We are Brewers and Writers (who knew!?)

Check it out – we started writing articles for the Inside Howell magazine and Brighton Monthly magazine! If you get these publications, be sure to look for our articles! The March issue was just mailed out and here is what it looks like:

Throughout 2012-2013, my husband and I took a class for our business. No, it wasn’t a social media “how to class” nor was it a “Write a Business Plan in 5 Steps” class. It was a beer tasting and judging class. The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) is a formal way to recognize beer styles, classify a beer, and grade the beer based on the style description. There are five main elements to judging a beer: aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression. Everyone has different talents for perceiving aromas and flavors, so the classes helped us to understand what we were strong at and what we really needed to focus on to pick out.

We tasted every style while we were in those classes so that we could be prepared for the BJCP exams. Yes - exams, plural. The first part of the examination is an online multiple choice, timed test that is meant to see if you know styles and descriptors well enough to continue through the program. Once we passed that test, we took the tasting exam. We were given six beer samples and 15 minutes each to swirl, taste, and furiously write everything we could perceive down onto the paper in front of us. It was an intense 90 minutes!

Once we turned in our exam pages, we had to wait five months for the results in the mail. They sent us both a packet with our overall score and a thorough critique on our judging skills. The bottom line for us though? We passed! We are now officially recognized BJCP judges! We plan to use the skills we obtained to make great recipes as we start up our microbrewery, Eternity Brewing, in Howell and to host our own tasting classes to pass on the knowledge that we have obtained.

You can find the article on page 12 of the Inside Howell magazine online here:

http://emagazines.hibu.com/howell

 

Step one of renovating the brewery: The Starting Point

It took several meetings and several iterations to the brewery layout plans, but we have found the right path and we are heading down it. The first stop along that path is demolition and lots and lots of clean up! Here are some photos of the brewery in the beginning so you can follow along with us in this journey!

 Welcome to the Brewery!

 The Taproom 

The Big Picture: In the beginning...

 

This will be a picture of a brewhouse one day... 

 

 

 And this will be a picture of a bar and taps someday...

 

The other side of the glass: Is brewing beer the next extreme sport?

I found this article that says brewing could be the next extreme sport.
http://www.craftbeer.com/brewers_banter/is-brewing-beer-the-next-extreme-sport

I (Dayna) was an assistant brewer at Witch’s Hat Brewery in South Lyon for over a year. (If you haven’t been there yet, please make the trip!) I have done everything this article talks about – and while mashing in the grain to start the brew day off is important, that is only a small percent of the work that it takes to produce a good beer.

Many people are in awe when they hear I worked as an assistant brewer. Even my chiropractor who asked me, “You can lift a full keg?!” To which my response was, “only a few inches, but yeah.” (I am 5’2” and 110lb.) (Yeah, I know most ladies wouldn’t disclose that information, but I find it amusing.)

In the industry we always joke about the fact that we are really just glorified janitors. Everything has to be clean and sanitized to produce the best beer possible. There is a lot of lifting of hoses and parts, a lot of cleaning chemicals in use, and a lot of documentation of the process each batch undergoes. I don’t know if all of this means that brewing beer is an extreme sport, but the flip side is that beer seems to be necessary for many extreme sports to exist. I mean, what is a marathon run if you can’t run into the beer tent at the end?!

The women are drinking the beer!

Here is a fun beer story passed down from my mom (Dayna’s mom). I emailed her an article about how craft beer was becoming the drink of choice for women.

My mom sent me this story in response to that email:

“It goes way back, you see. I remember my Grandma Poppy enjoying a beer when I was around 7 years old. It was a real treat for her. I remember when I was at Grandma Poppy’s house, my mom would always get her a glass (yes, she liked it in a glass) of beer.

My mom always enjoyed beer too. She and your Grandpa would always drink a Strohs at night after dinner.

Now look at us! You are ready to open your brewery and I am excited to help (and sample) as we carry on the family tradition of women enjoying a good beer!”

