Building a Brewery: Week 18

I don't always title my posts, but when I do, I make up words. The title of this week's blog post is Anxcited.

Anxcited /aNG'zided/:
  (adj.) the sensation of optimism wrapped in worry, deep-fried in hope, with a liberal sprinkling of overanalization.

e.g. David is anxcited about his new brewery and hopes it doesn't get hit by a comet.

We are finalizing our lease for the wonderful facility in Pantego, and hopefully soon we'll get to work on some sprucing up. Our next big goal is to get our funding secured and start to get our brewing equipment paid for and delivered. I'm pleased to say we're making progress on the equipment front as well, but we are still in the beginning stages of that endeavor. Apparently there's this thing called money, and everybody wants it in exchange for goods and services. We'll study up on this strange concept and report back.

We have a lot to be thankful for at New Main, and a lot of that has to do with the amazing people we have helping us out. I wanted to acknowledge our friends Jason and Caitlin for helping us pour our beer at the Viridian Farmers Market and Craft Beer experience last weekend. They showed up early, helped us get set up, poured beer, talked about our brewery, and helped us pack out once we ran out of beer a few hours in. I've been saying for a while now that beer is about people, and we're happy to share our experiences with such great people.

The Viridian Farmers Market event went incredibly well with tons of folks getting excited about the prospect of more Arlington beer. Our friends at Dirty Job Brewing were right beside us pouring their fine ales, and they were absolutely killing it, too! It's always a good day when you get to pour beer beside other beer lovers and get such great feedback from the crowd. Greg from Legal Draft also came out to share their beer with everyone under the fine Texas fall weather. I can't wait to do the next event with Viridian and meet even more great Arlingtonites!

Since we ran plumb out of beer at the Viridian event, we got the unique opportunity to brew as much as humanly possible to replenish our stores. After the event, we went to Homebrew Headquarters in Dallas to grab ingredients for not one but two 10-gallon batches of New Main beer. Sunday morning, I woke up bright and early to get the fires lit for our first 10-gallon batch of Pale Ale. A few hours later, while the Pale Ale was coming to a boil, I mashed in for a follow-up 10-gallon batch of our Porter. Only problem was that the fermenters I needed for the porter still held the previous week's 10-gallons of Wit. So it went mash, transfer, heat to boil, mash, keg, clean, chill, sanitize, transfer, heat to boil, clean, chill, sanitize, transfer, clean, pass out. A friend recently pointed out, "Hey, remember when all that crap happened on separate days?" My brewday mantra, "Beer has been made this day" was a battle cry as much as a celebration, let me assure you.

The excitement continues this weekend with our friends at LUCK Dallas celebrating their 3rd anniversary by sharing the festivities with some new breweries coming to DFW in the near future, including New Main. When LUCK was just getting started, they were fortunate enough to have friends with restaurants all around town who would allow them to use their kitchens and dining rooms to host pop-up dinners for guests. In much the same way, LUCK opens its doors every year for breweries in planning to have a chance to meet the craft beer fans who will come to know and love our beer when we get up and running. I want to thank Jeff and his crew for this amazing opportunity, and I can't wait to pour our beer for everyone. Make sure you come out to LUCK at Trinity Groves this Sunday, October 23rd from 12pm-5pm to catch a glimpse of what the next class of DFW brewers have to offer. Oh, and make sure you get there early, because there's a high chance we'll run out of our tasty brews!

Next weekend we turn it up to eleven with the Martin House Boo-ery Tour on Saturday October 29th from 12pm-5pm at the Martin House brewery in Fort Worth. Similar to LUCK's event, guest brewers will be on hand to pour free samples of our beer alongside the amazing lineup Martin House has been creating lately. We will have fresh batches of our pale ale and porter on hand, and hopefully some wit left over from this weekend. I'll even make good on my promise to have more bourbon barrel aged stout for this one, so get your tickets now! Of course in the spirit of Halloween, we'll be in full costume, and we encourage y'all to be as well.