Hey friends! Happy Thursday! It’s the time of the month again where we’re due for an update, but I’ll be real honest with you and say that this one is kind of hard to write.  We’re just in that waiting place again. I wasn’t even going to write an update. In fact, I wrote a whole different blog post about some exciting things going on later in the month. And then, I thought maybe some of you could relate to just being kind of stuck. Because the honest truth is that this whole starting a business thing isn’t just sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it’s more like it’s pouring rain onto a leaky roof. And though we don’t like to talk about that often, sometimes it’s good to see the real behind-the-scenes side of this.

So, here’s what we’ve been up to for the last month.

We’ve got our new 15bbl system in house and all installed. Due to the way we needed to install the boiler and all of its components, we had to add a valve. We ordered the valve and it took FOREVER to ship.  We finally got the valve on site and we were all excited to fire up the system last Friday.  The team showed up on schedule and turned it on…and… it didn’t work. We discovered upon firing up the system that there is a problem with the pilot light on the boiler and also a problem with one of the pumps in the boiler system.

The problem with the pilot light is fixable, and we’re actively working on it.  The problem with the pump ended up being that we need a new pump.  It’s ordered and we’re now back to waiting for parts to arrive.

We’ve just really lucked out with all these issues. Unfortunately, it’s just one step at a time. We couldn’t have foreseen any of these things happening beforehand, and we just have to attack them when we find them. We know that we keep telling you all that we’re opening “really soon”. And, that is honest to God what we think when we’re saying it.  We can SEE the end, it’s just every time we get close to the end, we discover yet another switchback in the trail.

The really great news is that we’re solving all the issues now and by the time we actually do our full Grand Opening, we will *knock on wood* have all our bad luck out of the way.  It’s been a crazy year, and for as much bad luck as we’ve had, we’re still having fun.  This crazy Trek of ours is much longer than anticipated, but it’s got its share of awesome scenery.

We love getting to know all of you, and share our successes and our joys.  We love talking to you from across the bar, and introducing you to all our incredible beers. We’re enjoying brewing more than we can tell you. We love it when everything goes right with that brewing process and our beers turn out amazing.  It is such an incredible feeling to have you share in this journey with us, and celebrate our successes.

It’s certainly a crazy adventure.  Thanks for going on this Trek with us, we know that eventually these switchbacks and setbacks will end, and that the best is yet to come.

We’ll see you this weekend for Steamroller Bagels on Friday night.  Join us in welcoming Simply Fit food truck on Saturday! Come and check out our new Saison, the Sainte Terre. It’s amazingly refreshing, and we know you’ll love it.  We’ve also got some other Trek favorites on tap, as well as great guest beers, wines, and ciders.

Cheers friends, we’ll see you soon!