June Lake Brewing
Beer is HERE! Most of us have been patiently awaiting this day (frothing at the mouth would be closer to the truth), and it has finally come! We started down this long road over three years ago and to have it come to fruition is freaking amazing! Huge thanks to everyone that's helped us along the way, and all those still to help us get the doors open this Saturday June 21st (tomorrow) the 2014 Summer Solstice. Here's the skinny:
Stay Awesome! Justin/Sarah
3 Comments
June Lake Brewing
LET THERE BE BEER!!! That's right we're brewing it up! After receiving blessings from the building permit deities we fired up our 15bbl system and jumped right into some JLB SmoKin Porter Love. That's right our first homebrew testbatch on our pilot system was also our first production batch on the JLB production system, and it's fermenting along nicely! So it's been busy and haven't been sleeping much, so here's the highlights -
Thanks, and Cheers! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing
Beeramid ~ The pharaohs had the right idea: pay them with beer+food and they'll move mountains. So in homage to those who've helped us get to where we are today we constructed June Lake's first ever Beeramid. Comprised solely of our first shipment of kegs, the JLB Beeramid was a marvel of modern engineering (not really, it was actually pretty sketchy). Sadly we had to deconstruct it due to the possibility of Beeramid envy from neighboring businesses (actually I was scared it would collapse on our new-to-us beerlivery vehicle). That's right we've now got 170 15.5 gallon and 174 5 gallon kegs that are in desperate need of filling with amazing beer. So next steps are to get final county building permit signoff on our production area (this week) and then start the super major cleaning mission to get everything ready to test the brew system (next week), and proceed with full-on production (soon)! That being said June 21st is looking better and better for an opening of grandeur. So get your accommodations lined up, pick out your finest Guayabera shirt, and definitely reachout if you're looking for lodging/camping/vagrancy advise. Thanks, and Cheers! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing Gad Zooks ~ Wow, totally apologize for the radio silence (last update was April Fools), but it's really been that busy. From cutting down and milling the bar (thanks for the help Johnny) to standing/placing our tanks and brewhouse, we've been checking boxes off the ever shortening list. Check a snippet of our forth coming construction time lapse - http://vimeo.com/92418265. Our Director of Visual Awesomeness (yeah Robert Bradford!) is masterminding the full time lapse for release after opening and it's going to be world detonating. So yeah this is totally happening! Here's most of the stuff we've got left:
Right now we've allotted ~20 days from the day we brew our first production batch until we can open, so we basically have a month to get the production area buttoned up, get signoff on our building permit, and start brewing. After that we can focus on getting the tasting room and signage dialed in. Twenty days is plenty time to build a tasting room with a 30'+ bar made from a 100 year old Jeffery Pine tree and a genuine meat hook from the civil war era (*not sure on accuracy of actual age). So stay tuned for developments and stop by if you want to take a look at progress, but don't get bummed if we don't have time for a full-on tour... gotta build the brewery first B-) Thanks, and Cheers! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing
Brewhouse Has Arrived ~ With all of our tanks and brewhouse on premise we're ripping on the construction to get everything ready and stand the tanks. Again a freaking amazing turnout for hanging/taping/mudding the 8,140sqft of drywall. BIG thanks to all of the Loopers (and Cismontonians) that showed up and put up, and super special thanks to Jonny Widen and Dave Thomas with Premier Painting Plus for getting it done right. Look for the 8140 beer later this summer after we open to pay homage to all those that helped out. Later this week we'll throw some paint on the walls and get the epoxy coat on the floors in preparation for the final plumbing and positioning of our brew setup next week. At this pace we're confident in a late June Grand Opening! Stay tuned for more details, and start thinking about your accommodations as we expect a pretty big turnout. Thanks, without all of you we wouldn't be where we're at today... Oh yeah, Cheers! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing Funded ~ Another busy two weeks have elapsed and we're getting it done by the numbers:
Cheers! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing
Frame it Out ~ Wow, it was so busy last week we didn't even have time to bust out the bi-weekly newsletter... Don't fear, we weren't neglecting our valued TestPilots, it was just busy. From buying a used forklift (still deciding on a name/paint scheme) to framing out our entire tasting room, we had a lot going down. Oh yeah, we also got a call from our brewery supplier asking if we could take delivery of our fermenters this week. Suffice to say we've got a lot going on and we're getting closer to opening every single day. So this week we're looking to receive three of our 30bbl conical fermenters, our 30bbl HLT (big hot water tank), start and finish our wiring, and get our framing inspection signed off. Next week we plan to finish all our bathroom and internal wall plumbing, insulate the building and begin our 7k sqft sheetrock extravaganza. The JLB equity offering is going well, and if you're at all interested in owning a piece of the awesomest brewery on Earth, be sure to reach out and ask us about the details before we close the offer in a little under two weeks on Monday March 10th. Don't miss your chance (it may be the only one) to be a part of history! Thanks, and Cheers! