselves, while Kickstarter backers at the $100 level and above will be getting them first they will be available for purchase at the brewery.

Kickstarter folks: check your email early next week. Information on getting your swag is incoming.