Archive: Author: Thom

“When last we left our intrepid crew, construction was well underway and we were actually starting to see a brewery spring up around them. However, much to their dismay, this left no time to write, send out a newsletter or even have a life outside the brewery!  Thankfully, construction is done, and the next phase has begun.”

So yeah, let’s see, last newsletter… 6 months ago.

Uhm, right, excuses… the sun was in my eye… I thought you were taller… there’s a snake on the stove (true story… but for another time)… it’s not my fault!

No, seriously. The equipment arrived, insanity ensued and ultimately all I can say is, I’m sorry.

So, now that we have that out of the way, let’s catch you up.

2) The tap room is built and we are working with the city on finalizing our certificate of occupancy and getting our pint sale and growler licenses. We do not have an ETA yet, but are hoping that it will only be a few weeks at the most. Current plan is that we will be open on Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Once we are official, we’ll post the hours here, there and everywhere else.

3) At the beginning of February, the BBB team expanded to include our fourth member, Ryan Strong. His skills include a strong culinary background, mechanical intuitiveness and a charming and sometimes irreverent sense of humour. Yeah, he fits in quite well.

4) We’ve started attending some of the local beer festivals. It’s been a little odd
and humbling for us to be on the other side of the table, but we’ve really
enjoyed the chance to be out there and pouring beer for all of you. With winter (dare I say it?!) finally releasing it’s death grip on us, we are already getting queued up for several more and hope that many of you will take the time to come out and share a glass with us. I promise (no, REALLY!) to get the website updated with dates and times of where we will be.

It’s been one heck of a ride thus far and we couldn’t have done it without all you.

As always, if you have specific questions, drop us a note via email, Facebook, Twitter or Pony Express.

Cheers,
Thom, Dane, Gabe and Ryan

Because inquiring minds want to know…

We’ve gotten a variety of questions via email and social media (FB / TWT) and we thought we would take the opportunity to answer some of the more common ones. Got a burning (..brothers…) question, let us know.

1) When are you going to open?
While we can’t give a definitive date, we can tell you where things are at. The brewing equipment is en route with an ETA of around October 1st (yes, we can almost taste it…the beer that is, not the stainless, although…). It will take a few weeks to setup, install and calibrate, and then another couple of weeks to ferment the first batches. Also, we are still working through the approval process with the state and the city so that all the various agencies can be happy. All of that being said, it’s looking like November is the time frame we are looking at as of right now.

2) Where can I find your tasty beverages?
Once our tasty beverages are safe and sound in liquor stores, restaurants and bars, we’ll have a link on the website that you can use to locate them. We’ll also shout out to the world at large via the usual suspects of email, tweets, etc.

3) Are you going to have a tap room/growlers?
Yes and yes. We are thinking that we’ll be open 2 to 3 nights per week as well as on Saturday afternoons.Hours will be posted when we are ready/approved.

4) Do you “de-glutenize” your beer?
It can’t be done. One can reduce the amount of gluten in a beer by adding enzymes, however there is currently no scientific means of completely removing gluten from a gluten-based beer. Know what you’re putting in your body. Read your labels. “Crafted to remove gluten” doesn’t specify how much gluten has been removed. The only way to know for sure is start without. No gluten in means no gluten out.

5) What can I do to help?
Spread the word…. and cookies… we like cookies. No, seriously, send people our way via the website, Facebook, Twitter, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, etc. We love to hear from you and appreciate all the support!

Cheers,
Dane, Gabe and Thom

The more observant in the room will have noticed that something (i.e. almost everything) changed with our logo.

While the old logo is near and dear to our hearts, we realized that it just didn’t scale the way we needed it to. Specifically, as we were looking at labeling for cans, growlers and other stuff, we noted that as the image shrunk, all of the lovely detail was lost.

So, after months of diligent research and study (i.e., there was much beer and pizza), and some pretty severe head-butting, we are proud to present you with our shiny new logo! (Don’t feed it after midnight!)

