11 Months In Business

I thought I'd attempt to write a new blog entry, seeing as how it's been a few months since I've written anything of substance on here. Our anniversary is coming up and this is a good opportunity to think back to where we were only 11 months ago. We sold our first case of beer to Hollingshead's Deli on April 28th, 2008, so I've decided to roll over our anniversary date to the month of May. Close enough, right? Last night Tyler, Rachel, Jonas, Jay and I sampled all of the barrels of our anniversary beer, picking out the most exceptional barrels for the single barrel versions of Papier. I couldn't help but feel a little sentimental that we were tasting our fifth batch of beer brewed last April, when things were vastly different than they are today.

In the beginning, I wondered how we were going to sell 15 bbl (465 gallons) of beer, the smallest volume we typically produce of any single batch. Tyler and I were the only people working here, and we brewed the beer, sold the beer, and I attempted to run a business. Within a few weeks of our first releases sitting on store shelves, we received complaints of over carbonation. Luckily, we were a new brewery, and people drank the beer anyway and understood we didn't really know what we were doing at this point. I bought back beer from places that weren't selling it well. I'm still sitting on 30 cases of grossly over carbonated Black Orchard and waiting for a great idea on what to do with it. A not so great idea was bobbling for apples in Black Orchard, which we attempted on Halloween.

In June, Stone Brewing Co. started distributing our beer in Southern California, which is one of those events that made my life a lot easier and gave us the opportunity to grow quickly. Steve, Greg and Arlan recognized we are making great beer and I recognized I cannot do everything and do it well. I could now see it was possible to sell 15 BBL batches of beer.

In September, we opened our tasting room, which has wildly exceeded my expectations. I expected the tasting room to be a place where we'd get the occasional visitor wanting to check out our brewery. It has become a North Orange County attraction, and we recently hired Stef, Tasting Room Manager, and James, to run the tasting room.

Our beers were distributed exclusively in Southern California until November, when I decided to branch out to other states. Stone was doing a great job for us in Southern California, but we had extra capacity and I felt it was important to build ourselves in other markets. Over the past 6 months, we've partnered with the best distributors in states that have an exceptional beer culture. We're now in Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Northern California, and will soon be in Arizona and New Jersey.

The Bruery family continues to grow. My wife Rachel joined us full time in September, and Jonas joined the team in December to help brew and handle our expanding distribution. Bryan joined in January to spread the word of our beers in Southern California. Jay will shortly join us full time as assistant brewer as our production needs increase. Ben, who once helped us brew, is now working with us as our marketing director. My brother Chris is working in Portland, Oregon to build our account base there.

We're currently undergoing a major expansion, bringing our fermentation capacity from 75 BBL to 210 BBL. The work is almost complete and we're prepared to fill the new fermenters in the next two weeks. The fermenters couldn't have come at a better time-- we're almost out of beer and struggling to keep up with demand. In the next few months, we'll also be adding a faster bottling line.

In another 11 months, I wonder where we'll be. I honestly have no idea. Maybe we'll have maxed out our fermentation capacity and trying to fit more fermenters in our now cramped space. Perhaps we'll be constructing a new brewery. Whatever the future brings, we know it'll be shaped by our hard work and high expectations. Thanks for supporting us!

What should I be posting about?

When I was in the initial phases of starting The Bruery, this blog was a great way for me to bitch and complain.  Today, I don't have much to bitch and complain about.  Well... I always have things to complain about, but the blog isn't the greatest medium for my bitching these days.

Many people discovered The Bruery from this blog, and I want to keep it a source of information about beer and share how I started a brewery.  I'd like to gather some comments on this and see what you'd like me or anyone at The Bruery to write about.  Post away and let me know what you'd like to know.

Potential topics I was thinking about because they are relevant to what I'm currently doing (some may be interesting to a general audience, some are extremely dry but useful to aspiring brewery owners):

-- Choosing Distributors

-- Expansion (Space, capacity, and employees)

-- Barrel aging / approach to flavor

-- Merchandise

-- Guide to getting a job in a brewery

-- A Checklist to State and Federal Regulations

-- Taxes

-- A Guide to Successful Delegation (I wish I could find a good source on this right now!)

-- Importance of tasting rooms / tours in production breweries

-- The Bruery in 10 Years: How Big is Too Big?

