January was a busy month for Ghostfish Brewing Company. It feels like a lot of things are happening all at once, and that we are really building momentum.
The biggest step forward has been in the real estate department. We took a look at several properties, and two of them leapt out as meeting our very particular needs; we are now negotiating through our realtor with the property owners and are optimistic that we will find our official home soon!
If that works out as planned, then a lot of things can move forward all at once. Having an address allows us to design our brewhouse and to begin the permitting process at all levels of government, begin the brewery design and permit process, followed by THE BUILD-OUT, aka “Tool Time with Randy”. The day we sign a lease will be one of the major milestones for our brewery, and it is fast approaching!
We also spent quite a lot of time looking at used systems and aggregating quotes on new systems. The spreadsheets have been flying fast and furious as we wrangle between what we need, what we can get, and what we can afford. We’ve got it pretty well narrowed down and are ready to pull the trigger on a system as soon as our funding is in place. Props are due to Mike Runion, co-owner of 7 Seas Brewing, for sitting down with us and imparting some of his wisdom on system sizing and brewhouse design–opening a brewery is a tremendous undertaking, and it’s invaluable to have the support and encouragement of people who’ve walked through the fire ahead of us.
On top of all this, we’ve been putting tons of work into recipe formulation, ingredient budgeting, and analysis of different packaging methods. It is all about the beer, after all! We’ve brewed several prototype recipes–a wild rice brown, a Cascadian dark ale, a wit/pale ale hybrid, and an experimental batch with malted milo–and are working hard on marketing plans. Several recipes are close to being ready for scaling up, and we are more excited than ever at the diversity of craft styles we’ll be bringing to the market.
The momentum is building. January was a big month, but February looks to be even bigger. Keep your eyes on this blog, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay abreast of the latest Ghostfish news!