Cheers,

Thom, Dane and Gabe

On Monday, June 3rd, construction began. As you can see, this was just the first of many floor cuts into the brewery to make room for our underground plumbing.

Drainage and plumbing is one of the more critical aspects of the brewery operation. Most people probably don’t realize this, but your average brewery uses water at a ratio of 8 to 1. In other words, it takes about 8 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of beer.

Since then, we’ve been progressing with putting the pipes in place, getting the thumbs up from the appropriate agencies and are nearly ready to put the concrete back on top.

Next up: Walls, doors and windows… oh my!

Cheers,

Dane, Thom and Gabe

This is Matt.

We like Matt.

Why do we like Matt?

Well, Matt is with Pioneer Bank in Mankato.

Matt just sat down with us to close on the loan for financing our equipment and construction costs.

That’s right people, this sh*t just got real!

Burning Brothers Brewing, coming soon!

Cheers,

Thom, Dane and Gabe

…away! What can I say, we’re a Minnesota based brewery, of course we are obsessed with weather. It’s in our DNA (how about a little fire in celebration of that fact).

Here’s a quick note to let people know about a few goings on:

• Yet another podcast interview, this time with the Apropos of Nothing team. It’s a bit lengthy (2.5 hoursish), but damn did we have a great time with it.
• We talked with Christa Meland at the Twin Cities Business magazine about the what and why-fors of gluten-free beer in St. Paul
• We got a shout out from our St. Paul City Councilmember Russ Stark in his newsletter along with our friends over at Urban Growler, Bang Brewing as well as Fair Street (Woot! Let’s grow that beer culture St. Paul!)

As to the rest, we’re still plugging away at finalizing construction estimates and equipment sourcing. While not an exciting step in the process, it’s an important one to get right.

Cheers,

Thom, Dane and Gabe

So, the other night we were invited out to talk about this, that and the other thing while enjoying a premium cigar.

The price of admission, why beer of course.

Beer and cigars, how could we go wrong? (besides that moment when our wives and fiances, may they never meet, wouldn’t let us in the house afterwards)

We had a great time chatting with the Porter and Frost from the Burn and Brew Podcast. We talked a little beer, we talked a little personal history, we even talked about Jesse Ventura. You could say, it was eclectic.

You too can listen in on our musings and ramblings.

Many thanks to our wonderful host James at Burn Premium Cigar Specialists.

Cheers,

Gabe, Thom and Dane

It’s been another busy week here at Burning Brothers, only this time it got political.

You see, there’s a somewhat obscure regulation in the city’s zoning policies regarding tap rooms. Specifically, if you are zoned in a true industrial area like our colleagues over at Summit, operating a tap room is no issue. However, if you are located in an area that is not-zoned for industrial (i.e., traditional neighborhood or commercial), a tap room is not permitted. Care to guess which zone we fall into?

Yep, it’s like that.

So, we’ve been talking with the St. Paul City Council and they have proposed reviewing and updating those zoning regulations for commercial breweries.  We were also interviewed by the Pioneer Press, Finance & Commerce and Minnesota Public Radio regarding our thoughts on the matter. At this point, we are waiting to hear back regarding next steps, but thought you all would appreciate hearing what it’s all about.

In the end, this is just another piece of the puzzle. If the tap room has to wait a little bit, it won’t slow down our larger purpose of bringing our gluten-free goodness to the masses.

Cheers,

Thom, Dane and Gabe

We’ve had a pretty kick ass week here at Burning Brothers. Let me outline the events that unfolded:

1. The architect sent us the completed preliminary site plan. This means we can solicit bids and select a general contractor for the build out.
2. We got a shout out in the StarTribune (Liquid Assets: Gluten-free beer? Several choices out there) for being the new up and comer in the local GF beer market.
3. We signed the lease on our brewing space! That’s right, we’ve got a home. We just need to move some plumbing and electric, install equipment and complete the laundry list of other miscellaneous things and then we can start selling beer.

Cheers everyone, the end (or the beginning) is within sight.

Dane, Gabe and Thom