Things have not gone as planned, but I’m pretty sure it’s what we all expected. Let’s just say you’re not going to be seeing our beer in retail locations for awhile. Rezoning a garage for commercial purposes is more paperwork than all of the liquor board (state and federal) combined. We are ambitious, but not that ambitious.
For now we will just focus on making beer. The Duff beer we brewed a few weeks ago is in a keg now, and will probably be ready to drink in another week, but it’s not a good tasting one. I’m just going to redub it Gitchoo Drunk, because that’s about all it’s good for. It was our first attempt at this, and it shows, but it’s still beer, right? We made another batch of Filthy Fortnight last week though, and it went much, much smoother. We’re still working at our efficiency ( getting as much sugar out of the grain as you can) and that will improve the more we brew. It’s exhausting but rewarding work, and our love shines through.
So beer will be availible soon! We’re looking to get some sort of party set up for the beginning of September, so keep your ear to the ground for that. In the meantime, if you want some of our beer(for an event or just for yourself), email us at filthybeer@gmail.com. We’re always homebrewing if we’re not making stuff at the brewery, so drop us a line and we can hook you up with something from our lab.
We’ll make an “In the Cellar” tab soon to let you know the beer all three of us have in limited supply and can get to you for a suggested donation depending on what the beer cost us to make. Also, if you have some time to plan ahead (2-3 weeks) and are looking for a specific type of beer to be custom made for you, email us and we can work something out as well!
We love beer, and we want you to as well. Drink beer and be happy.
Apparently, we can go for a commercial rezone of the garage area if the neighbors are OK with it (they’re cool, they will be). Then we can apply for a variance to the law, and get TTB approval, hopefully.
It finally happened! After all of the looking for and purchasing of equipment, the discussions and planning, we got enough together to try out a trial batch. This batch isn’t going to be any of our regular beers, we just needed a simpler recipe to give our equipment a test. We went with a lower key recipe of mine I lovingly refer to as Duff Beer. Now it has gone through our brewery with what we have cobbled together so far, and now has become filthy duff. Even with the simple recipe, it was definitely some serious trial by fire.
There of course were some misadventures and near disasters, but we didn’t expect anything less. There were many high(and low)lights, but my favorite moment was Joe and I trying to figure out how to drain our mash tun filled with 150 degree water and grains with a false bottom that kept plugging up. We really needed the sugar from that grain to boil with hops to make beer, but we had to get all those grain husks out. We got that one to work by pulling out the false bottom and wrapping it with cheese cloth. This was while Ben was slicing a plastic fitting off one of our fermenter valves by cutting it lengthways on the inside of it with an exacto knife, because there was no way to get the valve off the fitting and it leaked bad without teflon tape.
The drill smoking a little on the grain mill was a nice touch as well.
The hectic nature of the whole day was kinda part of the fun, though. We were making or refining most of the equipment while the beer was cooking. It made for very real deadlines, where not having something built in time would put a hold on the beer cooking timeline. I can safely say that we will never be able to recreate this beer. Looking at our setup though, I think all our batches are going to have something a little different each time. We’re not exactly in a temperature controlled sterile-room here. It’s what gives us our filthy edge.
Depending on if this turns into drinkable beer or not, we should be able to accept suggested donations very soon for our beer. These are filthy, exciting times we live in.
This drill did not want to be used on this grain mill
Our pots of water, with homemade gallon measure, and space blankets for heat retention.
Ben cutting a fitting out of a valve the old-fashioned way.
Good thing our fridge isn’t being used yet.
Pots filled with some fantastic smelling wort.
Joe and I trying to get beer out of the pot and into the fermenter.
The crowdsourcing poll ended up as a great success. It took forever for all the ties to be broken, and I had to bug you guys a little more than I wanted, but the end result is pretty intriguing. I present to you Mob Wisdom, the first Black Belgian IPA I have ever heard of. http://hopville.com/recipe/274115/belgian-specialty-ale-recipes/mob-wisdom-black-belgian-ipa—crowdsourced
Mob Wisdom
1 lb American 2 row
1 lb Munich 10 L
1 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb White Wheat
2 oz Chinook (60 min)
1 oz Goldings (15 min)
1 oz Cascade (15 min)
2 oz Cascade (dry)
SafBrew T-58 Belgian Dry Yeast
6.0% ABV, 64.5 IBU, 29° SRM assuming 60% mash efficiency standard to extract brewing.
