Monterey Beer Festival

Well, first things first. We have sampled and sampled and sampled again - the first batch - and while it is lighter than expected, Chad is finally pleased with the results. It is an instant hit! People love it. It is a light belgian style pale - crisp and clean - but definitely with a microbrewed flavor. Excitement. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of it in our experimentations with filtration. Our crazy filter is so good, we had to change the filter pads 3 times, each time losing about 5 gallons of beer. Yikes. That has to be remedied. With everything in this process there is a learning curve, and we are coming up quickly!

The next three batches are coming along, as well. IPA, Amber and a darker, stronger Red Ale that will be only be available in kegs.

Sales are in motion. Not that we are making any sales yet, just getting everything in place - Scott has been making good contacts and finding out everything we need to know about selling beer and the market.

Tim and Tom have both participated in a brew day - bringing them up to speed so that someday Chad and I can go on vacation :) Everyone is learning the ropes and the brewery is abuzz with excitement. Each day it seems, someone new and interesting stops by to taste the beer.

Yesterday Jeff Moses, the promoter/organizer of the Monterey Beer Festival stopped in, sampled the first batch and invited us to participate in this year's beer festival - June 4. For all you hop heads - look for us there!

http://www.nightthatneverends.com/brew_with_a_view.html

Now we just have to get our beer in bottles, get our last license and get this ball rolling. We had a great time with the CCOF investigator, Karen Egerton, and it looks like we are the First Certified Organic Microbrewery in Santa Cruz County! Amazing. Four months ago - and I will admit, it has seemed like a wild 4 months - this was all a dream.