Friday, April 21, 2017

Building a Brewery: Weeks 45-46

I want to start off this post with one last word of gratitude for everyone that helped us with our Indiegogo campaign. While we didn't reach our monetary goal, we were able to reach more craft beer fans and have a few excellent parties with each other. Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and actually start to build this thing.


For those of you who have been to our building, you know that the floors are just a mess. Glue, tape, paint, weird stuff... yeah. We decided we would see if rehabilitating the floor was within our capabilities. The resounding conclusion was "LOL nope." We tried chemical adhesive remover, floor maintainer with a carbide scraper attachment, we even tried literally scraping the glue from the floor with a floor stripper, and alas the only thing that was removed was our interest in continuing the futile battle. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

In an effort to keep the weekend from being a total loss, we decided to try a couple different shades of paint for the taproom building. Seeing as how the tremendous amount of orange in the building was slowly but surely causing me to lose my grip on reality, we decided a hefty application of Aggie maroon would be just right. We bought a couple of cans of paint and rolled it right on while listening to a couple spooky podcasts. Pro-tip: Don't listen to spooky podcasts when you're in a large empty building on a windy night with lots of mirrors and not all the lights on.


We have been very fortunate to have lots of you fine folks ask if you can help us with some of the renovations, and I believe we will have our first Work for Beer day in May. The goal will be to re-surface the deck as well as some general TLC for the backyard area. I will set up an event on Facebook and make sure to email y'all a few weeks in advance so we know how many hands we'll have and how many glasses to fill at the end of the day.

I also want to remind y'all that throughout the brewery buildout, we will make our large and unique space available for event rental. Now we're not a fancy ballroom, we don't have crown molding, and sadly, no we can't make chicken cordon bleu for y'all. But what we do have is a large, one-of-a-kind space that would be great for parties, celebrations, club meetings, flea markets, etc. We want our community to become a part of our brewery, and vice versa. If you or someone you know is interested in having an event in our space, please email me at david@newmainbrewing.com.

Cheers!



Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Building a Brewery: Weeks 43-44

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWWWWN!!!!


We only have a few hours left in our Indiegogo campaign, so if you were waiting for some sort of sign, THIS IS IT! It doesn't matter if you have $1 or $100 to give, every single dollar counts and will go into our taproom and beer garden budget, even if we don't reach our goal. This is the last crowdfunding campaign we are going to run, and when it's over your options for actively helping New Main Brewing get started will be of the elbow-grease and personal-time variety. Not that we don't want your blood, sweat, and tears if you're offering, but I mean money just seems a little easier. And potentially less smelly.

Our goal was $40,000 for taproom and beer garden improvements, but it doesn't look like we're going to hit that mark in the last few hours here (unless our Beer Garden and Talking Fermenter videos go viral). That being said, Indiegogo is a flexible goal crowdfunding site, meaning whatever the campaign raises goes directly to our project so that we can get you all the cool perk items you ordered and so that we can build you an amazing taproom and beer garden. 


With 13% of our goal reached, that just means the taproom and beer garden improvements are going to be more DIY and less grand than we had hoped for. However, the campaign is and was about bringing the community together around the Nautilus symbol, and I think we've amassed a fine group of craft beer fans that are ready to see another great addition to the DFW craft beer scene. We are so very fortunate to have had the chance to pour y'all some free beer and talk about our plans.

We want to acknowledge and thank each of our wonderful fans and backers throughout the campaign. Your contributions not only earn you some exclusive New Main Brewing swag and apparel, it earns our eternal gratitude and admiration. Special thanks to:

Gerald C.
Kyle F.
Clydene S.
TJ G.
Emily W.
David & Lori N.
Barbara L.
Teresa B.
Jim & Brenda C.
Kevin & Tammy H.
Ashton S.
Chris & Alicia W.
Denise G.
Russ B.
Diane J.
Maurice K.
Kay C.
Marshall N.
Steven K.
Jeff K.
Randy N.
Brian B.
James L.
Zach T.
Fernando Z.

You guys are all rockstars, and we are forever grateful to count you among the faithful New Mainiacs. 

For those of y'all that participated in our Facebook Share competition, winners will be announced Friday, so make sure to stay tuned to our social media pages for updates. If you can do us one last favor before the Indiegogo campaign is over, please share our campaign link with all of your friends and family and tell them you're helping to build New Main Brewing in Pantego. Cheers!