Have you ever been working on a long project, and you reach the point where you know you are super busy all the time but you can’t actually seem to make any forward progress? Right now that is what it feels like to be involved in Trek Brewing Company. In fact, as I was planning this post, John said, “What are you going to update about?” It’s been a two steps forward, one step back kind of month. Yet, as I sat down to write what all has happened this month, I found that there IS a surprising amount of progress to report.

We’ve had steady progress with Compton Construction. We have spent this past month working on approving all demo and construction plans. Because we’re changing the use of the building from restaurant to brewery there are a few things we’ll have to change to meet the code. As you can imagine, all these changes take time.. Time to discuss, time to draw, time to have our friends in the planning/zoning/code offices take a look at them… it just adds up. I’m this close to being able to say – “We’re ready for the construction to start!” And hopefully, our next update will include lots of amazing pictures of John and I smashing things with hammers.

We had our first brew day this past month, and boy did it feel good to get back to brewing. The pilot system that John built made the journey from Seattle mostly unscathed. We did have a pump that caused trouble, and a few different parts needed replaced, but we’re proud to say that it is up and running now. The first brew in Ohio was John’s award winning vanilla stout. It may seem like an odd choice for summertime, but it’s my all time favorite beer and there are certain rights that I get as the brewer’s wife. The stout should be ready to keg sometime in the next week or so, and we’ll be brewing again as soon as the fermenter is emptied. Unfortunately this beer isn’t something that we can sell, it’s just recipe refining and development at this point.

We also got some BEAUTIFUL new kettles for the pilot system. These kettles will expand our pilot capacity from ⅓ bbl batches to 1bbl batches. We won’t actually use these brand new kettles until the system is settled in it’s new home over at the brewery. Also on order are some 1bbl fermenters. We’ll use this system often in the taproom as we brew experimental beers for you guys to try out.

Our indiegogo campaign is almost ready to launch. This past weekend John and I shot some video in front of the brewery, so we’re waiting for that to all be production ready. We’ve been working to design some amazing Trek Brewery gear so that it will be ready for all of you campaign supporters. That part is really fun for me, and it’s been great figuring out all our different options.

Finally, we’ve been working on getting the finishes figured out in the taproom. For as many hours as I’ve spent in front of HGTV you’d think that this would just be easy-peasy. Turns out, it is different than the half an hour feel-good episodes on TV, and it takes awhile to pick out paint colors, floor coverings, fixtures, etc. It is fun though, and it is exciting!

So, even though it doesn’t seem like we’ve gotten very far, you can see the evidence that progress is happening. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Cheers friends!