Moving along

We finally have a working forklift! When we purchased our system a forklift was included but was inoperable. We had a forklift repair company inspect it for repair. We then decided that the cost to repair it compared to the price of a used electric forklift (previously used by IKEA) was not worth the money, time or future headaches that it would present. We got a very good deal on the electric forklift and are quite happy with it. Upon delivery of the lift, the delivery company was unloading it off of the flatbed when the cable snapped and released the forklift rapidly off of the trailer. It kept going until it hit then jumped a curb. This was quite exciting for our new neighbors as there were a few folks taking pictures and telling us that they would be posting this experience on their personal blog. The forklift was then taken back to the shop to be reinspected. They found no damage and like "another day at the brewery story" we finally have something to help with the heavy lifting.

Our architect spent a few hours detailing our brewery and the building this past Saturday. While he was here we had to go up on the roof to check out how everything looked on top. WE took a couple of pictures to show how close we are to both the Honda Center and Angels Stadium. It is pretty cool to see these venues from this vantage point. We are set to meet with the city again this week to discuss our progress and plans. It looks like we will have another re-design which will produce a new look. It's amazing what one learns while going through a process of opening a brewery in Orange County. We are quite excited to be moving along with our architect and the professionalism he brings to the design. With any luck we will be able to start knocking this place into shape soon.

We have purchased our cold storage and a table bottler today. Both are shipping from back east, so we should be seeing them at the brewery sometime very soon.

We received a quote for the missing process piping which wasn't as bad as expected. The quote that we received was for only material for the process piping. We have contacted a local clean welder and are quite comfortable with the work that they will be providing.

Gil at JT Schmid's has been a great help in our initial process of rebuilding our system. He brews on a 15bbl Liquid Assets system and has allowed us to visit his location often to take pictures and videos of his system. I can only imagine how much more difficult the re-assemble process would be if we didn't have his system to explore. I am sure that we will be in his brewery again soon.

ABC License Approval

Wow, finally after many phone call and meetings, we finally have our active ABC license. We acquired two license types: type 23: small beer manufacture, and type 17: beer and wine wholesaler. We decided to acquire the type 17 because of many discussions with various brewpubs (which have a type 75 license) that want to try to get their brews outside of their establishments. The type 23 license is needed to brew and sell the beer that you brew. What a great way to start the day today!

Health Department meeting

Today we met with the Health Department. The meeting went better than expected. It was basically a consultation meeting with only a few changes that needed to be implemented onto our plans and into the brewery. I guess the phrase of the meeting was "washable surfaces". Our base coving will have to change from the standard rubber cove to a topset ceramic cove throughout the tasting room, mill room and janitor closet. In our brewhouse area, the Dur-a-Flex flooring, which will be installed by our friends at Lennova, will take care of all the necessary coving in the area. The health department initially wanted us to enclose our brewhouse area completely, with wall that extended to the ceiling (or drop down ceiling). This would have been a huge investment. We settled on maintaining our current 10 foot wall but we will have to have a washable surface adhered to the ceiling above the brewhouse area. We will be installing tile floors and ceramic tile coving in the restrooms and our storage/supply room. We will also have to replace the ceiling tiles in the storage/supply room to washable ceiling tiles. We are headed to San Diego tomorrow so that our Architect can look at all of the comments that the city has made on our initial submitted plans. With any luck we can have the revised plans back to the city by the week's end so we can get this construction going.

Silo

We picked up a silo from Mark at Craftsman Brewing Company yesterday. We decided that we could rent a Budget truck for the pickup and delivery of the silo. When we arrived (the truck rental was in the same storage yard as the silo...great luck) at the rental yard, the only 0ne-way truck they had available was a 16' truck. We thought this would work if we would just not close the rollup door and have a portion of the silo hanging out the back. Though this sounded kind of scary, we decided to try it. After getting all of the paperwork signed and keys to the truck, we did a quick measurement of the box and realized that the silo would not fit. Thankfully the guy at the rental company found a 24' truck available in Glendale. He called to have it delivered, which took an hour, then off to loading the silo we went. The 24' foot truck worked perfectly for the load and delivery of our new (well actually used) silo.

We had talked to Mark who gave us some history on the silo. It had originally belonged to Vinnie Cilurzo when he was running operations in Temecula with Bling Pig Brewery, which to us is pretty cool, not only for nostalgia reasons, but because of the awesome brews that Vinnie and his group puts out.

Build-Out Plans

We submitted our plans to the city last Thursday. The timeline for the plans to be back in our possession is 10 days from submittal. We are hoping that there is not going to be too many changes needed to the plans. Since this is a new venture into the city, things could get tricky. The many changes and details that were made to the plans prior to submittal should help with the process. The timing of the build-out plans, Health Department plans and ABC license seems to be on a collision course. They should all be approved within two weeks of each other. It is funny that even though I read various blogs and talked to many brewers, the timeline for the opening seems to be what everybody mentioned. "Take your projected opening date and add five to six months to that". Our initial opening date was sometime in September 2009. It looks like we are in-line to open in the month of March 2010. With much luck, it will be worth the wait.

ABC paperwork

OK, I believe that the Alcohol Beverage Control finally has all of our paperwork in order. The next step is for the paperwork to be reviewed by a supervising agent. If the paperwork is still in order after that step then it is sent up to Sacramento for one last review and approval of the license...two in our case. Even though the process was tedious and lengthy, the agent that we worked with was quite pleasant and insightful. She put up with all of our questions (which were many), responded quickly to our inquiries and kept the communication lanes open throughout. We can only hope that all of the paperwork will pass seamlessly through the next step.