It's a mad world, my masters, and things in the beer world in particular have been just as mad. Lagunitas sold its remaining half to Heineken International and is now 100% owned by the Dutch conglomerate. AB-Inbev acquired one of our favorite breweries, Wicked Weed. Things are also moving fast in our own tiny, nascent corner of the beer world. We're still waiting for AB to send us a check for undisclosed billions, but until they do you can follow the latest happenings at Armistice on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @armisticebeer. Some of the highlights:
Unoriginal millennial aerial.
The city of Richmond unanimously approved our conditional use permit! The CUP allows us to sell our beer on site, which is critical to achieving our vision of bringing the freshest beer to Richmond -- that is to say, beer that will be refrigerated for the entirety of its charmed life, beer that won't be subject to the abuse of distribution networks, and beer that's brewed right, served right, and that's right from the source. We had a lot of help from our planner Jonelyn, and we couldn't be more appreciative of the city's support. We would be remiss if we didn't mention the help of our friend and architect Darrel DeBoer, and all the hard work that Benoit-Casper Brewing Company and East Brother Beer Co. put into to paving the way for breweries like us in the City of Pride and Purpose.
Brewers get REAL excited about trench drains.
Immediately after securing our permit we started construction and we've been rolling ever since then. Our plumbing and construction team, headed by our friend and brewery/taproom pro Alex Carias (seriously, dude is behind all the breweries and taprooms you know and love in the Bay), have plumbed the bar, installed glycol and trench drains, re-poured concrete, and hooked up our gas lines.
Bamboo lighting floating above the Framily Room.
Our buddy and electrician Gerardo and his brother Luis at NGB Construction have been busy with the electrical. They've installed lights in the brewhouse for nightshift and dark-morning brews, and they're working on the lighting in the Framily Room and in the main taproom as we type.
Our friends/neighbors/carpenter/genius friends Darles Eaton and Sladen have been busily working on the beer garden. We're reusing busted plastic pallets to construct the wall of the beer garden, which will also have a bench built into it made of locally, sustainably harvested redwood. Once finished, we'll fill the pallets with soil and vertically plant drought tolerant natives and succulents.
Our expert carpenters hard at work making woody magic happen in the beer garden.
Stainless for days.
Our cellar arrived a few weeks ago. Readers may remember we were able to buy a used brewhouse locally, but we still needed fermenters, a brite tank, and kegs. Our delivery showed up four days early. Thankfully we're on site pretty much every day, but if it hadn't been for our amazing friends Liam (photo cred, too!), Alex, Andrew, and Katie, we wouldn't have been able to move all that metal. Thanks, friends!
Incredibly, we flew through the alcohol permitting and licensing process in record time. It only took us four months to receive our federal permit, and our state license from Alcoholic Beverage Control only needs a final inspection. We hope to be brewing beer in the next couple of weeks and we couldn't be more excited! We get asked about our opening date all the time. We'll nail one down when we think we can commit to it, but for now we're hoping for late June and that's about as specific as we care to be. In the interim, come by anytime! One or both of us are usually on site every day and we'd love to say hello!