It will be worth it in the end, especially because I’ll be able to say “Hey, see that? I helped make that.” As someone who does not self-identify as “handy,” this is a nifty proposition. (It is worth noting, however, that I received a wet-dry vacuum from my wife for Christmas. So I’m like halfway there, right?)
Sorry it's blurry. I guess I was either cold or shaking with excitement at the thought of getting my hands on the upcoming Tyvek sheet.
Tuesday we met to install a layer of Tyvek on the walls of the cooler rooms. Tyvek, I learned, is a paper/plastic-like material that comes in rolls. It acts as an air and water barrier, so we were putting it on top of the insulation to further isolate the chambers.
You might say that Ethan's a staple of our brewery.
Ethan remarked that it was like wrapping a present. Which it was: an exceptionally big present, which for some reason needs to only be wrapped on the inside, and with staples instead of tape because we wrap like assholes.
From here we took the sheets into the chambers and stapled them to the beams. Working with the Tyvek in this way involved a lot of moving it around slightly, and as such I can report back that Tyvek is apparently made out of the same material as Sun Chips bags. I’m pretty sure The Who could have shown up and started playing a set in the brewery and I wouldn’t have noticed with the loudness of the crinkling as I stoically held up some Tyvek for Greg to affix to the ceiling.
There’s still work to be done, cooler-wise. For one, we figure there should probably be doors on them. That seems like a good idea. We also have to put up the final layer of wall material and install the Coolbots to actually cool the rooms.
We’ll have some time, as the construction we aren’t involved with should be wrapping up this month, and there’s still the SLA to contend with. On that front, we’ve confirmed that they received our additions, so we’re progressing nicely!
Ah, the week between Christmas and New Year’s. When nothing ever gets done, right?
Well, yes and no.
It’s true that we all took some time to relax and enjoy our families. After everyone had left on Christmas evening I settled in with my bottle of Heatwave, the prototype American Barleywine that Rudy had made, and played two games of Forbidden Island. My four adventurers drowned both games, but it was still fun. And besides, I had an excellent beer.
We’ve been playing more than board games, though. Why, just today I picked up these lovely fellows:
Stickers!
That’s right, the Kickstarter stickers are in and, in my admittedly biased opinion, they look pretty spiffy. The growler koozie design prototype is nearly done, and by next week we’ll have the prototype design for the glasses and shirts.
Then there’s the SLA: this morning our revised paperwork was resubmitted to the state, and while we know it’s not going to happen tomorrow or anything it will hopefully be the last time we have to correct anything.
Now that Kickstarter is over, you’d think that we would be sitting back and taking turns diving through our pile of money, McDuck-like. Far from it!
We offered the ability to give a pledge as a gift for Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus or what-have-you, and I was pleased to see that people took us up on the offer. Some letters were mailed out today and some were sent as PDF attachmentss to be wrapped up by the giver themselves. It’s likely too late to get physical letters sent out, but if you’re one of the 36 people who haven’t filled out the survey yet and you were planning on giving the gift of CBW we’ll be more than happy to send you a digital letter to print out.
It's a DOORWAY! Maybe that's not exciting to you. It's awesome, though.
Work on the rewards is under way as well. The coasters, well, you’ve seen them being made. Stickers should be ordered by the end of the week, and soon afterward the growlers and pint glasses and shirts and so on. It will be a shade over a month before the physical rewards are ready, due to them having to be, y’know, made, but we’ll keep everyone informed.
In non-Kickstarter news: both the SLA and construction on the brewery are progressing well. We’ve been fingerprinted and now the state has sent back the inexplicable yet inevitable list of things we need to fix, amend or change. It’s a law of nature that no matter how carefully you look over your application, no matter how many times you check and double check and confirm that everything is right, well, it won’t be. Let’s call that the Camazotz Principle.
Mill room: now walled in and fireproof!
It’s still good news, though. As soon as I’m done writing this I’ll amend my personal questionnaire and then we’ll be about ready to send in our changes. We’re moving through the system, and even if it might at times seem like a glacial pace it’s still forward progress. The end is in sight.
And construction? It’s like an entirely different building! There are walls, man. The wall that Kickstarter backers are going to sign, right there. The mill room is enclosed, the sink is where it’s going to be, we have a doorway! Most of one, at least. The concrete has been poured for the sidewalk leading up the side of the building into said doorway, which is how all of you are going to enter the building to get beer.
Why, the only other thing I could ask for right now is some snow.
After 42 days, 237 backers came together and raised $17,516.57 for our project. That’s $417.06 per day, though of course some days were better than others. I’ll write a long post sometime in the future with more information and advice for anyone thinking of doing their own Kickstarter project. It may be a while down the road, as it seems like a good idea to be finished handing out the rewards and so on in case something interesting crops up. In the mean time, if you have any questions please email me.
