Displaying CBW posts.

!) I said this would be sporadic.  I did not lie.

1) Well, the “OMG That Was A Big Freakin Deal” conference that hit ol’ Buffalo last month is really over and done now, though the chatter and back-patting continues.  I mean, I am talking about it, right? I got to play tour guide for a few hours and explain what happened in the Perot Malt House down Concrete Atlantis way.  Friend of CBW Brian Castner wrote an interesting piece over at WNYMedia.net, essentially asking “Hey! Did you know Buffalo is staking it’s future on architectural preservation instead of, say, BioMedical Research or Higher Education?”  I’m not sure sure “we” “did,” but even if we did, I am absolutely sure that prioritizing one thing doesn’t mean other things are off the table.  Let’s talk Embeering and Architecture for about a paragraph.

Form AND Function, Mr. Sullivan.

Community Beer Works is located in an historic building–part of the Meyer Malting Company complex–which we are adapting (to meet our needs) and re-using (vs., I suppose, tearing it down).   There was a great article about Meyer in that Beer Issue of The Buffalo Spree earlier this year, by the way.  Now, in locating in this building, I wouldn’t put us on a par with, say, McMenamin’s, but we’re in the same vein.  We searched high and low for a good spot and this location combines everything we love: adaptive reuse, space for the present & the future, adjacency to a neighborhood & our target demographic, and of course, proximity to inexpensive but deliciously filling pasta fasool.  But you wanna see what an old brewery could be?  See that photo?  Just click here, here and here.  Indeed, that very project was given a Board of Advisors’ Award during the conference in Buffalo.  Just imagine if Buffalo’s old Lang brewery had not been razed… and half a dozen other great old local breweries, for that matter.

Now of course, we could build a brewery just anywhere, or go into any ol’ space what was available and met our need.  The modern brewery is far more likely to look like this than like the aforementioned Lang brewery did, no question.  Cheaper, I’m sure, and depite it’s banal exterior, Lagunitas makes impressively awesome beer.  But we’re contributing not just beer, but also to neighborhood revitalization here, and it is thus more broadly consistent with our philosophy and ethos.  If we were in a quonset hut, we’d make the same amazing beers we aim to make on Lafayette, but I hazard to say our Embeering would be less-than-complete.  But hey, that’s us.  What other up-and-coming brewey startups in the area do is up to them, and we support them regardless.  Still, can you imagine if beer was rolling out of the old Simon Pure building again some day?  Don’t laugh: I’ll give you double nickles on the dime that it does one day, not too distant even.

jammed econo

2) Stanford MBAs + beer + The Economist = this.  Course, I don’t have to tell anyone reading this blog that drinking goes well with endeavors actuarial & fiduciary.  And that, my friends, is the kind of vocabulary to you can have if you read The Economist regularly.  Other cool features this week?  America could use a political middle right about now (er, ok; I’d settle for a middle class, thanks); Qaddafi–like Osama and Sadam before him–gets an obituary (I know it’s from 22nd October, but hey, I’m catching up on back issues here, mm’k?); What’s happening in Greece, explained; So how did those Vikings navigate, anyway?  I know: I just didn’t talk about beer for a second there- hold on, it’s coming.

3) Did you catch all the furor, the rending of clothes, the nail-biting and vehemence that accompanied the release of the Oxford Companion To Beer?  No?  Oh.  Well… all those links will certainly get you up to speed- don’t skip the comments, they are where all the fun is really at, I would say.  <sigh.>  Now, I do spend a lot of time thinking about, reading about, drinking about beer- so I feel I’m as far down the rabbit hole as anyone else, frankly.  But some of commentary takes things a bit too far, at least in terms of making it personal.  Sorry, you seem to be right when you say the book is imperfect… though it is hardly shocking that a book with 1100 entries would have errors. You might still be right to say that some of the myths it purpetuates about the history of beer would not have taken much energy to correct.  You can even be right that, of all imprints, the Oxford University Press really ought to have done a better job, being the voice of authority that it is.  I don’t diasgree with any of that.

Who's Your Daddy?

But the tone of some of the detractors, to me, is impertinent, unnecessary, uncivil, and makes me want to say: Relax, folks, and have a beer.  I am sure further editions will be better, and in the meanwhile A Good Beer Blog‘s Alan McLeod has set up an excellent wiki, so you can feel free to read an entry in the Companion, and double-chceck to see if anyone’s called it out yet, and if so, their references and authority in so doing.  I will bet double nickles on the dime (damn Minutemen reference again!) you’ll find very few corrections on the technical entries. As for the history… it can (like all things historical) take its sweet time coming unto perfection, if indeed perfection is possible.  Yes, it’s scholarship, and yes, scholars get snippy… but this is beer scholarship.  Let’s keep it classy and casual, as we like our pubs.

