The downhill part of 2016 has commenced

As we head into October the year is getting ready for the roller coaster ride to December. The time of year where South Africa shuts down and goes into beach & fuck-it mode!

It is also the start of a new financial year, the crazy rush to get everything done before the calendar year ends; and the time summer shows its face in Cape Town. All in all it is an interesting, somewhat stressful, rather irritating and nice time of year.

I must say, I would much rather be traveling like a year ago than having to deal with normal life in the coming weeks. At least this year I am not stressing about the exchange rate while waiting for a brewhouse to be manufactured overseas and shipped to South Africa. But thanks to the shenanigans of our president and his cronies we are worrying about the exchange rate affecting all our imported ingredients and consumables.

This time round normal life comprises of dealing with prima-donna architects; unreasonable project timelines; juggling too much work with too few resources in the office; and trying to fit in brewing + bottling between day-job demands, family and exams. 

I guess there are worse things to worry about. I honestly hope next year is less crazy than this one. Based on past experiences - and as my brother says: "Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment! - next year will come with its own version of crazy. 

There are a couple of things we need to get right for the new year:

The work-brewing-family-life balance needs some attention. 

A proper brewing schedule, solid marketing and steady sales growth should bring some predictability at least. 

Opening our tasting room / weekend sales outlet. 

Finalising & implementing the big change/addition to Gallows Hill we have been toying with for quite a while.

I seriously need to let go of the mundane shit I deal with at work and focus on the work I really need to do, i.e. design guidance; quality standards; design overviews; growing the younger guys in the team; getting more Revit modellers; up-skilling the stragglers we have; getting more profitable jobs in; and getting rid of the bad projects haemorrhaging money...(struggling with the last one since en 2012)

 

The last few months until South Africa shuts down for 2016 is going to be interesting to say the least...

Sunday Nostalgia... (The usual over-thinking, etc.)

Sunday afternoons can be the worst time of the week... Especially after a welcome break from normal life. It is usually the time when my brain starts running wild. 

The first thoughts to start churning are usually related to the usual worries of normal life ahead. Finances; admin; juggling personal, work and family time on a pretty full schedule; work deadlines; office resource constraints; arguing with lazy contractors and dealing with emotional + unrealistic architects; corporate bullshit; etc. 

Nostalgia seems to always surface as well... Thinking of good times; missed opportunities; missing old friends and acquaintances.

I never really miss my school years. School was boring and quite frankly we were not really at the point of figuring out who we really were. I do miss the simplicity of those days, roaming the streets with friends and the life we had though. Thoughts related to those days never really surface. Guess I've moved on. Giving up a home there at the end of school and moving to a University on the other side of the country pretty much put a bullet in the head of that life stage.  

My University years are a different story. It was a great time. Four years of hard work and freedom with awesome people who I will have lasting connections with for the rest of my life. Reckon it will be a part of my life I will always cherish. 

During this time I have made friends who will be part of my life forever. It is such a great feeling when you have friends who you can spend time with as if the last time you saw them was yesterday, when in fact you haven't spent any time with them in years... Almost like there is some kind of eternal bond. The relationships are more akin to that with a brother than normal friendship.

I really wish our group of friends were closer to each other geographically; able to spend more time together; and share our lives with each other. Unfortunately we are scattered across the country and the globe... From Hong Kong to Cape Town to Johannesburg to England to The United States... Despite our bond we are slowly growing apart as each builds their own lives wherever that may be...

Today I really miss them...

A fair portion of our little circle of friends have moved away for good and will most probably never really return to South Africa. To put it bluntly, the new regime in charge have fucked up a lot of good things in this country!! As a result many educated, younger people opted out...

Some days I also wonder at what point do you decide to call it quits... Say TIA (This Is Africa)... Fuck this shit, pack up and try to build a life elsewhere...

It is not an easy decision. It would mean leaving a support structure and many things you've built up behind. It will result in effectively ripping family structures apart... Kids not able to see their grandparents and cousins as often as they should. And me not having my brother just in the next neighbourhood. 