The Beer From Hell

Yesterday was our toughest brewing day yet.  It was a day where nothing seemed to go right, and with brewing, you can't stop what you're doing and come back on another day.  

I arrived at 4:30 in the morning and started mashing in.  The batch was our Imperial Stout, which consists of 2500 lbs. of grain (our typical batches are in the 1000 lb. range), several different types of sugar, a long boil, and usually another batch from the second runnings.  While I was mashing in, I was milling because our grist case only holds 1000 lbs.  Ben (our part time brewing assistant) showed up at 7 and mashed in the other half of the batch.  Mashing in took a little over 3 hours, but it went smoothly. 

I then went to recirculate the mash and Ben discovered the pump was leaking.  I tightened the connection between the pump head and the motor, which resulted in bending the pump bracket and increasing the leak.  Meanwhile, a few people showed up to visit.  I forgot that the sparge was running, and the mash tun started to overflow from the top.  I started to hook up our grant to another pump, and then after ten minutes of trying to rig something together, I decided to back track and use the leaking pump anyway.  It's about 10 AM now.  To this point, the day had been hectic but tolerable.

The runoff of the Imperial Stout went fine, but a bit slow.  It was a 3 hour transfer that Ben masterfully supervised.  We then went to run off the second runnings, which went about as slow as the Imperial Stout.  It's now 3 PM, and on a typical brewday we're just about finished at this point.  About 6 BBL of the second runnings were in our whirlpool (we didn't have any place to put the wort) when the mash stuck.  After about two hours of Ben and Tyler trying to unstick it, I told them to forget the second runnings batch and lets just empty the mash tun.  

We stuck a 55 gallon drum under the mash tun (which is filled to the brim with water and grain) and opened the dump valve.  Nothing comes out, so I poke a hole in the grain bed with a stainless steel paddle and it starts flowing.  I go to check on how full the drum is, and decide to put a bit more in there.  I open the valve, and the mash forcefully falls into the drum.  It is flowing everywhere.  I try to close the valve, but it's jammed.  Mash and 170 degree water is flying everywhere.  It's a tidal wave of hot shit, all over my arms, legs, in my boots, and the brewery is a disaster.  I'm cussing, running around in frustration, and in pain.  Tyler gives it a shot to close the valve, and eventually the drum fills and the flow slows.  After a few minutes of trying to comprehend the situation (the brewery has a few inches of water and mash everywhere) Ben notices the stainless steel paddle is coming out of the valve.  Tyler and him fish it out of the mash tun, and we close the valve.

After several hours of cleanup, I leave the remainder of the batch for Tyler and Ben to complete.  Thanks guys for finishing up!  I have a few burn blisters on my hand and my leg, but nothing too bad.  I'd like to say I'm lucky, but the day was too horrid to say anything about luck.

I already hate this beer.  I'm condemning it to bourbon barrels for over a year, and hopefully I'll forgive it at that point.  The starting gravity is 31 P, and with the sugar additions during fermentation, should be around 37 P.  We're aiming for a 20% ABV beer, but I'm sure fermentation will stick, just because the beer despises me.

When you wonder why the beer costs so much, or why I hate it so passionately, you'll now know.  It doesn't have a name yet, but expect it to reflect my opinion about it and the day we had making it.

Some photos of the disaster:

Selling Beer and Being Reviewed

When Tyler and I brewed our first batch, he asked me with excitement something along these lines: "You gotta be so excited right now!  We're finally brewing!"  He hadn't brewed anything in a few months after leaving BJ's West Covina to become a glorified handyman at The Bruery, so he was feeling great about getting back to his normal routine.  I quickly agreed, it was a great feeling after the previous ten months, when so many days I felt like The Bruery wasn't going to happen.  I told Tyler, "I can't wait until I sell my first beer.  That's when I'll know this is really happening."  

I'm very happy to finally have my beer out on store shelves.  Cash flow is great, but I'm most excited about sharing my beer and hearing what people have to say.  So far, the reviews (to my face) have been glowing.  That's to be expected-- not too many people are going to tell me directly that my beer sucks.  It still feels good.  There's also reviews that are not for my purposes, but for those interested in tracking their beers and sharing with others whether a beer is good or not.  I've been told by many brewers to ignore reviews of my beers on beer rating sites such as BeerAdvocate and Rate Beer.  Most brewers do look at the reviews from time to time, and it can lead to frustration and anger.