4) What happened to Squibs 3?  Wouldn’t you like to know!

5) The 5th and obligatory Squib sometimes is an obscure reference, a link to a strange YouTube video search (like ‘beer metal‘), or other minutae… but y’know, we do have our Kickstarter on, and so it seems like somewhere in public–and in bold italics!–we ought to give thanks and praise to Marc Odien of WNYMedia.net for helping us with the oh-so-clever-and-meta-video we’re using to convince folks we’re for real.  So: hey! Marc! THANKS!  Now remember, Tuesday is election day, so get on out there and vote for something, k?  If any kind of beer-maker were running, we’d endorse them, but since none are (locally anyway, we do support Paul Dyster For Mayor in Niagara Falls) we simply endorse taking the time to have a beer after the heavy lifting that is your civil responsibility.  Cheers!

It’s true, it’s true, it’s all true. CBW is once again hitting the ol’ I-R-L.

What the- WHO DUG A HOLE IN THE BREWERY?

To begin: did you know this Tuesday is TedX Buffalo? It is! From 9-5 there will be all let’s of awesome, educational and enlightening speeches being given by WNY natives. The entire proceedings will be streaming online if, like me, you’re stuck at a job instead of being one of the 100 lucky attendees.

Why does this matter? Well, let’s check the schedule and- oh my, look at that! The very first speaker is one Ethan Cox of Community Beer Works, talking about the potential of Buffalo to rebuild its pre-prohibition “bierkultur.” 9am. Be there.

Then, Saturday the 22nd CBW will be at the groundbreaking of the Horsefeathers Community Market. Rather than do our Bidwell routine of brewing a batch of beer, we have some other nifty ideas planned to educate folks on the process of brewing beer. We hope to see you there (5-10pm).

Finally, and most importantly: you know how everyone is always saying “if you need any help, let me know”? And how I always respond “when we do, we’ll let you know”? I’m letting you know.

Oh cool you put in a drain, never mind

Next Saturday, October 15, we’re going to be taking some of the construction on the brewery into our own hands. More specifically, we’re sledgehammering the crap out of the side of the brewery, demolishing the shared wall we have with Abaca Press next door so that it can be turned into the main entrance to the building. Do you like smashing things with something you pretend is Mjolnir? Do you like carrying absurd amounts of smashed concrete to a dumpster? Then do we have an opportunity for you!

The date again is Saturday the 15th. Exact times will come next week, but plan for afternoonish. You also don’t have to pretend you’re wielding the hammer of Thor, but it’s recommended.

I had planned a different post for today. One that was our collective take on a bit of brewing news. And then, as I sat down to write it, I realized that there’s just too much exciting stuff to talk about. I’ll try to do the first “CBW Roundtable” tomorrow — three posts in one week? I know. Madness.

The most exciting news for us is that our building permit is in and prominently displayed on the front of our building. What does this mean, exactly? It means that we can do the construction necessary to turn our building into a brewery. Well, not us specifically. The construction starts in a little over a week, so we’re damn excited about it.

Now then, as you might imagine, that sort of thing requires money. I did allude to it a few weeks ago, but we’re in the process of submitting a Kickstarter proposal. If you’re not familiar with the site I’d urge you to look into it. It’s very cool, and is the sort of place where one can help fund a card game about the 1860 US presidential election. I can’t spend any more money on games, I really can’t, but you can play as Stephen A Douglas and that is amazing. Er, but I digress.

It will still be a bit until we’ll be ready to go with that, because we’re finding out what sorts of rewards are against their policy. Specifically, the ones we want to give out. I’m not saying this to complain, because it makes sense: instead, as we tend to do, I’m passing on what we’ve learned. You can’t give away discounts on merchandise or beer, for those looking to do this in the future.

What if you want to give us money now? Well, okay, send us an email. But more specifically, we’ve got a posting on th’ ol’ Craigslists, for a very nice desk in our future production area that we just don’t need. We hope you’ll take it off our hands for us.

In other progress-related news, eagle eyed visitors will notice that yet another step has been filled in on our progress thermometer at the top of our site (obligatory link to the source code of said thermometer). Our state liquor authority license is in, and we hope that gets processed as our buildout is completed. Even eagler eyed visitors might notice that I’ve swapped the second and third final stages. This is because we’ve learned that we can’t get our final SLA approval until we get our Certificate of Occupancy, which is contingent on having a completed building, meaning that we have to finish our buildout first. It’s not a big deal, and hopefully the two will be finished off in rapid succession. I’m a stickler for process, though, so I thought I would update the order.