Ah well... For now... Let's rather focus on the present. Time to sit in the sun and watch the little one and cat play outside

Mid 2016 recap

Finally it is beginning to feel like winter in Cape Town with short days, rainy and cold weather. With that we have also made it through half of the year. As always we are not exactly where we wanted to be, but looking back it actually went OK. So far it has been a good, interesting and challenging year.

From the start we knew this will be a challenging year. The main contributing factors were the following:

Dialing in a brewing system ten times bigger than our previous one is quite an interesting process.

With a much bigger system comes all sorts of complications to other tasks that used to be pretty simple. The coordination and details surrounding ingredient orders, bottle orders, screen printing, tag printing, tag assembly and bottling itself moves up a couple of orders of magnitude.

With that comes the financial implications. Each batch is quite an investment and cash flow is a bitch to say the least. (It is at this point where I have huge respect for the big boys skillfully managing this complex thing called "cash flow"; and I am VERY glad that we are pretty small and have not over-invested in our operation.)

Juggling a brewery with demanding day jobs and young families is no easy task. Adding the fact that one of the owners is busy completing final exams in orthopedic surgery makes the juggling even more tricky.

Very similar to 2015 we had another burglary at our brewery in the last month. The brewing operation was lucky as it did not loose any items. Our distribution partner on the other hand was not so lucky and lost quite a bit of dispensing equipment. Once again we had to beef up security and fork out some unplanned cash in the process.

We know our building is in a gritty part of town, but the lack of respect for other people's property and possessions in this area... actually it applies to our whole country... is a problem. Combine that with a strained police force and a legal system that cannot cope, then you have a mess of a situation. By the way...If you are reading this and one of those people who say our crime problem is because of poverty, the wealth gap or the previous political system, etc. I suggest you stop reading.

It is not!!

It is because of a lack of respect for others; a huge drug problem in our province; a failing education system; empty promises from politicians; a lack of consequences for offenders and in general a failing state where our taxes are not spent properly.

Anyway... Enough bitching for now. We will just get through this as all South Africans do. Guess we have all become hard-asses in this country. Make a plan and move on...

Now back to beer...

We are glad to have our new brewhouse running. The whole setup is not perfect yet and we have not quite found our rhythm on the new kit, but the beer is progressively getting back to where we want it.

To recap on beers so far brewed on the new kit. 

Batch 1 was a single hop APA with Cascade. The young beer was not what it should be. Our temperatures were a bit off and it seems like the pH was not where we wanted it. Now... After a number of weeks in the bottle the beer has lost it's green edge. It is good, but not up there with what we would like it to be. 

Batch 2 was a more aggressive beer. IPA with Apollo, Columbus, Centennial & Cascade.

With this one we hit the temperatures spot on and the gravities were exactly as intended. The pH is still a bit out of whack and it had a slight affect on the hop flavour, resulting in feint phenol flavours coming through. The pH also messed with hop utilisation and the flavour combinations a bit. The beer is good, but it can do with a little tweaking. The longer it stays in the bottle the better it seems to be getting. Not perfect, but at least it does not suck.

Batch 3 is the latest one - a single hop Black IPA with Centennial hops. We hit the temperatures & gravities spot-on and the pH was back to normal. So far it is tasting good from the fermenter - hop character is good and the roasted grain notes are minimal, as it should be.

Slowly but surely sales are also stabilising and getting back to normal. Soon we can put more momentum into expanding our footprint. 

The next couple of months will be tricky with work and study commitments, but after that we can focus on summer and the usual end of year beer craze. For the last two years all the breweries with decent following and good beers could not keep up. Two weeks into December many beers were out of stock. This year is set to be no different...

For now we would like to say thanks to everyone for their support and patience so far. It is great to hear when people enjoy our beers. We take our beer personal. Hopefully we will bring you many more beers to enjoy.

The realities of scaling up...

Scaling up a brewery - actually any business - is not a linear affair. To make ten times more beer may take just about the same time on brewing day, but apart from that everything else shifts a couple of orders of magnitude or more...

