A year in review: 2014

Welcome to the year two thousand and fifteen!

It will be a big year for Good Beer. We are already starting to expand our distribution and bottled barrel aged beers are not far off. But the purpose of this blog post is not to talk about what's coming up, even though the future is incredibly exciting. The purpose is to look back to all that was accomplished in 2014.

In early 2014, we received the final approvals on our architectural and engineering plans, and pulled the permits to start construction. A project that seemed simple on paper took about 6 months to build out. The construction crew that helped build the brewery cannot be thanked enough. Jon is a great friend and spectacular contractor - he has the ability to think through the most complex of construction projects and build out simple and elegant designs with top-of-the-line materials. Wilson is a beast - he put all of his energy into this project, whether he was hauling 100-pound concrete blocks or working on delicate finishes. My brother Bryce is an absolute animal - he helped me build the glycol plumbing without any prior experience, install the kettle vents through the roof, and everything in between. I dropped a piece of conduit on my dad's face - it was one of the few moments that blood was shed during the project. He endured, and was a driving force behind putting together the glycol plumbing system. And everyone else that helped out along the way - Jill, Robyn, David, Crandall's Plumbing crew, and Skelly Electric, could not be thanked enough for making the dream come to life.

David, my brother and I started making beer in August, with our first batch, a recipe that I had brewed many times as a homebrewer. Saison Primero was borne on a commercial scale. A few years ago, David showed up at my house with a used wine barrel. We filled the barrel up with a sessionable saison that was a simple two row and wheat malt bill with a dash of Special B malt. That beer aged for months, receiving doses of wild yeast and bacteria from time to time. By the time the next So Cal Homebrew fest came around, we had pulled off a bit of aged beer and successfully blended it with other saisons and brett-beers. At my wedding in 2013 I had several versions of the house saison, featuring tertiary treatments with blackberries, raspberries, peaches, and dry hops. And that's just a taste of things to come.

Since then we've brewed up a huge variety of beers: three saisons, two all-brett beers, two pale Belgian-style beers, three india pale ales, two flavorful session beers, and a breakfast stout. Those batches served as the bases for numerous variations, too: DTSA Citra, Citra Wheat and Stout de Olla being a few of the most popular. We put a lot of beer away in wine barrels for aging, secondary and tertiary treatments, and yeast and bacteria additions. Those beers will likely be the highlights of 2015.

I cannot forget our loyal and local fan base. We thank you for following our story, and for supporting this mission - to craft world class beer for a good cause. We want to make a difference, and you're the reason we will be able to do just that. Those of you that have joined us in the tasting room know that we are dedicated to providing a craft beer experience. Our brewery and tasting room is more than a space where you can buy beer - it's a place where you can gather with friends and family to share experiences. We have a beautiful building with history and charm. Throughout every aspect of our business, we want you to know that we are committed to quality and community.

And then there's the folks that have provided support from within the industry. We've had the pleasure to meet Orange County's greatest brewers. Whether we're picking brains, sharing ingredients, or just plain sharing a beer - the craft brewers in this County are unreal. Our buds over at Bottle Logic threw us a bag of rice hulls when we planned and ordered ingredients for our Rye IPA. Our Class of 2014 brethren over at Barley Forge helped us out when a yeast pitch would not take off. Our buddy and world class homebrewer Charles Rapadas grew up some yeast for a special barrel project we are working on. Those are just a few of the stories behind how tight-knit this community is.

And our accounts - State law prohibits me from mentioning the folks that buy our beer. Cross promoting is seen as providing something of value to our accounts and that's a no-no. So I'll just say that we love Jarred, Jon, Jeff, Ryan, Casey and Ron. Thanks for helping us grow!

The fermenters are full. The barrels are full. The tasting room is full. And Good Beer is full-steam-ahead into 2015.

Happy New Beers! (Happy New Years!)

It has been a pleasure to have an open tasting room over the last month or two. We've had the opportunity to share our building, equipment, and brewing process with so many great people. And we want to celebrate our first couple months of success with a New Years Eve beer release - strike that, a couple New Years Eve beer releases.

We won't have bottles available just yet, but you can join us on New Years Eve to get the first taste of our barrel aged creations. The draft list is being finalized over the next couple weeks, but we have some cool ideas in the works.

Healthy Holiday Food Drive and Blanket/Jacket Collection!

Good Black Friday to you!

