Archive for June, 2010

What a glorious, glorious day.  Countless months of hard work and preparation went into making this day possible.  At 9 am on Friday, June 18th, we began unloading the first of our two 40-foot containers filled to the brim with our Brewhouse, two 60 BBL Fermenters, and 60 BBL Bright Tank, and a number of misc brewery equipment(our malt mill, pumps, motors, 100 kegs, control panel, heat exchanger, platform, pipes, hoses, fittings, etc).

The first container opened to the wonderful sight of our Brewhouse Mash/Lauter Ton.   It was packed in there pretty tightly, with about a 2 inch clearance on each side and about 4 inches from the ceiling.  We had been warned to bring wire cutters for the stabilizing wire that was used to secure the equipment, but no amount of talk could have prepared us for that crazy wire maze.  Wires were seriously run everywhere and to everything.

After taking our sweet time, we finally got it out, to reveal much of the brewery platform and misc equipment.  Just after placing the Mash Ton in the brewery, the second truck arrived almost two full hours early.   There definitely is something to be said for punctuality.

After hauling most of the misc equipment by hand, we cleared the way to remove one of the 60 BBL Fermenters and the 60 BBL Bright.  We needed to drag each the vessels to the edge of the container in order to get at them, and the tight clearances on the sides and top made for some tedious work.

We cleared out the first container and the second truck backed in to reveal the Brewhouse Kettle/Whirlpool.  Now that we had the procedure down, it went a bit more smoothly.  We pulled the Kettle out along with the second 60 BBL Fermenter and some more misc equipment.  The kegs were stacked on their sides and lashed down with chicken wire.  Getting all of them out was not fun, especially in the back of what felt like a heated shipping container on a hot Texas summer day.

We finished unloading around 1:30 pm and said goodbye to our second and drastically more impatient truck driver.  The rest of the day was spent inspecting and marveling at our shiny new brewery equipment.  All in all, the unloading process was mostly seamless with hardly a scratch to mar our efforts.  We hope you enjoy these random pics from that great day.

Things are moving along and moving along quickly.  First thing’s first, we saw cut the concrete to prepare for our brewery trench drainage.  Since we finished prepping the area and putting up the FRP on the brewery side, we were ready to slice into the concrete, dig it up and find and tap into the sewer lines.

The concrete was hard and thick and the main sewer line was 5 and 1/2 feet down, but we got there.  After all the hard labor was through, we tapped into the line and ran the PVC for our three trench drains and misc plumbing.  The rough-in went without a hitch and we are ready for the next step, pouring back the concrete and finishing out the water lines.

Meanwhile, we have been upgrading the electric service, since all those pumps and compressors use some serious juice.  We are doubling our capacity from a 200 amp to a 400 amp to make room for our current needs as well as any future expansion requirements.  More pics of the electric upgrade as they come.

Keep checking back, many more pictures and progress to come.  We’ve got the finish out for plumbing and electric coming up as well as the pictures from the holy brewhouse unloading day.

We’ve been busy.  Over the last few weeks we’ve been prepping the space while the our permit was being finalized by the city.  We’ve attached some pics to show you the development.  First, we did some extensive drywall repair(those 20 foot ceilings are pretty tall) before being able to lather it with primer.  Priming and Painting those huge walls was no small task, but as you can see from the picture of Jud, we tried to have a little fun with it.  After much of the painting was done, the walls were prepped for the wet area to put up FRP(fiberglass reinforced plastic) panels to waterproof the area where the tanks and brewhouse will go.

Now that all the prep work is mostly done, we’re looking forward to the next major phase in the buildout.  Next up, we’ll have plenty of pics of our progress as we cut up the floors and dig out the plumbing for our trench drains and misc plumbing.  Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

What do you think? We’ve done a little polishing to the Circle Brewing site and it’s logos/labels. Love it, hate it? Send us an email and let us know…brewer@circlebrewing.com