Construction Begins

It begins. Construction at the brewery officially kicked off this weekend with the wall dividing the brewery space and our tenant's space (Blue Marble Energy). The wall went up quicker than we thought and should be finished by the end of the week. A great Thanksgiving treat. Now, we move on to laying out the plumbing and electrical and start cutting the drains for the brewery, cleaning station and keg filler. We've posted some pictures of the wall construction to give a flavor of the space.

Random news:

A local artist and friend asked us to brew up some UniversAle (the flagship beer) for his gallery opening on December 6. The beer has happily finished primary fermentation and is now dryhopping and maturing in anticipation of its happy consumption. The first edition t-shirts and pint glasses have arrived and are available at the brewery. Please contact Matt at matt@fremontbrewing.com if you would like to grab one of the limited edition long-sleeve shirts or pint glasses.                                                                                   

We Have A Location

Sweet, sweet day. We now have a place to call home. After searching in Seattle for just the right place, we came up with Lucky 7's and landed in Fremont, which has been part of our lives for 15 years. The opportunity to settle the brewery in Fremont and become part of the art and small business culture on the water was too good to pass up. So, to commemorate our new location, we have changed the name of the brewery to Fremont Brewing Company. Please visit our web site soon and we will begin to put up pictures of our construction.  

Our address is 3409 Woodland Park Avenue North but don't come by just yet as we are not always there (yet).

Buying the Brewhouse

Well, we finally located and purchased a brewhouse. Patience is truly a virtue when buying brewery equipment. The brewhouse is a gorgeous 15 BBL (that's 30 full-size kegs) system manufactured in Denver in 1996 and currently in use by Red Lodge Brewing Co near Yellowstone in Montana [www.redlodgeales.net]. The system is electrofinished stainless steel and looks like chrome. She shines up easily to a mirror finish and produces some fine brews for the guys and gals at Red Lodge. I took the whole family out to Montana for this trip and had a fine time touring the brewery, brewing with the team at Red Lodge and sampling the finished product...ah, starting a brewery is hard work sometimes. The only downside of the purchase is that we won't able to transport it here until March or April so we'll have to figure something out between January 2009 and April in order to produce and sell our beer. I've been talking to some Seattle brewers about the new contract brewing arrangement the Washington State Liquor Control Board recently allowed so we'll be able to offer beer in limited quantities prior to getting our new system installed. Stay tuned. Also, see the pics below for a preview. Now, it seems real...and then I have to figure out how to transport it.

Trip to Puterbaugh Farms

Well, I lose blog points for not updating this in a long while. I pledge to improve. So, catching up on the last month or so, I took a trip to the brewery's hop supplier - Puterbaugh Farms - and was amazed by the complexity of the machinery and sheer manpower required to raise, harvest, process and package our beloved hops. To think we were paying such a lowly sum for these jewels a short time ago...Our host for the trip, Tyler, is one of the Puterbaugh family members and was extremely gracious with his time as we spent most of the day touring the hop harvesting, processing, packaging and storage facilities. Tyler and his family have been growing hops in the Yakima Valley area for four generations and grow some of the choicest hops in the world. We are extremely fortunate to have such an amazing resource in our state and to be able to use these hops in our beers. Thanks, Tyler. I've posted some pictures of the trip to give a flavor of the operation. We look forward to featuring the Puterbaugh Family hops in our beers. 

Back To Brewing

It's time to brew more beer. We're signing up more and more people who want to drink our beer (free pending our federal and state permits :) so it's time to brew more High Board IPA. I always enjoy brewing the IPA because the raw power of so many hops is intoxicating. Also, I'm going to Yakima, WA next week with another local brewer (check out www.twobeersbrewery.com) to visit our hops supplier and hope to come back with some fresh samples of the 2008 harvest. Look for some pictures of the trip plus a story or two along the way. Cheers.

The Brewhouse

We've been spending an inordinate amount of time looking for a place to lease and for equipment. As any brewer will tell you, used brewing equipment is difficult to find and the prices are through the roof. Undeterred, we located a nice Bohemian Int'l Monobloc 10BBL brewhouse with a bunch of fermenters, pumps, a glycol chiller and various other gear at a nice price. So, we placed a bid on the equipment only to find out that the partner of the guy we had been dealing with took a down payment behind our back. So, now we wait to see if the brewery is sold over this coming Labor Day weekend. Our fingers are crossed.

On a side note, many thanks go out to the fine community at ProBrewer who quickly and thoroughly shared their experience and insight on the Bohemian systems. 

The Names

Things have been busy at the brewery but somewhere we found the time to settle on a couple names. They are: 

Duck Island Pale Ale: Our flagship beer is named after Duck Island in Green Lake, Seattle's most popular park. Duck Island was created in 1936 as a bird refuge of native willows and cottonwood. The island is used by ducks, hawks, eagles and great blue herons as a roosting habitat year-round. Duck Island Pale Ale offers a distinctive twist on the classic pale ale, using a select blend of organic Gambrinus pale roasted malt and Old World malts balanced with classic Northwest hops to achieve a heavenly beer of rich malt flavor and subtle hop spice. Duck Island is a refuge of flavor for beer lovers everywhere.

High Board India Pale Ale: Each summer in Seattle, winter-weary residents emerge from their dens to revel in the sunny days and long Northwest nights. A favorite activity is swimming at Green Lake and each summer, you will find old and young kids lining up to dive into the warm waters of Green Lake from the low board and the high board. The adventurous swimmers find themselves staring into Seattle's summer from the High Board. Our High Board India Pale Ale offers the adventurous beer lover a warm embrace of organic Gambrinus roasted pale malt splashed with a hand-selected blend of flavor malts and filled with the rich spice of Columbus, Centennial and Cascade hops. Fear not, for the High Board India Pale Ale is a session beer, eminently drinkable throughout the year as a reminder of the endless summer days ahead.

The Logo is Born

Well, our graphic designer, Dan Stuckey of Stuckey Designs, delivered the draft logo the other day and we fell in love. Even in the present draft stage, the design has all the elements we wanted; the fancy scrolling and banners, the great blue heron, and a real nice font to top it all off. The logo is hand drawn and shows the love that will go into each Green Lake beer. 

Thanks, Dan. Be sure to check out his site at www.dstuck.com .  

We welcome comments, suggestions, etc so fire away.

Green Lake Brewing Co - Virgin Post

Welcome to the Green Lake Brewing Company blog.  Over the course of the next several months, we will post stories, laughs and gaffs along the road to establishing the microbrewery, brewing beer and selling the hallowed ale in good beer's backyard, Seattle. The Green Lake Brewing Company...because beer matters.

Beer Offerings:  Pale Ale, Classic American Pilsner, India Pale Ale, Biere de Garde, Saison. 

We're working on fancy, meaningful names for the beers as we speak but please do provide suggestions for names...we always like to have more information to ignore...um, consider.