So, there you go! GO BREW IT. I will be cranking this one out sometime in the next week or so. I will be most likely be using US Goldings, and will probably try SafAle S-33 if my homebrew store doesn’t have T-58. If I have to go back to smack packs with this one, I will probably go with Belgian Abbey II, maybe Ardennes. Who knows! I will most definitely post my hopville stats with corrected AA% and such once the pot is on. Let us know how your version turns out
We finally got to spend a full day surveying all our equipment, and what a glorious day it was. The fermenters finally showed up, and it looks like all the fittings we bought and had them install work well, they just need a little teflon tape to seal up the valves. The brewery is shaping up, and it feels great.
Inevitably though, little problems start to arise, little speed bumps to help check your speed. Only so much can be done with planning and now results from trial and error are what you need. Results you crave, actually. Some things are kinda expected. A three dollar drill pump (see picture) that doesn’t fit a standard garden hose despite its claims can’t get any pumping action without submerging it to the point of having your electric drill a few inches from the water. I don’t think we would have wanted our beer coming in contact with that thing anyways (no sour grapes). Gravity will be our pump, it just takes a little more leg-work.
Other things just pop up. Too many holes in the sparging apparatus. It takes about a quarter of a five gallon propane tank to bring one pot of 14 gallons of water from room temp to 150 degrees. The chest freezer i bought is a lemon. These things happen though, and it’s not that big of a deal, these are great learning experiences. We will soldier on in the effort to make better beer, and probably make a few mistakes along the way. They will be filthy mistakes, though.
Things are going well, it’s just going to take a little more time to start messing around with beer recipes. The forward motion may not be at the light speed pace i wish it could go, but the motion is there.
We also got amazing t-shirts now. Big thanks on that one, Mike.
This actually works and was free, but damn it was moldy
Drill pump, you had such potential.
Ben putting some water in a fermenter, checking the valves for leaks.
Expanding the hopper of our grain mill by fitting a homer bucket to it
Definitely a work-in-progress
This is totally not staged. It sure is a sweet shot with all of us wearing our shirts, though
If you make it this far down the post and still haven’t taken our poll:
, go for it!You can take this test with any level of beer knowledge, there are no right or wrong answers here. Just delicious, delicious beer.
Remember to take the Crowdsourcing poll and help us build a new populist home brew recipe:
……do it!
It looks like the fermenters are on their way! This is basically the last piece of equipment we’ll need to start messing around with the logistics of making 20 gallon batches of beer.
We are so close to getting some beer made. So very, very close.
Remember to take the Crowdsourcing poll and help us build a new populist home brew recipe:
……do it!
The ball is rolling, we submitted our WA state paperwork yesterday. It’s a relief to have it in, but now the real work begins. I was talking with Joe last night and he summed it up perfectly. Right now, we’re waist deep in a river we’re trying to cross. We have no idea how deep it is or how to get across, but all that matters is not drowning. I may have polished that up, it was a discussion fueled by homebrew, but not drowning, that’s the key. It was better than the pachinko chip analogy I had going on.
Remember to take the Crowdsourcing poll and help us build a new populist home brew recipe:
The developmental hop garden at off-site research and development facility #2 is finally more or less operational. On the left we have some centennial sprouting, 1 really good one and 4 other smaller ones coming off 2 rhizomes, and on the right we have some tettnanger, 2 decent sprouts with great vegetation coming off 1 rhizome. There is one more tettnanger rhizome that has seen no action at this point, but it may still surprise us.
Remember to take the Crowdsourcing poll and help us build a new populist home brew recipe:
So, lets say you want to start your own brewery. There are a few resources out there, but nothing as comprehensive as you might like. There will be a lot of paperwork, and you will spend a lot of money on permitting. Expect that. It isn’t as bad as you think though, only worse than you first thought. We have put the time in for you. We have trolled the master business, liquor board and ATF/TTB websites and come out unscathed. Are we done yet? Not by a long shot. That is why I am here waxing philosophical about the whole process instead of inside our brewery knee deep in hops.
