1 Year Later?!

Today started like any other brew day. I woke up at 5:00 am and got things going then back home to get the boys to school. At 7:00 I was back at the brewery to mash in and then make sure my “day job” wasn’t falling behind. Today’s brew is batch number 29 - a pale ale that we will tap for our Anniversary Party on Sept 25th. Things have been as stressful as ever lately trying to keep up with the brewery, another full-time job, and the home life. It got a little emotional on the brew deck (that’s a fancy term I use to describe a step ladder and boost my ego) today when I realized we’re weeks away from doing this for a whole year. The upsetting part is I still have a checklist of things to do before we open. Side note: tomorrow morning we should have our projector up and running just in time for a football season.

Anyway, I’m still not much of a blogger and won’t pretend to be but I wanted to hit pause for a minute and say thank you to Megan, our family, friends, and new brewery family that helped us get here. The dream is over a decade old and the reality is coming up on 12 months. We couldn’t have done it without an absurd amount of help from a lot of people and I will be forever grateful! So please come join us in one hell of an anniversary celebration on the 25th.

Lastly I’d like shout out to my boss’ wife, if you see this on Facebook and tell him I’m slacking off during business hours again; I would like you to know that I typed this while my work computer was doing a critical update. :)

Cheers,
Alex

It's GO TIME!!

We’ve made a ton of progress since my last blog but I’m going to try and keep this short. First we got hit by a global pandemic - oh wait, you know about that… We hired staff including a taproom manager who is going to up my social media game whether I like it or not (now would be a great time to follow us!) . We finished construction and the place is starting to look like somewhere you should be hanging out. Plus back to our great staff, our taproom manager doesn’t let me leave messes around the brewery anymore. We got our liquor license!! Okay one more time: WE GOT OUR LIQUOR LICENSE!!!! Which was waaaaaaaaaaay more difficult and time consuming than I imagined. I have to give a shout out to Mary at the OCBA for helping move things along with liquor control. We brewed 4 beers: Jim Loves a Blonde (Ale), Wheat’r North - Wheat Ale, Mask Up - Hazy IPA, and Black is Beautiful - Imperial Stout.

If you’re checking things off our to-do list, you probably noticed that is everything we need to open up. We’re planning our grand opening for this Saturday 9/26/20. An official announcement will follow shortly and we can’t wait to see you here!

Cheers!
Alex

Breaking Ground .... Literally

We are finally into construction. After several delays it is great to see some physical progress. We’ve encountered lots of “learning experiences” along the way. For example, just because you can stand on a patio, does not mean that the patio exists. You might still have to hire a civil engineer to draw what was built 15 years earlier and submit that to the city. But that is all behind us now. Our underground plumbing inspection is tomorrow. After that we get to un-break ground and we can move forward with building walls, electric work, more plumbing, and a new HVAC system. It’s all on track to be finished in April. Then we just have an inspection, an inspection, I think 3 more inspections and we get to brew beer!

Check out some more pictures on our Facebook page

Cheers,
Alex

Progress Worth Sharing

So it probably doesn’t have to be said but I might be the worst blogger ever. Fortunately, we’ve been making some progress that needs sharing so here I am. We have most of our equipment sitting in storage waiting for its forever home. I just found out that I passed my exam and I am officially a Certified Cicerone®, which basically means, I’ve spent way to much time reading, studying, and thinking about beer. And that isn’t even the big news… We signed a lease!! Spires Social lives at 8757 Sancus Blvd in Columbus, OH. We are in the heart of Polaris near plenty of restaurants, stores, and businesses. We’ve got our architect working on the plans/permits and then we’ll have a few months of construction before we’re open. We’ll share some photos and plans soon.

Happy Birthday America!

Cheers,
Alex

Location, location, location!!

This summer has been flying by!  We have most of our equipment selected but we're still working on getting the perfect home for it.  We found a place that could be great but we're currently digging into the construction and building requirements before signing the lease.  Its been keeping us very busy talking to architects, contractors, building officials, etc.  

Fortunately we did find some time to relax and get back to our craft.  We brewed a blonde ale that is light and sweet - a regular crowd pleaser.  We also have a Gose bubbling away which is my first sour brew.  I'm still getting used to the idea that its okay to have lactobacillus in my beer but I think its going to become a gateway into sour beers.  

Things are going to start moving quicker for Spires Social.  I'll be sure to be better about posting updates here.  Until next time, enjoy your favorite summer brew!

Cheers,

Alex

Crowdfunding

We kicked off a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.  Thanks goes out to Land Grant for hosting our celebratory party and to everyone who came out.  We had some fun with beer trivia and a beer naming contest (what kind of beer is Creepy Uncle?!) 

If you haven't already checked it out, you should go to our Indiegogo page right now!  Then tell all of your friends to go to the page and tell all of their friends to go to the page....   We're also working on securing a location for this venture.  I've got high hopes for a place near Maxtown and Route 3 in Westerville but I'll wait for a little more progress to announce it.  It turns out there are a lot of things that have to happen to turn a building into a (legal) brewery.  I think we've about got it all figured out.  All this brewery excitement has me wanting to brew, so I'll start documenting this batch of homebrew tomorrow when I harvest some yeast from the slant.  

Stay tuned and if you haven't already you should go check out our Indiegogo page!  

Cheers,
Alex

Our beginnings

This blog will document our journey of opening a brewery.  So fill your glass, sit back, and enjoy...

We are getting ready to launch a crowd funding campaign.  We had a blast shooting the video and we owe a huge thank you to Laura Spires, Shane Stefanchik, and Michelle DiCeglio for taking the idea and turning it into a high quality video!!  They're pretty amazing and you should definitely check out their other work at MadLab.  We're finishing up a few more details for the campaign and then we'll have a kick off party to share it with the world. 

We're also looking for a location, talking with banks, researching and documenting lots... it sometimes feels a little slow moving but we're being thorough and planning every little detail which tends to pay off in the long run.  The brewery we're planning is a 10 barrel (315 gallon) system.  That will probably get pieced together from whatever I can find.  I've already started some PLC programming to automate it, so it should be a fancy "whatever I can find" brewhouse.  My homebrew setup will become our pilot and brew-on-premise system.  Homebrewing is what really grew my passion for beer so we want to spread that passion by teaching people how and we'll be a one stop shop for everything you need to pick up the hobby (that sounds better than addiction right?).  Anyway that's all for now and I'll be sure to post more once we have some exciting progress.  Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Alex