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing Let it Snow ~ With two feet of fresh snow over the past week, winter has finally arrived! After a frantic couple of weeks getting all our trench drains cut/broke/formed and poured, not to mention getting the all important bathroom plumbing installed/inspected and poured, we were ready for a little excursion into the wild... and Ullr provided with 24" of love! Big thanks goes out to Joe Walsh, Ramon Camacho, Doug Nelson, Phillip Michael, Johnny Kimball, Jeff Kramer, Dave Tomaszewski, Shaun Paunch Maurer, Darth Hacker, Bobman, Aaron Dore, Fitz, Mark Fogg and everyone else that made it happen, now it's time for some framing.... and more snow of course! On the beer front the second 1bbl test batch of Alpers Trout Pale Ale was bottled last week by our trusty line of bottling chimps and it turned out swimmingly. If you're in the June Lake area hit us up and swoop by the house for a taste of this approachable pale crafted from Pilsner/Wheat/Munich/Crystal malts and Cascade/CTZ/Crystal/Mt. Hood hops... it is delicious! Last weekend we brewed the second 1bbl test batch of our well received Hütte Double IPA and it's fermenting along nicely. With an OG of 1.090 and a expected final gravity of 1.018 this should yield a 9%+ DIPA with a palate annihilating 128 IBU! Oh yeah and we plan to dry hop this monster with a pound of Citra hops. To wrap it up, our equity offering and term sheet is ready to rock and we will be reaching out to those who've expressed interest in becoming a stock holder in June Lake Brewing by way of equity investment this week. We'll be hosting meetings with potential investors this week in June Lake, and Sarah will be in the San Diego area next week to do the same down south. If you've already expressed your interest in investment you'll hear from us. If you're interested and haven't reached out, email justin@junelakebrewing.com or sarah@junelakebrewing.com for more info. Thanks, and Stay Awesome! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing
Getting Closer ~ Many of you have been waiting for it, and the time is now! We're just wrapping up our PPM equity offering package and plan to meet with potential investors the first and second weeks of February. Some of you have already reached out, and we've added you to a separate investors list to which we'll send more particulars out to early next week. If you have not already and are interested, send us an email. We are excited to meet with folks individually and are also putting together some group meeting dates in June Lake and San Diego. Stay tuned for more info, justin@junelakebrewing.com / sarah@junelakebrewing.com - if you have any specific questions. On the equipment front we're scheduled to receive our first 30bbl conical fermentors in a few weeks, and we're working on getting all the necessary preparations in order for their arrival. Our main brewhouse is still on schedule for pickup late March, and if everything goes to plan we should be set for a June 2014 grand opening! On the beer front our second test batch of our Alpers Pale Ale is getting ready to come out of the 1bbl fermentor and should be ready for tasting at our house for our investor meetings in February. Aside from that we're just working through all the details an endeavor this size requires, so hang in there. Stay Awesome, and Cheers! Justin/Sarah June Lake Brewing
Hoppy New Year ~ Wow, hard to believe we've been sending these updates out for almost a year. Seems like only yesterday we were drafting the first one talking about building our pilot system, and now here we are! HUGE THANKS goes out to all of you that have helped make this happen. From all the county, state and federal licensing, to ordering and putting the deposit our equipment, we've got a lot done... But we've still got some major hurdles to overcome. First and foremost we're working on an equity offering to raise the extra capitol we need to build this brewery. As you know we ended up getting an ideal location for an awesome production brewery, and committed to purchasing a brewing system that's large enough to scale for our future brewing needs. Suffices to say this is larger than we had originally planned, and it's going to cost a little more than we had originally budgeted and saved. This is why we went so big on our JLBKickstarter (by the way we've collected over $16k of the $21k that was pledged, and have commitment of payment for an additional $4k!). We had also planned on locking down some major SBA loans, but we didn't account for the fact a couple downhill bikes, a butt load of snowboards, and a Subaru WRX don't qualify as collateral B-) During the JLBKickstarter campaign we had a number of individuals approach us regarding equity investment. After meeting many of these people and explaining our vision, we decided making an equity offer may actually be a really good thing. First off we would achieve the funding required to make JLB a reality, but more than that we would get additional people involved in the decision making process that bring significant experience and connections to the table. So we're working with a securities attorney and a CPA specializing in craft breweries to put together a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) for release at the end of January. We're still determining a fair share price with the CPA and attorney, but if you're interested in investing in June Lake Brewing for a piece of the company please contact Justin (justin@junelakebrewing.com), or Sarah (sarah@junelakebrewing.com) and we'll get you all of the pertinent information when it's available later this month. Until Then Cheers! Justin/Sarah |
Justin Walsh
Maker of Beer Archives
November 2018
Categories
All
|