Two Heroes Public House

 We have been fortunate enough to pick up a few used fermenters locally from our friends at Green Empire Brewing.  They have been expanding to a full 10 bbl system so we we able to acquire the two 7bbls last year and then two 5bbls this year.  At the end of the week last week we grabbed the two 5bbls and brought them back to the pilot space.  They tucked in nicely next to the one 7bbl we will use.   We are exploring picking up a another 2bbl for the "front of house" and that should complete our needs for tanks.  It's a variety of tanks, all located in interesting spots, but we believe this temporary set up will allow us to be both productive and flexible with the seasonality of the islands.  We will make the best of what we have! In the meantime, we have made two beers thus far.  The first, a dry stout, turned out pretty tasty and landed at 5.5%.  The other, an "ale" fermented with both recycled English yeast from the stout and a saison yeast...

 We have made good headway with our plans for glycol, CO2 and power for all the necessary applications.  After the walk in cooler was assembled, we can now mount the glycol reservoir and pump and install the lines that will take chilled water to all the tanks.  This is a tedious planning process and ordering the fittings can be overwhelming.  We think we have a good plan, especially for such a temporary location.  Parts have been ordered and installation awaits! We received our brewery pump, so now things feel exceptionally real!  This is one mega pump and with wheels, we can drag it around to perform any number of tasks.  Today we used it to pump water into the storage tank...ah....so very interesting! Daren has been spending lots of time tuning up the kegerator, which we just began using.  We brewed a stout a couple weeks ago, which made its way into kegs.  This beer was a "dry" stout fermented with an English yeast that worked really quick...

On Friday last week, we shot over to Lake Placid and picked up a walk in cooler from a preschool.  They no longer required the cooler and needed space for other things.  The old 8' x 8' Hobart cooler was in pretty good shape (aside from the floor) and came with working condensing unit and evaporator.  It also had display doors on one side (which we learned later).  We will be using our chiller to run a fan coil in the cooler, so we won't need the refrigeration for this project.  We are going to lend it to an organic farm in Grand Isle.  Ironically, we are installing this cooler exactly where I took another out almost 4 years ago. We have been hard a work planning the glycol and co2 systems and finishing any last minute carpentry projects.  This Friday, we plan to brew our second test batch (about 40 gallons) on our pilot system.  This one will be an IPA.   Next week, we plan to pick up the two 5BBL fermentors from Green Empire Brewing that we...

The last week or so had us feeling giddy with all this stainless steal and a brand new brewing system sitting around.  But, we have many other tasks to complete in order to brew and sell our beer.  First and foremost, we are almost complete our application process to the TTB for manufacturing beer.  This, along with licensing from the VT DLC, will allow us to actually sell beer legally.  We are just a few steps away from being licensed, and, like most federal or state permits, they are tedious and somewhat mundane.  There were also fit up items to be completed as well during this time.  Daren brought the mill and rack from his home (where we had been brewing) and set those up behind the bar.  We also began building the counter that will house the register (which also stores the condensing unit for the kegerator).  Additionally, we had a small electrical issue (some neutrals that were arcing in the panel box, wicked scary), that we needed our house...