Of course, I check my reviews several times a week.  I can't resist.  So far, they've been very good.  The positive reviews reaffirm my own taste in beer and validate I'm achieving what I set out to do.  The negative ones are not easy to read.  Reviews that are less than glowing often show me where things are going wrong, so it gives me information to improve the way we make our beer.  So far, they have largely been a result of poor servings (yeasty dregs from kegs of Saison Rue being a big one), so we're changing our approach to avoid this in the future.  Don't expect to see much in the way of "keg conditioned" beers from us anymore.  

I appreciate that someone would take the time out of their day to write about my beer.  It's invaluable information and I plan on continuing to read the reviews. 

While I'm Working On The Budget...

Tyler just sent me this picture of the BrewCommune / The Bruery booth at the Southern California Homebrew Festival in Lake Casitas, happening right now.  I was supposed to go, but instead I'm sitting on my couch, working on The Bruery budget for future years.  I'm trying not to pity myself, but not doing a very good job at it.

The banner looks pretty sharp though.  Thanks to Tyler for representing us at the festival.

12 Days Til the Yeast Arrives...

The completion of the construction schedule now revolves around an order of yeast.  We are expecting our first yeast pitch from White Labs on the 22nd.  Yeast is a delicate organism, and should be used soon after propagation for it to work under the most favorable conditions.  I'd like to pitch it in a propagation batch on the 22nd to get enough yeast for a 30 bbl batch of Batch No. 01 and the following batch.

There's still a lot of work to complete, but it's not impossible that we'd be ready for the propagation batch on the 22nd.  The key areas to finish are in welding, electricity to the brewing equipment, auger installation, utilities (gas/electric) approval, and City / Health Department approval.  

It's not really about the yeast, but more about setting a deadline and doing everything in my power to meet that deadline.  It's about getting this brewery up and running after a long 9 months of trying to get this off the ground.

Despite all of the tasks remaining, The Bruery is finally looking like a brewery.  The brewhouse and all tanks are leveled and anchored, almost all equipment is in our possession, and my enthusiasm about running a brewery is as high as ever.  

It is hard to believe that a year ago I was putting together a business plan and looking around aimlessly for a location that would be perfect for a brewery-- mostly I just wanted floor drains already there.  Finding floor drains already installed was my goal, because I thought that would be the most expensive part of the construction process.  It's funny looking back on how little I knew.  It is humbling and frightening to realize that I'll think a year from now and have the same thought on how little I knew a year ago about running a brewery.  It'll certainly be a learning experience.  

I look forward to sharing my failures and successes with you.

Still Here and Working

More than two weeks and no new blog posts can't be a good thing, so I had to break the vicious trend.  I'll be catching up with all of the progress over the next day, but I'll give you a sneak preview:

The glycol chiller was placed, insulation installed, Rachel's recovering nicely from surgery but now has bronchitis and still isn't back to work, dozens of miscellaneous tasks too dull and ordinary to mention have been completed, had my brother drive from Portland to get a refrigerated trailer here a few weeks ago, yesterday found that the trailer was stolen from the Bruery parking lot, police are called, lots of drama, and so on.

Which brings us to the important question-- when's the first batch going to be brewed?  January-- very late January.

Big Love- Bruery Edition

Hey Guys, it's Rachel here. I just realized my last post was about 4 months ago. I decided to write to dispel the rumor that Pat tried to sell me on the streets to get more capital. However, it was definitely talked about.

I am writing to announce that Patrick and I have become polygamists- our second wife being The Bruery. She has recently tried aggressively to take over my position as first wife- demanding more and more of my husband's time and energy. First she was constantly complaining that she didn't get a ring, so Patrick insisted on buying her all this stainless brewing equipment to appease her, which is WAY more than any diamond. Then she was upset that we didn't take her on the honeymoon to GABF this fall, even though we wore her name on our t-shirts. Things escalated more and more, and her demands for a makeover were unrelenting. Pat finally gave in and agreed to give her a whole new look from the ground up, complete with a full staff. Man- he gets mad at me for getting my hair cut!!!

He has spent the last week at around 12 hours a day in her company. Even our dates on the weekend involve checking in on her. He has informed me that it will most likely remain that way for the rest of the month, and probably more so when he can actually start using her. My special qualities are overshadowed by her shininess- literally. I brought him lunch when he was with HER yesterday and I swear she just glared at me and showed off her new colors. And do you even know how many times Patrick has asked me "Why can't you be more like The Bruery?" As I see it, the only advantage is that since she is younger, she can be the one to have the babies- i don't think it would be so bad to push a child out of a mash tun. Bad picture there- sorry.