Today is an exciting day! We are kicking off two great events:

Today marks the beginning of our partnership with the OC Food Access Coalition. We've teamed up with the Coalition to collect health canned foods for Orange County's less fortunate.  And in exchange for your efforts, collecting canned foods for us, we're offering one dollar off of growler fills (bring in any number of cans and receive $1 off your growler fill), and you'll be entered to win a t-shirt at the end of the food drive (one can becomes one chance to win - the more cans you bring in, the more likely you are to win!). We're specifically looking for low sodium, low sugar, high fiber, and high protein canned goods or non-perishable food donations. Here's the flier!

Our second event occurs tonight from 6 to 10pm. A local group of craft beer enthusiasts have teamed up to collect used blankets and jackets. The collected items will be distributed to the local homeless population.

Growlers, growlers, and growlers, oh my!

With approval of our growler labels by the California Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control this week, we can finally start filling growlers. There are, of course, a few stipulations:

• The Good Beer Company does not have any growlers in stock for purchase at this time. We will get a shipment of growlers in November and begin to sell blank growlers consistent with the following requirements. Until we start carrying blank growlers, you are welcome to bring in your own blank or growler with adequately obscured labels (please use tape). We also don't stock caps or lids - your growler should have a lid or flip top when you bring it into the tasting room.
• Blank growlers - we fill only blank growlers. Your growler can be covered in tape such that any other labels are adequately obscured. If we see any evidence of any other brewery, we will not fill the growler. Use thick opaque tape that is water resistant so that any labels are properly obscured after a water rinse and condensation.
• Glass growlers - this should go without saying. Everyone uses glass. Don't bring us a plastic or wood growlers. We will accept stainless steel or ceramic growlers as long as they meet the other requirements on this list.
• 2 Liters - at this time we are only authorized by the ABC to fill growlers that are 2 Liters in volume. 
• Clean - last, but certainly not least, bring us a clean growler to fill. We aren't going to scrub the grime out of the bottom of your growler. In order to avoid gnarly growlers, you should rinse your growler with hot water immediately after you drain it. We will sanitize your growler before filling, but we will not scrub it clean.

That's it. That's all you have to do to get a growler fill at The Good Beer Company. We will list growler fills on our tap list in the brewery (and occasionally via social media) and the beers will rotate frequently based on what's available. You can contact us via social media or email at any time with questions about what growler fills are available.

For additional information, the California Craft Brewers Association released this statement regarding the recent growler law clarification, allowing the filling of blank or properly obscured growlers.

Bring in your blank, clean, 2-liter, glass (or stainless steel) growler for a fill of Good Beer! Don't forget it's our Grand Opening Weekend Extravaganza!!!

Grand Opening November 1

We have been in "soft opening" mode for a couple weeks now as we release new beers and iron out the kinks in our tasting room. And we can finally announce that we are going to have a Grand Opening! Here are the details:

THE GOOD BEER COMPANY GRAND OPENING!

Twelve different craft beers brewed in Downtown Santa Ana

Open to the public

Thursday, October 30 through Sunday, November 2, 2014

Regular Hours:
Wed/Thu 5 to 9pm
Fri 5 to 10pm
Sat 12 noon to 10pm
Sun 12 noon to 8pm

309 West Fourth Street, Santa Ana, California

We expect to have 12 different craft beers on tap for our Grand Opening. This will include the beers we've released so far, including Saison Uno, Pale Wheat, Beer Salvaje, and DTSA IPA (to be released this upcoming weekend) and at least two of the beers we are currently fermenting! We'll also have several unique brewery-only variations on these beers, too. Last weekend, for example, we released a mouthwatering version of Saison Uno dry hopped with Citra hops. With our amazing base beers and some fun variations, we'll have all twelve of our taps flowing!

The festivities begin on Thursday and Friday, so that our supporters, friends and family that work Monday-Friday in Downtown can share in the fun. You can wear your Halloween costume on Friday October 31 for bonus points.

Saturday is one of Downtown's biggest events of the year - Day of the Dead, an event that takes place right outside our front door on 4th Street. They are expecting enormous crowds on Saturday November 1, so plan accordingly. Plan on parking in a nearby parking structure on 3rd or 5th street. And don't forget the parking structures usually have special event parking during events like Day of the Dead.

While we know that it will be a blast to celebrate Dia de los Muertos on November 1, we want our supporters to also have the opportunity to come in on Sunday and try our unique variations. We can't promise that all the variations will last through the weekend but we can promise that at least 6 of our base beers will be on tap, and we'll do everything we can to make sure there are some cool variations to try. I would also add that there is generally free parking on Sundays in Downtown Santa Ana.