One final note: the CBW Words With Friends Invitational is almost at a close. It’s been quite a long time, we know, but hopefully some of you are at least mildly interested in the outcome. Josh (JoshTheBrute) was knocked into the loser’s bracket in the quarterfinals by Elizabeth (econley) (my wife). He fought his way back up the ladder and is now in the finals against… Elizabeth. The drama never ends! Well, there looks to be a clear winner in the match already, but I only know that because I live with one of the participants and so I won’t give away the ending. Keep in mind that I’ve promised to buy the winner a beer, though it might take a bit before logistics make that feasible. I hope everyone involved had a good time. I don’t suppose anyone would be interested in a tournament of iOS Carcassonne or Ascension, would they?

That doesn’t fit the rhythm, I know. And yet I can’t bring myself to care. I was going to talk primarily about how next week is Buffalo Beer Week — and it is, and I will, in a little bit — but then Dave dropped a bomb on us.

You see, while not official, today we received word that our application with the TTB for our federal Brewer’s Notice will be approved.

HIGH FIVIN A MILLION ANGELS

There’s still one or two technicalities, but once we take care of them, it’s ours. All ours. This is huge. It’s reason for celebration, and tonight I rooted through my cellar for a suitable barleywine. I’m drinking Brooklyn’s 09 Monster, and if you have something tasty tonight I’d appreciate it if you raised it to us.

And then we can do it again once we actually get approval! We win twice. It’s great.

But now Buffalo Beer Week. That is also great, and it starts this Sunday! Eight days of awesome beer events in and around the city of Buffalo. You should check out the official calendar and get your dance card filled up, because it’s going to be a doozy.

Did I make a Ned Ryerson joke last week? I feel like I did. He deserves it.

Anyway, if you’re looking for just one or two events to go to, might we suggest the ones we have our hands on? There’s nothing CBW branded this year: we can’t make beer yet! Ethan created the pairings for the Shango beer dinner on Wednesday the 22. He’s also suggested the pairings for Allen St Hardware’s weeklong beer special menu. If you’d like to get a head start on the festivities, Cole’s will be releasing Ithaca’s HopStash IPA on Sunday the 19th. Rudy said Ithaca IPAs “make [him] weak in the knees,” so there’s that.

The point is that you should be going out and exploring all the beery things Buffalo has to offer! It’s a jam packed week, and will be embeered out the wazoo. Which, despite what Chrome says, totally is a word.

Now then, a bit more on last week’s BarCamp Buffalo talk. If you’d like to see the video that the folks at UNY Startups were nice enough to take of me talking (quickly but, thankfully for my grandmother and 7th grade English teacher, with decent enunciation), you should head to their Youtube channel.

And, finally, the CBW Words With Friends tournament is still progressing! In a very close match, I managed to beat HogtownHarry by a mere five points. That means it’s me (Sigafoos) vs Eric (erockthered), while Josh (JoshTheBrute) waits patiently in the wings. Below, you’ll find the bracket (and here’s a clickable link).

Surprise!

Today we launched version 2.0 of the Community Beer Works website. Well, strictly speaking it’s version 2.0.2.3.5 because I’m allowed to make those decisions, but its five digits are irrelevant.

We were going for a few things with this design, and I think we’ve hit them all pretty well: for one, it’s not the default WordPress theme. That’s kind of key. Also, it should come across as less of a blog and more of a website: we have a blog (and you’re reading it right now!) but that should only be one piece of a larger whole. There isn’t necessarily an avalanche of content elsewhere yet, but that will come once we can do silly little things like sell beer.

Speaking of that, the most prominent new feature of the site is also temporary: what I’m calling the progress thermometer. People frequently ask us when they’ll be able to buy our beer, and we wanted to make that as easy to discern as we could: we’ve done quite a lot, but there’s still quite a way to go. With any luck, the next segment will be filled in soon and we’ll be ever closer.

See, if the site looks like this, let me know.

So, then, onward to the future! What’s next?

Besides a few Super Secret Projects, the obvious answer is Monday’s Blue Monk Community Beer Workstravaganza. That’s not the official title; one of these days the others will realize I shouldn’t be left to write these things unsupervised. In any event it’s this Monday, 6-7:30 and we’d love to see you there. We’ll have free samples of our beer and a dollar of everything you buy goes to us. It should be a good time! But if you’re reading this I doubt I have to twist your arm to get you down to the Blue Monk.

And finally, Words With Friends! Yes, that’s still going on. The game with Dan (gigante) and Michelle (greatsufficiency) has ended, though it was while I was in the middle of getting the new site up so I’m afraid I don’t have an updated bracket for you. The rest of you folks, though: how’s it going? Hey. Hope you & yours are doing well. Any progress on the games? Let me know.

See you folks on Monday.