Here is the original article that started this whole discussion. Enjoy!
http://www.northcoastbrewing.com/blog/craft-beer-replaces-wine-as-young-womens-drink-of-choice/ 

The New Year: Looking Back and Stepping Forward

We started off 2013 with an idea, an idea we were talking about for two years straight, but didn’t know how to get there. We had a grand plan to open a brewery. We didn’t know where, what it would be called, nor what size the equipment would be. We didn’t have a business plan and we didn’t have a financial model to prove to ourselves that this idea would work.

2013 was a busy year. We were newlyweds working on a dream together. It was a great year. We started going to LegUP (Livingston Entrepreneurs Group United for Prosperity). From that networking community we were introduced to many business organizations who wanted to see us succeed as much as we did. Thanks to SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives),  MI-SBTDC (Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center), the Brighton Area Chamber of Commerce, the Howell Chamber of Commerce, and LegUP, we had all the networking, business classes, and mentoring we needed to get where we are today.

What was the journey like last year? We spent the first part of the year creating a business plan and financial model. It was a lot of back-and-forth with the wonderful people at the MI-SBTDC. This included many disappointing moments (ie. We don’t have a lot of money to work with) along with many “ah-ha” moments (ie. We finally figured out the system size we could use to make the financial model make sense).

The summer time was spent scouring Livingston County for a location. We had to be conscious of available space, price per square foot, and location. Being from Howell, I knew the area well, but after four months of analyzing maps, driving around, after work meetings, and countless conversations with landlords and real estate agents, I see the Howell-Brighton area in a whole new light!

As fall settled in, we settled on a location that we wanted to pursue. We have layout drawings and we are now trying to start up work on the build-out. You can’t apply for your microbrewery licenses until you have a location. Now that we have signed the lease, all systems are “go”.  

In the coming year we hope to have our space transformed into a microbrewery with multiple taps available for a fun taproom area. It is going to be a crazy year for us. We are so thankful for our friends and family in the area that support our passion.

Happy 2014 everyone!

 

 

The Busy Christmas Season of 2013: What are we doing here?!

This Christmas season felt different than normal. We have been more busy than normal, as you can imagine! We have been working on final layout plans and build-out quotes. We have been filling out the federal and state microbrewery license applications. We have been getting final equipment quotes and preparing orders.

We just updated our website with the new location information since we just signed our lease! We also added some functionality to the website to have this blog imbedded directly. We are not PHP code masters, so we have been figuring out this website coding on the fly. Check out the new look and new information on our website!

It is fun to have the opportunity to work on so many things all at once. This is the kind of work we thrive on. However, we did enjoy a break during our family Christmas celebrations. Family is important and having family close is such a blessing. We shared some beer test batches with the family again this year and watched Christmas movie classics like Die Hard and It’s a Wonderful Life. ;-)

Cheers to 2014! May it be a wonderful year!

The Christmas Shopping Idea

We have been busy! Not only are we both still working day jobs, but we are trying to start this business (we signed for our commercial space last week!), and for the past month we moved our lives from one apartment to another.

So Christmas rolls around and it is the busiest season of all and we have yet to figure out if we will even be settled in our new apartment by the time it is time to put up a Christmas tree. I got thinking about what I am going to do for Mike’s Christmas present and of course I think of beer… again… Then I get thinking about what he will get me in return. My favorite gift that he ever gave me was a shipping box full of every kind of imperial stout he could find at the local liquor stores.

Then it hit me – the idea to top all other Christmas shopping ideas. What if we went to a store together, set ourselves a budget, and then just picked out all kinds of random craft beer?! I asked Mike what he thought of the idea and he was game. This meant we didn’t have to hide a shopping spree, hide a gift, wrap a gift, and we got to go on a mini date while picking out the gifts! I felt like a kid in a candy store. It was a wonderful trip!

Check out the picture of our loot! The worst part is deciding what to try first! Oh, and the store we went to? 8 Degrees Plato in Ferndale. It was quite the drive, and totally worth it. The place is small, but has so many corners full of fun surprises!