Something as simple as quickly popping into the homebrew shop to buy a couple of kilograms of malt you forgot about ordering simply isn't an option anymore. You need bags full of malt for this one day only, plus you need a good flow of ingredients for upcoming brew days. The same applies to yeast, hops, bottles, labels, etc. Getting everything to the brewery on time requires coordination, planning and sometimes even a bit of luck.

The brewing part is easy. Brewing on a bigger system quickly becomes the norm. It is different, but you quickly find a new rhythm. Mashing still takes about an hour; transfers & sparging can take a little longer; boiling is the same; cooling takes a little longer... Different, but not too different or unfamiliar. Once the cooled, hopped wort is in the fermenters and happy yeast is turning the sugary liquid into beer the real "fun" starts...

Packaging, conditioning, storage, distribution, sales, accounts receivable; ordering more ingredients & materials for upcoming batches...

What used to be a couple of hours to get beer into bottles becomes a rather well planned, full day of hard manual labor filling bottles; capping them; tagging / labelling; glueing & packing cases; and finally stacking packed cases.

It is on these days that you somewhat envy the big boys with shiny, advanced, automatic fillers & cappers... But at the end of the day the sense of achievement and satisfaction is much better the hard way. It feels good to have created something. Something that you and others can enjoy. A simple concoction of water, barley, hops and yeast... This simple product which is an essential part of the civilized world we know... Just imagine this world without beer !!

With the beer going to market and sales picking up the "real fun" is set to start...

Let's assume the beer is well received and there are no major problems. Gradually sales will pick up and then (hopefully) the whole setup is bound to gain momentum. At that point I predict (and hope) the following situation will unfold... as described by Tony Magee from Lagunitas... Running the brewery will become like being chased down the road by a pack of rabid dogs. In addition to being chased like this, managing cash flow in the business will be like falling down a seriously long flight of stairs while blindfolded. On top of that we will have to add managing people... And we all know managing people is similar to herding cats!

I am pretty sure we are in for an interesting, entertaining, fun and informative ride with our little brewing adventure...

Bring it on !!

Expansion - Gallows Hill Brewing Co

Expanding a bootstrapped sideline business is a tricky and challenging affair. Despite the challenges it is actually a rewarding and fun experience.

On top of that it is also a serious learning process. Learning involves a little bit of everything… From plumbing and electrics all the way through to financing and taxes.

Since we have been building Gallows Hill Brewing Co at our own pace (we intend to stick to this going forward) and not always with the same exuberant fervor as others, I have decided to put in more effort to document and share our journey. Pretty sure there will not necessarily be weekly or more frequent updates, but there will definitely be more effort being put into documenting our expansion and progress with the brewery.

You may be wondering where we are heading with the brewery… As a start, let’s clarify what is important to us:

The brewery is a serious business, but it is by no means a “get rich quick” scheme. (Anyone getting into the beer business with that in mind should seriously reconsider their position.)
We aim to build the business in a manageable way into a sustainable small endeavour that suit our lives. Those lives involve young families and serious day jobs. Juggling all the responsibilities will be no easy task. We have to accept that this juggling may result in things at the brewery not always going as planned or at the pace originally intended.

We are local. Our operation is based in a gritty part of town undergoing a slow revival. Despite the issues of crime in our area we intend to stick it out and be part of building up our bit of the city. Breweries all over the world are contributing to uplifting rundown neighborhoods and derelict industrial areas.

In South Africa alcohol producers are too easily painted with a tar brush and depicted as the source of evil in our society. We accept that the country does have an alcohol abuse problem, but the mass consumption market is not really the market we are aiming for. Breweries, bakeries, butchers, green grocers, etc. are essential components of a properly functioning society. In our opinion a world without good quality beer is not worth living in.

Being a bootstrapped, small scale & amateur brewing operation (none of us studied fermentation sciences or went to brewing school) we will surely make a number of mistakes along the way, but our eternal strive will be to produce high quality beer our way. We are going to be honest about our products and we take everything about our beer and brewery personal. It is part of us. Due to running our brewery the bootstrapped way, some things we do will be a little unconventional.