Our bruery dog Barley would like to be the 3rd wife, which is a possibility now that his two mounds of manliness have been removed. However, he refuses to sign the prenuptial agreement so things are at a stand still.

There is a lesson to this story- if you are going to consider polygamy, especially if it is with a brewery, make sure the wives will get along. Luckily I am in love with The Bruery, and fully support all that my husband does for her. Although if you ask me that again on x-mas morning- after the presents are opened and I have seen what she gets, you may get a different response.

Posting From a Dark Spot in the Warehouse

Here's a different post. Not for the purpose of information or entertainment, but simply because I don't feel like doing anything else.

I'm sitting here, listening to the drywall guys chat and giggle in a language I can't understand (add to the to-do list: learn Spanish), and I'm thinking "When the hell are they going to be done so I can go home?" They framed the 'vestibule' last week. The vestibule is the box-like wall around my cargo door, designed to keep the vermin away. Now they are applying tape and some sort of paste to the joints of the drywall. They worked on this yesterday and they planned to finish up the job then. At 6 PM I decided I needed to go home since I had been at the brewery for 12 hours that day, and about 10 minutes later the circuit breaker blows at my neighbors (who are graciously providing a electrical cord for me so I have power), so they went home. That's why I'm hanging around until they finish-- because I really want them to finish.

Tyler started work on Monday. I didn't have too much work to give him as there's no equipment to setup until the flooring is in place. He took the initiative to order safety equipment from a catalog he had ordered the week before. We went to lunch at Hollingshead's, made a few friends with folks interested in "What the hell is 'The Bruery'?", and tried out some beers for the tasting tomorrow night. Tyler had school today, but has a nice full day ahead of him with moving the equipment to the brewing area. He promised he would post to the blog for the first time discussing equipment installation.

Speaking of the winter beer tasting at Hollingshead's, tomorrow's the night. Tickets have been sold out for awhile. I'll be speaking about all of the beers being poured except for Sam Adams Winter Lager, which will be presented by the local Sam Adams rep. A Chapman Grad student in the Food Sciences program will also be talking about the hops used in Belgian beers. Should be a good night, and I should really think about what I'm going to say!

Back to The Bruery, things are coming along quickly, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The next three weeks will be crazy busy, but I need to get open and make some beer so it's worth it.

Hell yes, the drywall guys just finished up, and now I can go home. Only 11.5 hours spent here today.

Flip Flops Don't Work in Breweries

I should really know better. I was dragging around this awkwardly shaped rusty mild steel handrails around the brewery to send them to the scrap dealer and I was wearing my flip flops (i.e. thongs). I always wear flip flops because I don't like wearing socks, and it's part of the liberation I get to experience as a brewer. I get to wear flip flops and walk around my brewery and dress like a bum because I can. Anyway, a sharp edge of this rusty piece of crap came across my foot, causing a good deal of blood loss. Actually, it wasn't that bad, but I'll be wearing shoes from here on out. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow to get a tetanus booster shot. I'm not a big fan of shots, but it's better than lockjaw.



I hope this image doesn't show up on a foot fetish website (at least without me getting royalties).

Happy Birthday, Patrick!

Our Patrick turns a young 27 today. That's right, he is an eighties child, and some of you may be old enough to be his father or mother, or atleast had the opportunity to babysit.

Oh, but he is wise beyond his years. From taking up the occasional cigarette when he was 5, to getting his first computer job when he was 12, and finding the love of his life at a mere 16, Patrick has always been ahead of the game. And he has the grays to prove it!!

So 3 cheers for our owner/brewer!!!

-Rachel

PS- the picture is of our adorable niece and nephew, taken by our talanted sister-in-law. I am not sure if she does beer glamour shots though.

Brewed at Left Coast and Stacked Pallets

Yesterday I had the opportunity to brew with Rick Smets at Left Coast Brewery, the production brewery for Oggi's in San Clemente. Rick is a great guy and a very knowledgeable brewer, so I picked his brain as I helped him brew a batch of hefeweizen. I found out Left Coast is going to start bottling their IPA, stout, and Hop Juice in 22 oz. bottles. They are all great beers, I recommend seeking them out. They were going to bottle Hop Juice yesterday, but their new bottling line is still being worked out. I also helped out with the filtering of their IPA with their plate and frame filter. I'm glad I won't be filtering, it's a bitch! It's amazing to see the difference between an unfiltered beer and a filtered beer. We started at 5:15 AM and finished up around 1 PM, leaving me the rest of the day to work on my own brewery.