Ethan has just enlogoed a coaster. Yeah, we put "en-" in front of any noun to make it a verb. It's our thing.
Now then, the rewards. A survey will be going out soon (likely tomorrow) to all our backers. Once you give us your address, shirt sizes, etc all you need to do is sit back and wait while we put the rewards together for you. If you’re splitting up your pledge for multiple levels as gifts we’ll need to talk a bit more, but it should be smooth sailing for everyone.
We’ve already begun work on pressing coasters. Kickstarter backers know this already, but on Saturday we headed to the WNY Book Arts Center to use their press. We had already done a batch of black designs and so they set us up with a custom mixed green paint this time. I think they look awesome, and it was very interesting to see all the printing apparatuses they have. I’ve been becoming increasingly interested in handmade printing thanks to seeing others (with more talent) do it, and while I haven’t actually made anything except about 15 coasters last Saturday I’m excited to head back to WNYBAC in the future and get my print on.
We recorded a short video while we were there, and while I’m sure it shows that it was filmed and edited on an iPhone I think it does a good enough job of showing you the process. The coaster printer is quite a piece of machinery, and it was a lot of fun to embed our logo onto formerly blank coasters.
Endless fields of coasters
One final note: Kickstarter is an awesome site (I backed three other projects during the time that ours ran), and WNYBAC is also running a project right now! In The Basement, No One Can Hear You Screen has three days left and has already met its goal, but why not help out another great local cause?
Again, from the bottoms of our hearts: thank you, and let’s all embeer Buffalo!
There’s less than a week left in our Kickstarter project. We’re currently funded at $16,367, or 109% of our goal. We will be getting the money, and that is very, very exciting.
Last week’s post laid out the case for why you should still donate. It’s still worth reading, and even if we don’t make it to any of the secondary goals I mentioned we still love you all. As friends; most of us are married.
Now that we’re into the final days of the project, we thought we would up the ante. We have two new options to perhaps sweeten the deal. If you’d prefer not to have your deal sweetened, that’s fine, but we think these are both interesting options.
I can see through walls!
Update the first: Give the gift of local beer
It’s 17 days until Christmas. That’s shocking to me, and not just because as of now there’s no snow on the ground (I personally quite enjoy snow and can’t get into a festive mood without it; I don’t speak for CBW as a whole). Perhaps you don’t know what to get the beer lover in your life, or you’d like to add in a little something extra. Let us help.
You will be able to mark any donation as a gift for someone else. They’ll get notified when things are ready, they’ll get to sign the wall and they will get to go to any Kickstarter only events (if applicable). None of the rewards will be ready by Christmastime, but in their stead we will send a nice letter (to them or you, if you’d like to wrap it) informing them that a donation has been made in their name and detailing what rewards they’ll be getting.
We’re also making it possible to have two rewards with one backing: let’s say you want to get yourself the $50 level and give a friend the $25. You can pledge $75 and we’ll make that happen. You can include three rewards in one pledge, or four, and so on. Any amount can be split into smaller amounts.
“Isn’t this going to make logistics more complicated?” Yes, almost certainly. But as the person who will be responsible for it all, I think the idea is good enough to more than make up for the potential headache of adding more rows in a spreadsheet.
Share the cheer. Give someone you know a CBW Kickstarter package.
Look ma, it's insulated!
Update the second: double down
No, not the pile of grease masquerading as a KFC sandwich.
As of today, the $50 level (and all levels above it) contain two Kickstarter exclusive glasses. That means switching from the $25 level to the $50 gives you an additional glass as well as a Kickstarter exclusive t shirt. We think it’s worth the upgrade, and we hope you’ll agree.
To be clear: this applies to everyone at or above the $50 level, even if you had already backed the project. You get an extra glass, and you get an extra glass. Everyone! Gets! An extra glass! We’re not in the business of punishing those of you who made our project successful. The $500 level and above isn’t doubled to four glasses, however. Sorry.
Other Kickstartery goodness
Now, we understand that it might help our case if we could unveil what the glass will, in fact, look like. We had hoped to do that in this update but it will unfortunately have to wait a little bit. Take this to heart, though: we are confirming that it won’t be a shaker pint. We’re waiting on a quote from the glass company, and we don’t want to announce a glass only to find out it’s twice as expensive as its peers. Another nanobrewery did announce in the past day that they’ll be using the shape, however. Hunt away if you’re really dedicated.
There’s no glass design, but how about a sticker? The iconic image at the top of this section was created by Craft Beer Talk‘s Chris Groves and will be adorning the sticker coming with every reward. Stick it somewhere and be reminded of your mission! Buffalo is going to be embeered, and you’re playing a part.
Next week: the total raised, and hopefully some more reward mockups.
