Pouring

No, this isn't about the proper way to pour a beer, though after hearing Chad's stories about some of the bartenders at Coastline, that may be informational to many people. It is pouring rain here. I don't know how many inches we have had - maybe four, maybe five, but enough to knock our power out for a few hours today and send me up on the roof to make sure the rain gutters were draining properly. Our house didn't flood this time thanks to some clever engineering last winter by my dad, Chad and Nick to divert the waves of water that come rolling off Alba mountain. It was a mess last year. The lake has reappeared in our backyard, but nothing that would intimidate a three year old. Ethan was in it up to his knees today. Winter approaches before we really got to enjoy the fall.

The president of Bavarian Brewery Tech called Chad yesterday to discuss equipment and money. There are so many ways to go. To get a new 7bbl system, they can run 100k. But that is what he suggests. He also suggests leasing it and not buying it. Then there are used systems 4bbl that we could buy for 35k. But in the long run, it may be cheaper to go with the 7bbl. It is so hard to know what to do. We just don't know the eqipment. We wouldn't have any idea if we were getting the Porsche or the Yugo of brewery equipment. There should be an unbiased consultant somewhere.

It would help us out if we could predict how much beer he will need to produce each month. A great thing came out of the meeting the other night between Chad and the other two partners of Coastline. Even though he is breaking away from the main partnership, there don't seem to be hard feelings and they want him to brew their beer for the restaurant as well as the business. This is great because the name is already well established. Also, Chad is guaranteed to sell a certain number of kegs a month. In many ways, it stand to benefit Coastline, because they can invest all of their money and time into the restaurant and promoting the brand name and not have to worry about the production of the beer. In deciding whether or not Chad was going to invest more in the business, the decision was always that they would outsource the beer production until they could get the restaurant off the ground. That seemed risky to Chad because the core premise of the venture is 'Drink the Good Stuff,' and if you have no control over the production of the beer, you can't be sure that what you are selling is what you really want your name attached too. This way, he can make sure the quality will be there as well. In a year or so, I imagine they will be partners again in some form or another.