After brewing in the morning, I didn't feel like doing much for the rest of the day. I sucked it up and decided to do something about my bottle storage problem. After 4 hours of moving stuff around and carefully stacking pallets, I can see that ordering this many bottles will work for me. Here's some before and after pictures:
Before:

After:


As a sidenote, I get a lot of enjoyment visiting brewers and getting to know them. There are so many passionate, generous, interesting people in the brewing industry, and I feel lucky that I get to work in this business alongside them. I hope they feel the same way about me (don't worry, I won't always ask this many questions or be this annoying!), and I look forward to doing my share of helping out new brewers and brewery owners. Alright, enough sucking up.

Is this why they call it the "Babble Belt"?

Serious Belgian beer lovers and homebrewers are regulars of the Burgundian Babble Belt, so I thought it would be appropriate to let the knowledgeable homebrewing message board members know about the "Batch No. 01" competition. There's some interesting discussion about the language I included in the entry form:

"The Bruery intends to produce this batch as a one time offering, although we reserve the right to brew this recipe as a year-round or a seasonal offering without further compensation to the winning brewer."

It came to the attention of one that this gives me free reign to take the winning homebrewers recipe and run with it. That person is right, it does give me the ability to do just that. Law school taught me that I need to CMA (cover my ass), and I don't think I should have to pay royalties for a recipe, especially when it was freely submitted to me in the first place. I explained myself and my intent behind this contest, and some people came to support my point of view. It's a pretty interesting read if you're having a slow day:

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/thread.html?tid=1108752780&th=1183994489&pg=1&tpg=1&add=1

Trip to San Diego

Rachel and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary around North San Diego yesterday. We went to the Wild Animal Park in the morning, which was fun. Going for a few hours was perfect though, I couldn't see myself spending all day there. Of note during our trip there, we saw two desert turtles getting it on:



I'm glad someone's getting some on my anniversary! (Just kidding, sweetheart!)

We then had an excellent lunch at the Stone World Bistro. We split the Spud Buds (pretty damn good!), and I had the Tikka Masala with a bourbon barrel aged Sierra Nevada Celebration, and Rachel had the Bruchetta BLT with the Craftsman Triple White Sage. The people at Stone put a lot of attention into the details of that restaurant, it was a great experience.

We met with Greg Koch, Stone's Co-Founder and CEO, and prodded him about the brewery business. Greg's a great guy and was very willing to share his expertise with me. Stone has seen huge success in their short 11 years in business and I think this is in large part due to Greg's business sense and vision for the direction of the brewery. Thanks for the advice, Greg!

We spoke briefly about The Bruery serving beer at the 11th Anniversary celebration, and I hope we'll be pouring there. By mid-September, we will hopefully have a few batches in the works, but they likely won't be ready to serve at the festival. If we're pouring our beers, we'll be serving some of our beers brewed on our 10 gallon Beer, Beer and More Beer (B3) system. I love going to the Stone anniversary festivals so I'm anxious to serve our beers at the event.

We moved on to Lost Abbey / Port Brewing in San Marcos, just 5 minutes away from Stone. This was Stone's first brewery, and it's always exciting visiting this brewery. Things seem to change on a weekly basis here. There's always something new going into the barrels, coming out of the barrels, and the people who work here are a lot of fun to hang around. Tomme was on a trip to beer-related trip to Italy (lucky bastard). We got to talk with Bo Winegarner, the assistant brewer here. Bo and I met the first time at the homebrew judging for the Orange County Fair, and since I've seen him at a lot of homebrew judgings. It's awesome that he's working at such an exciting and innovative brewery.

Lost Abbey has a very loyal following, and there were quite a few people hanging out on a Friday afternoon. Whenever I visit The Lost Abbey / Port Brewing, I'm always a bit surprised how friendly and approachable everyone is. It's a fun place to hang out. Whenever we open up our brewery to tastings, I hope there will be a similar atmosphere. I saw many familiar faces while we were there, and got to speak with a few people who actually read this blog. You guys must be really bored! Rachel says I need to make this blog more interesting, so there's a chance it'll be more interesting to read in the near future. I'll probably just post more pictures. Didn't I just post turtles humping? It's getting better already.