The brewery is self-financed! We have no big financial backing or external investors at this point. It is simply a case of investing our own resources and income from our day jobs into the business. We are lucky to be able to do it this way. On the one hand it adds a certain amount of pressure to make it work and forces you to work smart and to make compromises in certain areas. On the other hand it gives us the freedom to do whatever the hell we want to. We do not have a banker or other investors breathing down our necks drooling for payback or returns on the investment.

We have day jobs and young families. On the one side we have two doctors and a little one who is not even six months old. On the other side we have a chef, a structural engineer and a 3 year old toddler. The doctors have crazy & haphazard working hours. My work can be sporadic, often riddled with deadlines, travel, corporate bullshit and having to manage people and projects across the country and around the globe. On many occasions family commitments and work demands forces brewery related tasks and plans to play second fiddle or to take a rain check for a couple of days. Having the brewery is a creative outlet for all of us. It keeps us sane to some extent, I think.

We are still fairly young. Even if we are completely on the wrong path and it does not work out, we will be OK. There is still a lot of life and living left. At least we hope so, right!

Back to where we are heading…

As a start. We are going to make beers that we enjoy drinking. At the moment that is to a large extent Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, Porter, Stout and Barrel Aged Beers.

Variation will probably be the norm. The perfect beer is something we haven’t brewed yet. Maybe we can get there… One day…

We are not in the game of pushing high volume, low flavour beer. We will also not participate in the price war game.

“Pay to Play” is unethical and wrong. We will not do it.

Our initial growth will be fairly slow… This is largely due to demands from our day jobs for the next 6 to 8 months, but also because we would prefer to ramp up gradually. There is still a lot of learning and figuring out required.

This is probably a good time for a bit of a recap…

After a burglary mid 2015 - that cost us quite a bit of stainless steel kit - we got to the point of having to decide between plodding along as we were doing at the time, or taking it more seriously and expand the business. After a lot of deliberation, arguments, back-and-forth, etc. we decided on a brewhouse size, selected an equipment supplier and decided on a broad outline of how we planned to run things.

By a stroke of luck I tracked down a guy in our big-ass firm (one of the perks of working for a Fortune 500 multinational) running a small brewery in New Zealand with his best mate. After a couple of emails we learnt a lot from like-minded folks who’ve gone through a similar situation and managed to track down the actual manufacturer of the equipment we were going to buy through a middle-man. With a slight setback in time, scoring about 30% off the equipment cost and getting the opportunity to customize our brewhouse for very little additional cost, we pushed the button on the manufacturing of our new brewery.

Late in 2015 our 3 main brewing vessels arrived. Unpacking was a bitch in the scorching Cape Town summer heat.

Thanks to our bootstrapped approach the expansion is not a case of simply unpacking a couple of containers or crates, and paying a guy to fit the jigsaw together. We had to do it all ourselves. Sourcing all the additional pieces to turn 3 main stainless steel vessels into a functioning brewery is a mission. It is a real bitch when you factor in the generally poor service provided by most South African firms. It takes quite a bit of time to pin down good suppliers with who you can build a relationship and then work together to build a business. (More about that on another day)

Where we stand now there are a couple of small items still missing and a bit of tweaking that needs to be done before we can move into full steam production. At least we managed to run the necessary testing required, proper initial CIP and passivated the tanks.

This was followed by our first big kit brew day. Surprisingly the brew day went pretty smooth. Obviously there were a couple of process related issues. Mostly in terms of timing and a minor boil-over incident… Gladly nothing that cannot be sorted with some better planning.

At least we can confidently say we are now in the home stretch before we start brewing again in earnest.

Day 1 - 2016

The first of January is probably a good day to start full speed with the intention of writing more regularly. Surely it is a bit of a cliché thing to do on New Years Day, but who cares anyway...

