Populuxe year-end round up

Well it's been en exciting 1st year for Populuxe Brewing being a thing that exists...sort of. We're still not open, but the progress at this point seems amazing considering where we were when we started.

The build out is almost complete. We still need to hang fixtures, install our sinks and do a few other things, but it's all finish work. The bulk of the construction is done.

We've got a strong line-up of ales for our opening day. We've been hard at work perfecting our Pale Ale and our IPAs recopies have been finalized. Jiri is in the running for Washington State Homebrewer of the Year after our strong showing at this years Mead and Cider Cup. We'll have a nice display case up behind the bar to show off the hardware from 2012.

Other then the little bit of finish work, and a 400 mile drive to pick up fermenters, there's only a few hurdles left for us:

1) Health Department - King County Health is doing a full plan review for our site, which means we'll be able to have some degree of food prepped on site. Probably nothing on opening day, but it's good to have on the back burner.

2) LCB - We need to get our final inspection from the Liquor Control Board. I'm a little nervous about our ability to get this scheduled in January. With the passage of legalized marijuana in Washington, it's up to the LCB to formulate those rules. Combine that with budget cuts and it's going to be tough to get our little beer joint on the schedule.

3) Other inspections - building, plumbing and electrical are all still outstanding. I'm not too worried about these since we've had such good luck with the DPD and other city departments so far (when it comes to field inspections).

There you have it! Bang out these 3 things and 2013 is going to be the year of Populuxe!  Don't forget there are still spots open in the Founders Club, but there are only a handful left.  If you haven't gotten one yet, why not start the new year off right and treat yourself to something you'll never regret....great beer!

Equipment!

We bought some actual brewing equipment!

Lately it seems that all we buy is 2x4s and sheetrock and "pex" which the plummer tells me is what they call pipe these days. Well no more! We've gone and actually acquired the equipment we'll need to brew beer with. Not all of it mind you, we still need a proper plate chiller, hoses, clamps and various odds and ends, but we got the good stuff in today.

First up is our 1.5bbl brew house from Stout Tanks and Kettles down in Portland. Shiny! Thats the boil kettle there on the left and the mash tun on the right. We'll be using our old Blichmann home brew kettles for a Hot Liquor Tank and Hop Back.

Next is the kegs. We got 16 half barrel kegs from Off The Rails brewing down in Forest Grove, OR. Picking up 2 bits of gear in the same run managed to save us a lot in shipping. The kegs are actually Washington state natives, having formerly been employed by the defunct Orchard Street Brewing up in Bellingham. Populuxe is repatriating long lost Washington State kegs!

In other news, we're going to be grinding the floors this weekend, then pressure washing all of the interior walls. After that it's insulation and more sheetrock. Then we can call for another inspection.

Jiri grinding the floor
Oh you are going to delight at the thrill of sipping a cold Populuxe beer while flipping through our binder of passed inspections from the city. Can there be a more sublime way to spend the afternoon? I submit to you there is not!

October!

October was pretty busy for us down at the brewery. So busy that I'm not posting the October update until November 8th. Even now, we're still so busy that I'm not even going to post much in the way of words, just pictures. Below are some shots of us digging out the floor trenches (to run water, sewer and electric), plumbing, framing and pouring concrete back into the trenches. Maybe not the most exciting things in the world, but for us it's all stuff that gets us just that much closer to opening day.

Did I mention that we also launched the Founders Club last month? Because we did. Memberships are going fast, and there will only ever be the 100 we began with, so get 'rm while they're hot. Sign up today and I promise to teach you the secret Populuxe handshake!

Populuxe Brewing Founders Club

SOLD OUT!

Thanks everyone!

Welcome to a rare and fleeting opportunity to be part of history. Also, free beer!*

As you probably know, we're opening a brewery here in Ballard and we want you to be a part of it. How? Why by doing what you already good at, drinking beer! 

We've put together a special deal which is going to allow you do this in style. The Populuxe Founders Club!

Founders Club members will receive the following totally awesome and very limited benefits:

1. A cool t-shirt!  There will only be 100 of these made ... someday  (like probably next year) they will be collectors items worth thousand of dollars!
   