It was great to meet Julian, a homebrewer and fellow beer geek from our neck of the woods in Garden Grove. I asked him if he was going to submit anything to our homebrew competition, but he doesn't have any Belgian beers at the moment. He just did brew a malt liquor though, something that could fit into the Specialty Beer category of our competition. Forget the 750 mL champagne bottle shipment, we're going straight to 40's. I've heard great things about Julian's beers (especially his IPA's), so I hope he'll be able to enter something. I'm sure his Malt Liquor ("Thundertrain"?) kicks ass too, literally.

As a final note, The Lost Abbey is one of the breweries I look to for inspiration and techniques on how I'll be making my beers. Of particular interest is their barrel aging techniques. I'm looking forward to aging many of our beers in oak, and these guys know how to do it right. If you've ever had Cuvee de Tomme or Angel's Share, you know what I'm talking about. Check out the barrels at Lost Abbey (this is a fraction of what they have aging at the brewery):

ABC Visit, Didn't Submit Plans to City

Just a quick update on what's been going on. Yesterday I had a site visit from the ABC. They checked the measurements of the building, and confirmed I was running a production brewery for sales to retailers, not direct sales at this time. They were cheerful and seemed to be happy to be dealing with a brewery. They told me that they were just about ready to issue the license. They are going to hold off on issuing it until I tell them I'm a few weeks away from production beginning, as production (or sales, for other types of alcohol licenses) is supposed to begin within 30 days of the license being issued.

Earlier that morning, I met with Dan Stromberg from George Fisher. They manufacture pre-fabricated insulated ABS plastic glycol lines, pretty nice stuff. I'll probably go with their insulated lines, as my glycol run is relatively short and having them done right could save a lot of money in the long run from cooling loss. The building I'm in is very warm, especially towards the ceiling, so the more insulation, the better.

On Tuesday, I was supposed to go with my contractor to the city. At the last moment, I remembered I never had structural calculations done on the glycol chiller being mounted on the roof. We figured it's pretty important to get calculations for putting a 1,400 lb. unit on the roof of a relatively old building, so we're working on that now. If the structural calculations were completed, I wouldn't have submitted anyway. The inspector who would review the plans over the counter is on vacation for two weeks. We could have submitted through another inspector, but that could have been problematic, as we would be dealing with more than one inspector in that case. We just want to deal with one inspector so there aren't any conflicts between what the two inspectors require of us. My plans also are not very good, so I'm improving those to the best of my abilities. I wish I hired an architect right now.

As a side note, my strategy for opening a brewery on a tight budget is that I am doing many of the tasks to keep my labor costs low. I don't have talent or experience in many of these areas, so I'm learning quickly, but now is really not the time to learn. If you are considering opening a business, either learn before you start paying rent, or hire someone who knows what they are doing. Don't plan to pay people in beer. That might work for family and friends, but it doesn't fly for other people. Perhaps when I start cranking out beer, it'll work, but promises of beer in a few months hasn't worked so far.

I did go to the city to get a permit for putting in a 200 amp, 3 phase power service. I signed the lease based on a building with three phase power, which most of my equipment requires. It turned out I only had single phase, so I've been dealing with Edison in bringing in three phase to this part of the building. Luckily, they approved it and now my electrician can start on bringing in that power. I'm able to keep the single phase service also, so that will help out quite a bit.

Coming up with a name

The name of the brewery ("The Bruery") is not exactly self explanatory, but it might as well be. My last name is Rue, and I wanted a name that is distinctive, hard to forget, but still simple. So I incorporated "Rue" into "Brewery", and came up with "Bruery". It doesn't sound right without "The" in front of it, so it's "The Bruery". Wish I had a better story to share, but that's it! When I was homebrewing, my home brewery was named "The Bruery". It sounded odd at first, but it grew on me. I don't think I could call my craft brewery anything else.

As for how it's pronounced, I pronounce it like it reads (brew-ry), not like brew-ery. I don't really care how you pronounce it though, as long as you enjoy the beer.

The names of my beers won't follow this model of naming. I want them to have their own identity, but also be recognizable as a product of The Bruery.

Enough of this for now. Thanks for reading, by the way.