Good Beer Opens Tomorrow

This weekend, the tasting room will be open Saturday and Sunday from noon to 9pm. We will have our first two beers on tap - a hoppy American pale wheat and a malty sessionable saison. I wanted to open with more beer but we are working on some experimental beers and as we brewers like to say, the yeast will tell us when the beer is ready.

With that, I want to welcome our loyal blog and social media followers into our tasting room. Many of you have been following our story since the beginning and we want to make sure you're the first to see our amazing space and sample our beers.

We tried to do something different here - the tasting room is a big focus of our brewery. I want the tasting room to be a place where you want to spend time, with family or friends, or making new friends. It was important to me that you are immersed into a space that has character and a story (ask me about the history of this building some time). It's all about a place that you want to be in. "Places" mean a lot of me. A place is not just a box with beer in it, it's a space where you want to share experiences and build relationships. It's all about feeling natural, authentic and genuine. And we put a great deal of work into embracing the 130-year old bones with new modern detail.

I also wanted to make sure that the tasting room introduces patrons to the process, equipment and people behind the beer. You are literally steps from the brewery and there's nothing separating you from the aromas of fermentation or the mash. Stop the brewmaster when you see him and feel free to ask about anything. What's that blue thing? What's in these barrels? What are you working on?

I hope that what you're looking for in a tasting room is the same as what I'm looking for. Please join us this weekend from noon to nine, Saturday and Sunday.

Thank you all for your dedication and interest in our brewery, and welcome to Good Beer.

Review: Construction

When I was planning and designing my brewery, I found it immensely useful that a handful of brewers (The Bruery, Hess Brewing, Monkish, to name a few) out there had chronicled their construction and design process with such great detail. I feel like I owe the community my thoughts and experiences. This post only covers some of the construction - it's impossible to share all of the little details. If you're not at all interested in how a brewery is built (read: how our brewery is built), I suggest to stop here, because this blog post contains a stupid-amount of words and contains very little discussion on craft beer. If one brewer-of-the-future benefits from this discussion, it'll make it all worth it. And, I'll cover equipment in a separate post.

Phase 1: Concrete

The first block removed

Removing concrete blocks

View from the front door, before we installed the rebar

Our sloped concrete slab was designed to be 3,000 psi and four inches thick with a 1:50 slope towards trench drains (hereafter referred to as the sloped slab or brewing area). The sloped slab was originally planned to have a 6-inch high concrete containment curb entirely encircling the brewing area. When the County Health Department told Orange County brewers that they were stepping out of the brewery plan review and inspection business, labeling us as low hazard food products, we ditched the containment curb because we knew it would significantly increase the functionality of our brewery (we don't have a fork lift). We had GF Concrete Cutting in Santa Ana come in and cut-and-remove the existing concrete slab, which in some places was up to 6-inches thick. The structural engineer (TKJ Engineering out of Coronado) specified that there shall be deepened areas where the new sloped slab meets the existing slab and where the fermentation and brewhouse vessels would sit - if I recall correctly, the deepened areas are 12-inches deep. The slab contains a matrix of steel rebar that ties into the rebar matrix in the existing slab with epoxied rebar. At the last minute, we hand-crafted a custom form for a poured-in-place concrete trench drain (I originally specified a very nice stainless steel pre-sloped manufactured trench drain).  The concrete was poured on May 24.

Concrete!

Pouring concrete

Pouring concrete

It's an art; pouring concrete

David cleans up the edges

Beginning to remove the forms for the trench drains

Finished concrete trench drains (before final coating)

Concrete takes almost a month to cure, so we took the time to work on a couple other things while we waited. We sealed the concrete with a polyurethane coating over the July 4 holiday weekend. I was contacted out of the blue by Greg Roberts from Stonhard, a manufacturer and installer of high quality commercial and industrial floor coatings.  After I learned that The Bruery and Pizza Port Bressi Ranch (among others) were using this product, it was a no brainer. I even contacted Patrick Rue to see how their floors are holding up. When he replied, he said they were about to install their fourth Stonhard floor, giving me plenty of confidence that this would be a great product for us.  Within a few weeks of receiving the email from Greg, we were lined up to install the floor.  The coating is installed in a day and rock hard by the next day. The installer starts by grinding the surface of the concrete to open it up a little bit. They vacuum up as much dust as they can while they are grinding. The polyurethane coating is mixed up in batches and then poured on the concrete slab.  Two guys mix the concrete in 5-gallon buckets while one guy spreads the coating around with a trowel. The polyurethane is self-leveling but should be evenly distributed across the floor. Finally, once the coating has been spread out evenly, sand is aggressively thrown across the surface.  The sand sinks into the coating creating a texture.  Our experience with the flooring has been great so far - it is durable and I compare the texture to velcro (no slipping!).