   
   
2. Your very own engraved glass, kept at the brewery. Set yourself apart from the crowds and impress your friends. This glass will be a 20oz imperial pint, instead of our regular 16oz pours.  
   
   
   
3. Invitations to special events including our Grand Opening Bash,  Hop Fest  parties and a tour with the head brewers, including special, unreleased beers not available anywhere else.
   
   
4. Firm knowledge that you've made a difference in the lives of (potentially) millions of thirsty beer drinkers!

In addition to all this, you also get your very own membership card!  A late addition to the package, this card will identify you as one of the few, proud and awesome people to be in our super-exclusive club.  Possession of this card also entitles the barer to free legal services on the moon.

If you want to be part of the Founders Club, all you need to do is follow through with the paypal form below. $100 will get you one of the 100 spots available.  This is a lifetime membership.  We are together till death do us part.

When we say this is a limited time offer we mean it – those 100 spots are the only ones which will ever exist. Get in or or sit on the sidelines forever.

Do you want to die peacefully with a free conscience, or looking back on a life full of regret?

Join today!

*Technically this is free beer, but you still have to buy it. Blame the government regulators. WA State sales tax included

 

September

It's September and things keep happening down at the brewery. Cleaning, demo and some painting has happened while we wait on plumbing and electrical to get firmed up. Our building permits were issued by the city, which means we can start to get serious about the transformation.

It also means that we can get our "change of use" from light manufacturing to food processing. Maybe. It depends on who you talk to at the city.

Either way, things are happening. While they are happening, we also have to secure all of our equipment. This means days at the brewery and nights cruising Craigslist and Probrewer looking for stuff to fill our empty space with.

Tomorrow we'll paint the facade and around the side of the building. So far I've only painted the roof, but I'm really glad to have that done. As a person who values their own physical well being and is also a little afraid of heights, I can tell you that crawling around on that old rusted metal was not my favorite thing in the world. Here's a before shot:

And here's the after:

Looks a little better. More paint on the building and some bamboo to block out the trash cans will also help. More photos soon. Enjoy these while you can since once I'm actually brewing most of the pictures will be of buckets of yeast.

Cheers!

August Update!

Whew!  I was getting tired of looking at the floor plan, weren't you?

August Update!  Nothing is happening.

Actually, that's not true, there is so much happening!  We've got tentative approval from the Washington State Liquor Control Board pending our TTB (the feds) approval.  Also in the works are our building permits from the City of Seattle.  Permits to build out the brewery have, so far, been the biggest hurdle.  It takes a lot to turn an old cabinet shop into a world-class center for beer. 

Ever been to Rome?  Seen the Sistene Chapel?  About 10 block from there is an old cabinet shop.  Our brewery is going to be way better than that.

So - after the permits are issued, probably some time next week, it's time to start swinging hammers.  This means lots of trips to the dump, lots of paint, and getting our equipment in place.  We are still angling for a fall opening, but there is a lot of work in between here and there.  Also, it's almost September.

In the mean time we've been working out our recipes for opening day.  So far it looks like this:

IPA
CDA
Pale Ale
Blonde Ale (A Kolsch style hybrid)
Porter
A Strong Beer

What kind of strong beer?  Good question! As soon as Blogger decides to give me the service I so rightly have not paid for I will put up a poll.

Floor plan and the Parkway Pro-Am

Well, it has been a busy couple of weeks.  Most of what's been going on is paperwork related.  We're waiting on securing our brewers bond, which is essentially an insurance policy we need to take out for the government guaranteeing them that we will pay our taxes.  Once that's done we can submit our application to the TTB (feds) to get our microbrewery license.

More complicated, and more physical paper pages, was the WA State Liquor Control Board paperwork.  Those are the forms where they want to know your work history, past addresses, shoe size, blood type, ect.  Part of that process is filing architectual drawings of what the proposed site will look like:

It might be hard to make out, but this is basically what we're planning.  Thats the bathroom in the middle, with the tasting room facing the street and the brewery operations in the back.  The dotted line to the left represents our outdoor seating.  There'll be room for around 10 to 20 people inside with an additional 15 or so outside.

Separate drawings of the cornhole court will be submitted to the ACO for sanctioned events.

