Chicago Education

Last week we visited Chicago to meet with Wiz, Half Acre Beer and Metropolitan Brewing. We arrived at about 2 pm and got settled at our homestay, dropped by Half Acre to watch them can some Daisy Cutter for a few minutes, then did a little sightseeing downtown and met with Wiz at Goose Island later that evening.

We started the next morning by walking to Half Acre where we met with Gabriel and Matt to discuss start up costs, canning, distribution and a ton of other brewery stuff. We are eternally grateful for them giving up some of their time for us.

We then went to Metropolitan Brewing for a little hands on production brewery experience. We spent several hours helping Doug clean a few pallets of kegs, and clean and sanitize a fermentor. Then they had a couple of 1/6 barrel kegs that they needed to empty in order to fill for another event. So, part of our job was to help "dispose" of some quite delicious Krank Shaft and Fly Wheel. I think we volunteered on the right day.

They were very helpful and answered all our questions with wisdom and insight. We ended our time with Doug and Tracy from Metro late night at the Hopleaf. We are better because of the time we've spent with them .

Hop Harvest

I was able to pick some ripe Centennial hops for the second week in a row. Since we only have two vines, we won't be supplying Budweiser any time soon, but its still exciting.

Yesterday we went to our first Murfreesboro Home Brewers club meeting at Liquid Smoke in Murfreesboro. It was a blast. They are some very interesting characters that know how to brew some very good beer. There was a broad range of beers to try from stouts and IPA's to sour beer and Saison. This of course has inspired Ozzy to brew some different things to take to next months meeting.

We met 3 guys who are also starting a brewery in Murfreesboro under the name Panther Creek Brews. We tasted some of their beer and it was quite good. Lookout Murfreesboro, you soon may be the beer capitol of Tennessee!