Grinding and vacuuming the new slab

Troweling on the polyurethane

Phase 2: Utilities

Water was easy - we have an existing 2-inch water line coming into our building. All we had to do was run copper pipe from the existing line to the brewing area and our new sinks.  Electricity was not bad - we have a supply of 3 phase, 480 volt, 200 amp electricity in our building. We have an existing transformer, too. Sewer was no problem - we have an existing (4-inch?) sewer line that we tied into. We hired Crandall's Plumbing out of Huntington Beach to do our sewer, water, gas, and vent plumbing, and Skelly Electric out of Escondido to do the electrical work.

Gas was another story... My building did not have any gas service when I started planning the brewery almost three years ago. I called the gas company multiple times and set up multiple field meetings to discuss how we could convey gas to our building. Up until some time in June, we were consistently told that the new gas service would originate from a new underground meter vault installed in the sidewalk right in front of our building - approximately 20-feet from our property line. Then, in June, we were lucky enough to get upper-management on site to assess the gas situation, only to find out that gas service could not originate from in front of our building, but instead from the location of an existing gas meter, about 100-feet to the north east from our property line. The world turned upside down.

Planning the new gas alignment in an adjacent basement

Within a week we had re-engineered (by CJTSS Consulting Engineers out of Walnut) drawings ready for submittal to the City. I hastily set up a meeting with our plan checker and we were done within an hour. We scheduled GF Concrete Cutting to come back and core through the two concrete walls and one brick wall that separated us from the existing gas meter. Over the course of a weekend, my plumbers installed about 75-feet of two-inch threaded black steel gas pipe.  The gas line extended from the existing meter in the public right of way, through one basement, then through an existing 20-inch thick concrete wall, then through a second neighboring basement, and finally through an 18-inch thick brick wall into our building. It then had to be run through our building to the kettle and water heater. Our kettle burner is designed for 5 to 14" water column and up to 700,000 btus (it heats up about 550 gallons of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit per minute, give or take). We do not have high pressure gas although that is an option - our engineers decided it was not necessary for our application based on the currently available pressures.

The new meter installed!

When the City inspected our gas line, we learned that the City of Santa Ana requires a 24-hour gas pressure test on all gas lines that are 2-inches or larger.  The 24-hour gas pressure test is set up on one day, initialed by the inspector, then left alone at a specific pressure (around 15 psi) for 24-hours. The inspector returns the next day to find that there is a line drawn around the entire clock with little-to-no fluctuation in 15 psi. We passed the test, no problem. Thanks to Sam, Pablo, Rollo, and the rest of the gang at Crandalls Plumbing!

Running the vent pipe through the roof was another adventure. Our kettle has two stacks - exhaust and steam.  For the exhaust stack we selected a double-walled b-vent pipe that comes in three-foot sections. The steam pipe, however, was custom made of stainless steel - in case condensation drips back down in the kettle and manages to circumvent the drip-catch. There were points where we had six guys holding the pipe at various heights to get it straight and well strapped down. We hand-built each strap out of stainless metal with EMT pipe extending out to the nearest wood. Our brewery has two additional vents - one sewer vent and one water-heater double-walled b-vent.

Bryce installs a metal casing for the vent

Electrical was relatively straight forward. We had an existing switch gear, transformer, and three breaker panels (lighting, receptacles, air conditioning, etc). The engineers called for one new breaker panel to service all the new brewery equipment and one new 600-amp disconnect to be installed between the transformer and breaker panels.  The breaker panel runs wire from each breaker out to a disconnect (or switch) located at each piece of equipment. I learned the hard way about "normally open" and "normally closed" switches. Each of our fermentation tanks is controlled by a Ranco temperature controller - the same thing I've been using at home for years to control fermentation temperatures. At home, a single stage temperature controller shuts off the power to my chest freezer when it reaches a desired temperature. In the brewery, I needed the Ranco to open the solenoid valve when it gets to hot, and close the solenoid when it is cold enough. Setting up the Ranco in the brewery does not require anything more than a single-stage temperature controller - but you must set it to open (NC or normally open) when you reach the top of your temperature differential, and close (NC or normally closed) when you want the solenoid to close.

Phase 3: Glycol

The glycol system could be broken into multiple sub-phases. One sub-phase included building the structural support for the G&D 7x7 Glycol Chiller on the roof, and a second sub-phase covers the installation of the GF Cool-Fit ABS glycol piping.

