You hear about people excited during a long project that mention “they can see the finish .” Well, I can see the starting line. What I mean is that Inventors Brewpub is getting very close to start brewing. Two weeks ago we received our Federal Brewers Notice. Basically our federal license. I then made a copy and a whole lot of other paperwork and submitted to State of Wisconsin. Whereas the permit process takes about 6 months for the feds, it only takes about one month for the State permit.
So what have I been working on to get ready? Yes, everything. Most of the brewing vendors will let you setup in the system as a “brewery in planning” but I waited to just setup as a real brewery using my Fed brewers notice number. Yeah! So, pricing and logistics for all my brewing suppliers as well as recipe tuning.
People ask me what the first batch of beer will be. There will be 10 first batches. I’ve brewed over 300-400 recipes so to pick 10 is harder than it sounds. Some of these I’ll be brewing for the first time, but most are just tweaks on tried and true recipes. I have closer to 20 but narrowed them down. For instance, I’m going to wait until this summer to make Witbier von Braun (the 2nd batch of homebrew I ever brewed named after Werner von Braun who built the Saturn V rocket.
I’m holding back the list of beers for the sake of suspense. But there will be a Hefeweizen, Pale ale, IPA and Porter for sure. Expect a few more light, easy drinking beers as they are heavily requested in a town that is exploring beers outside of Bud-mil-oors and Spotted Cow.
When we first opened, I put out a survey that asked “if we could only brew ‘one flagship beer”‘what would it be?” IPA, Porter, Hefe topped the list. But some people wanted a Scotch, Sour, Amber, Brown, etc.
As soon as my contractor finishes installing the condensate hood, I’ll be doing a Water Batch. which is a dry run in brewery speak. This allows me to work out the kinks of the system so I have the right pumps, valves and hoses to facilitate brewing