In addition to all of the paperwork, we also got to try our beer (sort of) being served in an actual legitimate drinking establishment!  The Parkway Tavern in Tacoma participated in a homebrew competition which gave the winners the chance to brew up a single batch of  beer and have it served there at the pub.  If you remember back a few posts, our Pale Ale took gold so we went to Puyallup and brewed up a keg a few months back:

I must say it turned out pretty good!  We were a little nervous because brewing at The Station was so much different than brewing in Seattle.  Our water here in the city comes from the Tolt reservoir, which is very soft.  Essentially the water here is rain water, with very few of the minerals which are needed by yeast and the beer to make a great tasting product.  This is a bonus for brewers since it's easier to add minerals to water than it is to remove them.

Down in Puyallup it's a different story.  That water comes from an underground aquifer and has quite a few dissolved salts in it.  Not having a water report handy, we just brewed straight from the tap without managing our mineral additions.  I don't think that the average consumer would notice too much, but I could definitely tell the difference. Obviously from the photo on the left, our clarity suffered as well.

Either way, it was a great experience, and the Parkway is an awesome neighborhood pub.  It was a thrill to hear some random stranger walk up to the bar and order a pint of our beer!  Cheers!

We have an Etsy store!

Ok, no not really - but this post is about to get all crafty and DIY up in your face. 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try and create a prototype of our tasting tray.  This is the kind of thing you'd order when you come in and see all of the tasty beers we have on tap and just can't decide on which one to get a pint of.  I took my inspiration from the cool tasting trays they have at Falling Sky brewing down in Eugene:

Now, these are quite fancy and plastic and clearly manufactured by professionals.  That's fine, ours may or may not be as well, but the idea was to just get something to give us an idea of what to expect.  Also, something for the blog.

So - the Falling Sky tray is kind of cool because it looks like their logo, a rain cloud (my picture is upside down).  Our logo is a thankfully much easier shape to replicate being a simple ellipse.  I figured I could cut a shape like that out of 1/4" think plywood pretty easy. 

I used the pins and string method to sketch out an ellipse which was 11 inches wide by 8 inches tall.  This animation came in handy.  This was a rough estimate for how big the tray would need to be to hold six 4 ounce tasting glasses.  I then centered six 2" holes and using a drill saw, the kind you normally use for door knobs, drilled out my glass holders.

Once that was done it was a matter of roughing out the ellipse with a jigsaw.  My skills with a jig aren't all that, so it took a couple of hours of sanding to smooth out the edges.  Eventually I had a deck which was looking pretty good.

As you can see above, the glasses fit nice and snug in the holes I drilled, so there's no need for a bottom layer to the holder.  The glasses fit in about one inch beneath the hole.  All that I needed next was some legs.  I went with 1 1/2" carriage bolts, threaded through plastic tubing which was 1 1/8th in long.  That left me enough room on the bolt to snug down the top with a nut and secure the legs onto the top deck.

Here's a couple of shots of the finished product, after some black paint:

Turned out pretty good I think.  It's roughly the same dimensions as our logo and should be pretty easy to clean and handle.

If you're curious, from left to right, that's our Old Ale, Saison, ESB, Best Bitter, IPA, and CDA.  Also a bunch of white flowers which fell off the tree in the back yard just to make me mad. 

So - a nice tasting tray flight.  Will these be in use come opening day?  Maybe.  There's a lot to do between now and then and noodling around in the garage is pretty low on the list.  It was a lot of fun to make though, and now I know how to do it.  I guess you'll just have to show up and find out...

TCB - Or Trying To

Well, according to the State of Washington, we are officially formed.  They'd like us to start paying taxes yesterday, please.

It's nice to see some of the paperwork coming together.  TTB (the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) is not proving quite as easy though.

Questions like "Provide description of the brewery security. Brewery building must be arranged and constructed to give adequate protection to the revenue. Describe locks, access to the brewery and how un-taxpaid goods will be protected during and after business hours:" cannot be answered with the response "We were thinking about getting a vicious Pitbull or two."

Or "Discuss proposed methods of disposal for solid waste (Incineration, open burning, landfill, government or commercial garbage collection, etc.) Specify whether on-site or off-site." cannot be answered with "We thought we'd get a brewery pig to chow on this stuff but we need to see how the Pitbulls will react to the hog first."