The chiller was paid for back in early April and I was given an 8-week lead time.  We timed this so that the chiller would be delivered after the concrete was poured, but before the concrete coating was applied. We needed a custom chiller sizing due to height limitations in our zoning district. We needed at least a 12 HP Chiller so that we could keep our fermentations under control and simultaneously chill wort out of the kettle. G&D worked with me to identify what our demand would be, and we designed a 7x7 chiller system (two side-by-side 7 HP chillers, creating redundancy and enough power for wort chilling). I chose G&D because they are a reputable company that was willing to work within my height constraints.

We had to structurally reinforce the roof trusses to support the chiller. My structural engineer located the chiller above the peak of our roof, where seismic reinforcements were installed about 10-years ago. We basically installed v-shaped wood supports that were strapped to the ceiling directly below the glycol chiller on the roof, distributing the weight to a 12x12 beam that runs north-south through out building. On the roof, the chiller sits on two pressure treated 4x8's, which are lag-screwed through the roof and into the v-shaped support within the building below. All screws and roof penetrations are enclosed with roof mastic (that's nasty shit!). The chiller was lifted to the roof by crane (Benson Crane Services in Santa Ana) and placed on top of some very nice vibration-absorbing pads, then bolted down to the 4x8's.

Support for the glycol chiller

Crane lifts the chiller to the roof

Chiller in its final resting place

My plumbers have been busy all summer working on the new East End market. So we decided to take on the assembly and installation of the GF Cool-Fit piping system.  Sean Roth from Ryan Herco Flow Solutions reached out to me near the beginning of construction - they're a local distributor of GF Cool-Fit as well as many other piping systems. Sean brought in Scott Stringfellow from GF to discuss our system. I designed and estimated quantities for the piping system along with my contractor. With the chiller in place, we installed the glycol system, over 200-feet of Cool-Fit, over a weekend with the help of my brother and dad. We learned everything we know from this online video and the product manual.

Bryce starts the Cool-Fit installation

I designed the glycol piping system for future tanks and there are several different ways it could be reconfigured to accommodate future growth. On a very high level, assembling the Cool-Fit requires several steps: (1) work a well ventilated and dust-free area; (2) apply solvent cleaner to the inside of the pipe and outside of the nipple and wipe dry with a lint-free towel; (3) apply the cement in an axial direction to the inside of the pipe and outside of the nipple; and (4) connect the two.  It takes 10-minutes for the cement to chemically cure, after which you may add mechanical pressure. You really get into a motion putting this stuff together. Once you get a hang of it, installation goes quickly and efficiently. We had one "ground support" member cutting and applying solvent cleaner to the pipe and two team members dry-fitting, measuring, and applying cement to the fittings/nipples/pipe from atop the scaffolding.

Finished Cool-Fit system

The Cool-Fit is suspended on "trapeze" that we custom-built out of uni-strut and all-thread. We had to special order the strut pipe clamps because the Cool-Fit is a metric pipe and most of the strut pipe clamps available in the USA are in Imperial units of measurement.  I wanted the strut pipe clamps because I didn't like the idea of strapping all that Cool-Fit down with the plastic clamps in the GF catalog.

Miscellaneous Construction

Our tasting room tables were custom built by my contractor and his metal guy, Charlie. Jon is an expert at building tables (he also made my kitchen table years ago). Jon assembled the table tops from planks of Maple, sanded them down, and screwed them to a metal support made out of square tubing and angle-iron.

Sanding the table tops

Legs and support for new tables

I wanted our brewery to be very open so that we could move about, communicate from across the brewery, and be aware of where everyone is. It also makes for a pretty cool spectacle from the tasting room. In order to run the electrical and water/gas/vent piping, we had to build some custom uni-strut walls. We had existing pipe-columns that were installed about ten years ago as seismic improvements. We put pipe clamps on the columns to attach the uni-strut. Our control panel for the brewhouse also hangs from the strut between the pipe-columns. In the future we'll weld or attach different fittings to hang hose or other brewery tools from the strut.

Our brewing area is separated from our tasting room by a kee-klamp railing. This is a really cool product. It is relatively easy to build a solid railing that can be disassembled (like having wheels on everything, removing the railing in the future is really important) and it looks great too.

You'll notice that we have a lot of things on wheels - our bar, tables, keg washer, etc. It's important for a brewery like ours to be very mobile. We don't have a forklift, nor are we likely to ever have one. We have furniture dollies, regular dollies, tank turtles, flat bed carts, shelf push carts, pallet jacks and a straddle stacker to help us move the heavy stuff. But other than that, this place is all about man power. If we can't move it, we don't want it!

Construction will probably never be complete... but we're in a position to brew, now.