Pretty sure most people are - to some extent at least - mulling over thoughts related to what 2016 will hold. For some it will probably be a bit hazy due to their hangovers resulting from their attempts to drown out the sorrows of 2015. 

It would be fair to say 2015 was a bit of a rough year. The following things stand out. 

Our country and economy is a mess. For this we have only two things to blame:

1. A ruling party with its head in the sand clutching to concepts that died with the fall of the Berlin Wall. (Our public service is too big, inefficient and too expensive. We have too many people on government grants and effectively we are creating a nation of beggars too lazy to work. It is impossible to create jobs if you cannot fire people... It may sound counterintuitive, but it is akin to the concept in racing... To go faster around a track you need the best brakes available.)

2. The sheer amount of stupid people who keep voting the most corrupt people back into power. 

On a more personal side quite a couple of things left a sour taste...

Burglaries!

Not only did we have a burglary at our brewery, but we also had a break-in at our house. I refuse to accept that burglary happens because of poverty and the inequality in our country. It is due to laziness, a lack of basic morals & education and a justice & law enforcement system that is crumbling. 

Corporate life!

Being absorbed into a global monster firm resulted in a roller coaster ride of 3 years now. Serious restructuring; shit taking forever to resolve; dismal financial performance due to our crappy economy; and the difficulties of having to manage staff and projects when everyone is demotivated took its toll. I can seriously do with a more upbeat year in 2016. How I managed to be this patient over the last 3 years I do not know... I am inherently impatient. Being able to maintain this patience much longer than a year or two will be impossible. Things need to change.

Managing people is not easy... Not being trained to manage people makes it even more tricky. Being a bit of a perfectionist and an insensitive hard-ass takes it to another level. (Which often results in doing things yourself, retracting into your own world, and not delegating task and responsibilities to others.)

Juggling too many balls:

Trying to balance family life; personal time; some health and fitness time; a demanding corporate day job; and starting a sideline brewing company is madness. As I said before... The only explanation can be that I like making myself suffer. Another to add is that I probably have some form of A.D.D. Somehow I cannot just stick to a couple of things, I have to overload my fork.

Unfortunately it does not help to dwell on the past and sulk about what happened. We simply have to forge ahead, put our heads down, make plans and carry on...

So... What will we focus on to get right in 2016?

(Better) Balance:

This will certainly not be easy. Each part of life will be allocated certain time slots. What does not get done will be done after hours or will simply have to wait. Tough!

It will also mean that some of my subordinates will have to step up their game...

Corporate life:

Somehow I will figure out ways to be more in control of our projects and the teams running them. Therein lies the crux of the matter... The teams need to run the projects, not me. They need to own them and deal with the responsibility that comes with it.

Structural Engineering:

I think this is the year to start with a mind-shift. We are not only an engineering office anymore. We are in the business of Building Information Modeling (BIM) or Virtual Construction. Others are not ready for it, but we are going to take the lead and piss off quite a load of people in the process. Fuck it!! I do not care... To make an omelette you have to break a few eggs. 

Brewing:

2016 will be the year we turn the hobby and quasi-business of Gallows Hill Brewing Co into a proper business. The business will not survive if we half-ass it. No doubt it will take serious commitment, time, money and probably a load of friction between the four business partners.

We will get our new brew house online and ticking over our way... and we will have to start employing people and learn quite a number of new skills along the way.

We will make the beer we want to drink; price it as we see fit; and generally do things our way and at our pace.

May 2016 be another fun ride...

And the end of 2015 takes a nosedive...

Just as we thought the year was winding down rather gracefully and without too much crisis management old JZ drops the bomb. Now the whole country is bending forward, grabbing their ankles and we just have to take it from behind.

The past 24 hours can simply be classified as a tumultuous day. From our fairly competent Minister of Finance getting fired to having to deal with unreasonable & overreacting people at work it was a pretty crap day.