These are actually two of the less difficult questions to answer...and we have been meeting frequently to go over information and discuss this form.  As a well-versed grantwriter,  I thought this would be a breeze to fill out but its definitely beyond my professional writing experience.

We're also working on our formal business plan and that's been a great tool.  As a team, we are pretty much invested in a shared vision.  Our main argument has to do with flat screen size.  We are also finally at a point where we can launch a founders club offer so look for that soon. 

Okay, time to "Describe any direct or indirect discharge into navigable waters which may result from the conduct of the activity described in the question above to be conducted section where TTB has Interest, including the biological, chemical, thermal, or other characteristic of the discharge and the locations at which such discharge may enter navigable waters..."  See you on the flip side.

National Homebrewers Conference and Competition

The National Homebrewers Conference is being held in Seattle this year June 21st through the 23rd.  In addition to seminars, guest speakers and lots of commercial and homebrewed beer tasting, the American Homebrewers Association is also holding the national homebrew competition.

Back at the end of March we were notified that both our English and American Pale Ales had advanced past the preliminaries and made it to the finals.  Pictured at left is our ESB, which is almost ready to bottle and carry down to Georgetown Brewing, the dropoff point for final round judging.  It's going to be a little young, but all in all we think its a very solid beer.  Our American Pale has been doing quite well locally and we've gotten great feedback on it.  Populuxe Pale will for sure be on tap opening day!

Cheers!

Parkway Tavern Homebrew Competition

We were down at the Puyallap U-Brew this past Saturday brewing up a special batch of our Populuxe Pale Ale to be tapped at the Parkway Tavern on Thursday, June 27th.  This is a special one-off beer we brewed to be served along other winners of the Parkway Pro-Am.  It's a session Pale, clocking in at around 4.8%abv, with our signature aroma and flavor from adding a ton of late boil hops. 


The brew day went well, although it's always a scramble when you're using new equipment.  This particular set-up was using a Sabco Brewmagic.  The Sabcos are famously endorsed and used by Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head as pilot systems. 

At the end of the day we got the beer we wanted.  It will be interesting to see how things develop while the beer is fermenting and how close it comes to what we're currently brewing.  If you aren't doing anything on June 27th, come on down to the Parkway and help us analyze the final product (scientifically, of course)!

A Busy Week At Populuxe Headquarters

Phew, Friday!  We've had a thing or two happening this week.

First and most exciting, we got access to our new space.  Here are the guys musing over potential roofing issues and lamenting temperature control.  There is work to be done for sure but the space is a blank canvas and as soon as the landlord finishes removing his stuff, we are going to begin beautification. 

Thursday, Pete, Jiri and Judy all got their MAST permits.  They are bona fide beertenders now.  I, on the other hand, continue to be an amateur/hobbiest beer pourer.

Tonight is the capstone of our events - the Hood to Hood Challenge celebration at the Ballard Food Bank.  We (well those with MAST licenses) will be serving along side the Northwest Wine Academy.  I love the Northwest Wine Academy and have taken several classes there that have been beneficial to my palate development and soul.  Oh did I mention that River Giant is playing and I love River Giant!  For $5.00 this is the best Friday night deal in town.  We hope to see you there.

KEXP + Ballard Food Bank + Populuxe = AWESOME!

Celebrate Ballard’s victory in KEXP’s Hood to Hood Challenge on Friday, May 18th.  Throughout the day there will be great live bands and music at Bergen Place Park.  

At 8:00 PM head to the Ballard Food Bank to enjoy DJ John Richards spinning music and local band River Giant playing an acoustic set.  Best of all, Populuxe Brewing will be serving up a Citrus Blonde,  an IPA, and a Saison for you to enjoy. 

Don't miss this chance to hear great music, drink amazing beer and support a local charity.

 
Cover: Suggested Donation of $5.

All proceeds go to support the programs of the Ballard Food Bank.

Populuxe in the news

Here's an old item about us putting on a benefit dinner (well, beverages) for the North Helpline. It was a great time and something we really loved doing. Check back often as we are sure to do more charity benefits in the future:

Lake City Supper Club benefit dinner for the North Helpline