We are here for you. There is room for all of us. If you need help, let us know, we’ll tell you anything you want. We are pioneering open-source brewing, so don’t be afraid to let us know what you think.
But back to you, and the brewery you want to start. What will you need to do (in Washington State, at least)?
-Master business application. This is easy and cheap. You can do it online. All you will need to do is fill out some online forms, register your business name and a trade name, and give them $20. Seriously, that is is all
-LLC Formation. It is very possible you aren’t doing this alone. I am guessing you and your friends want to brew large batches together, like us. So protect yourself. Form a combined business entity and split the risk/reward. Make the sum of your parts responsible, instead of heaping it on a single person. Even if you are alone, you are going to have to form a business entity of some sort, so it might as well be an LLC. Sure, there are benefits to incorporation over forming an LLC, but if you are keeping it as simple as we are, an LLC is the easiest way to do it. Do it online. It costs like $180, and again more forms to fill out.
-Business Banking. Once you have your LLC formed and your business license in hand, banks will consider you more or less legit. Find a good local bank. We picked Seattle Bank, because they have free small business checking accounts set up in a way that will never charge us fees at the level we will be operating. Search around, there are plenty of nice local banks to choose from. It will take a lengthy in person interview with a banker and your LLC members, and more paperwork, but it will be worth it to set up a relationship with someone in the wild world of money.
-State Liquor Board. Now it gets fun. I will list this before the ATF/TTB paperwork, even though they pretty much need to be done in conjunction. These applications are ridiculous. If you want to start a brewery, start gathering personal information now, because you will need to give it all up. Expect each person individually to provide your full criminal history, including juvenile offenses, and any fine paid over $25, including traffic offenses. Yikes. This part was annoying. Also, you will need residence and employment history for the past 10 (TEN!) years. You will need to provide full financial information, which was the easiest part, considering none of us are home owners or mired in credit card debt or investments. You will need to list any interest, past or present you have in any companies linked to the sale or distribution of liquor type beverages. As a group, you will need to provide your LLC and business information, a copy of a lease for your brewery, an outline of costs, list the source of funding, a signed and dated letter of intent outlining your entire business model, and two sets of floor plans for your brewery. You will also need to complete a class about liquor laws and regulations. The kicker is, you need to submit your TTB permit. The problem is, you need to submit your state liquor license during your TTB application as well. The way around this is by submitting the start of your TTB application to the feds, which allows you to submit a temporary permit from the feds to the liquor board. After you are all done, you need to schedule a inspection from the local liquor board of your brewery area, sales area, and tasting area. That is just so far, I am sure they will need more from us in the future. Phew.
-ATF/TTB Federal permit. In our initial research, this seemed like it would be pretty easy, almost a formality. We were wrong, so very wrong. This part is still in the works for us, but you will need to submit everything you submitted to the state, and then go through a blind bond process, in which you send money to an account at the St. Louis Federal reserve bank in the form of a bond, and then wait for the federal government to decide whether it was enough money to get your application through. The minimum bond you can create is $1000, so expect to spend at least that much in bribe tax delinquency insurance money. This sounds like the shadiest thing ever, but what do you expect?
-FDA Approval. This part is still a little sketchy to me, because I have been putting off looking into it fully until after we have our state and federal liquor licenses. My understanding is you have to get FDA approval for your set up and your recipes, and any labels approved if you plan on selling beer in retail locations. This sounds like the worst part of the whole process, which is why we won’t be selling bottles in retail locations to begin with. Hess brewing in San Diego has horror stories of resubmitting their label numerous times to get font sizes for government warnings just so. How does the FDA measure whether your font size is adequate? Using a set of calipers on their computer monitor. I am seriously not joking. They don’t print it out, they don’t measure the image size, the measure how big it is on their individual computer screen. This what we are dealing with here, so just be patient and wait it out.
It is no secret that we aren’t through with the permitting process yet. So we are officially a brewery, but we can’t make beer yet. We’ll keep you updated on the process though, and any more awesome idiosyncrasies of the state and federal government we find out on the way. Any questions? Feel free to ask us in the comments or at filthybeers@gmail.com
