Friday, February 22, 2008

Almost There

I won't keep you in suspense-- the Health Dept. approved us!  We can legally brew beer!

Yesterday was a crazy day.  I had just come back from being away for two days picking up bourbon barrels, wine barrels, and barrel racks, and the Health Dept. inspection was at 3:30 in the afternoon.  The 3 phase power wasn't turned on, the gas wasn't functional, and I needed both in order to pass the inspection.   The Gas Company was to turn on gas today, so I wasn't worried that we wouldn't have hot water.  Edison is another story.

I pled to Edison to turn on my power.  I called up the Edison planner I had dealt with before and explained my situation.  The City had released my meter to Edison last Tuesday, and they didn't receive the authorization fax.  The City sent it again on Monday, and it was released in their system on Tuesday.  They probably weren't planning to turn on power until next week, since they usually give it 5 working days from when the authorization is received by Edison.  The Edison meter guy shows up, I locate the meter for him, and he's there for 15 minutes and then leaves without telling anyone.  I call up my Edison planner again, and ask what's going on.  He gets the meter guy to come back, and he tells me he can't put a meter on a panel where Edison can't put a lock on the main breaker switch.  It had been torn off a long time ago, and this policy just came into effect last week.  I run to get Tyler, and tell the Edison guy not to leave.  Tyler welds on a piece so it can now be locked within 10 minutes, and we then expect the guy to turn on the power.  He calls his boss to see whether he's allowed to turn on the power now that we fixed the problem, since this is not the normal way of doing things at Edison.  He goes to lunch, comes back, and tells us he's able to turn on the power.  

I realize this is not a very interesting story (This one time, in band camp...), but if we didn't get power, we would have to reschedule our Health Dept. inspection, which would have set us back one to two weeks.  Some days things just go right.

11 comments:

Brent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brent said...

Congrats Pat!! That's awesome! Are you guys brewing a propagation batch this weekend? Maybe I'll swing by with your bugs.

Anonymous said...

WhooHooo!

Great news Pat!

When's the first brew going to be?

AudreyO said...

Patrick,

Remember me? Audrey up in Santa Barbara. Congratulations!!! I'm coming there next time we're in Orange County.

Patrick Rue said...

Thanks for the nice comments! A few things are still being finished up, but the first batch should be within the next week or so.

Audrey-- of course I remember you! Please stop by when you're in the area! Say hi to Becca for me!

Taffeys said...

Patrick, been following your progress from the beginning. Am so happy for you, Rachel, and Tyler now. When will you be ready to accept "guests"? Looking forward to sampling your "talents".

Mike said...

Actually I thought the story was a good one. WTG Tyler for the clutch save! :)

I haven't been there since day 1 so I'm looking forward to stopping by once all the craziness dies down. Lyn showed my bar pics and as well as all the big shiny things in there :) How exciting... you're almost there!

David said...

Hell yeah Patrick! That's good news man. I can smell the glorious scent of fermentation! Carpe Saccharomyces!

kevinh said...

Hey Patrick, congrats! I have been following along here since the Hollingshead's tasting (amazing Quad by the way). Glad to see you are almost there, and I can't wait to try your first batch.

Kevin

Joe said...

Patrick, congratulations on your great progress. I just found your blog and read it from beginning to end. Given your background and lack of brewery experience, how did you acquire the knowledge required to design the brewery and select the equipment? I am an experienced home brewer, but I would find this a real stretch for me.

Rich said...

Congrats on your progress! Awesome to see another great craft brewery being born.

Cheers,

Rich
www.democracysdrink.com
A social network for beer drinkers