Today did not start well. As always I checked all my social networks this morning... Guess what... The Thief in Charge calling himself the President of South Africa decided to sack the Minister of Finance for no proper reason. I must confess... When Mr Nene was appointed as Finance Minister I was quite skeptical. His falling off a chair incident a couple of years back did an injustice to his competence. The poor guy actually did a stellar job in the horrible conditions he inherited. The poisoned chalice he received was filled with wanton looting and corruption to please JZ and retain loyalty + votes.

Thanks to this our currency tanked and I am pretty sure numerous South Africans and companies are making plans and organizing to get as much money out of SA as quickly as possible.

The deteriorating exchange rate is not the kind of development you want when working in the construction industry and when you are expanding a small sideline business that relies on numerous imported items... Stainless steel components, speciality malts, yeast, hops, etc.

Even though this is a scary situation and will surely result in numerous sleepless nights and worrying, it is quite exciting to try and make things work when the deck is stacked against you.

Packing out large stainless tanks, arranging them in line, sorting out tri-clamps, valves & thermometers and planning the interesting year ahead is weirdly exciting and interesting. It is at that point when you realize that running the sideline we have is one of those things that keeps us sane... That one thing that makes you say: "Fuck this shit... We'll do it our way... The way we want to do it... And we are going to give it our best."

In order to avoid listening to the news while driving today, I opted for a podcast... Thanks to The Brewing Network (Justin Crossley you are a legend) and the guys from Scratch Town Brewing Co, the following got stuck in my mind: We area still young. We are in our mid thirties. Even if we do stuff up, there is enough life left to recover. Real life is about the little things we enjoy. At this moment that enjoyment is making beer. The best thing about beer is the way it makes people feel and act. Beer makes people happy. One of the best things about being in the beer industry is that fuzzy feeling you get when someone tastes the product you give them and their eyes glaze over with pleasure. 

At this point I can honestly say... I get more joy and appreciation out of someone enjoying a simple glass of beer than successfully delivering a complex building to an ungrateful client...

Since this is supposed to be a blog more related to brewing and not an outlet to bitch about real life, corporate bullshit and the general hassles of growing up I have to get back to beer, brewing and stainless steel.

To say the least 2016 is going to be an interesting year...

We have to master our new brewing system and try to stay on top of managing the cost increases of imported ingredients & products we use.

We have to strike some kind of balance between family lives, day jobs and our sideline business.

We have to differentiate our products in a market that is blindly going down the wrong road... Chasing high volumes and maximized margins akin to the modus operandi of the mega-brewers.

We have to drive the quality of small scale beers to a new level.

And we will have to deal with not always having enough beer...

2016 will most probably also be quite insightful in terms of the direction beer is heading in South Africa. Will it be more Session oriented, more Belgian, more hoppy or more bland + dumbed down yellow lagers...? Who knows!

Given the economic difficulties we face... Thanks to bright-spark JZ... Some breweries will be facing financially challenging times. The questions are: Who will fail and how will the remainder manage to weather the storm?

October 2015 - Holiday & Brewery Expansion

Time off is always a great thing. Getting away from the daily grind with the constant chasing of deadlines and targets is always pleasant. It takes me a couple of days to switch off and clear my mind. Not thinking of work and personal projects is a well deserved luxury. Unfortunately just like taking a couple of days to switch off, my brain kicks into overdrive about 5 or so days before the end of the holiday.

With our brewery expansion project in progress there are more items to get to than possible in the available time with the resources we have. As everyone tells you: It is close to insanity to start a brewing company when you have a toddler at home or starting a family; while at the same time all parties involved juggle crazy schedules at their day jobs.

To some extent I think we are suckers for punishment and rarely pick an easy route. In the end it certainly creates great stories and opportunities to learn. Adversity is a breeding ground for innovation and can result in achieving results against the odds provided you are willing to put in the effort required.

More on the struggles and brewery expansion in a bit… Back to the holiday first.

Travel is essential to broaden ones outlook on life; to figure out what is important and what not; and to learn more about yourself and the people traveling with you. Getting to experience far off places and remote unexplored territories is an added bonus when included in the trip.

We were lucky to be offered an opportunity to join a trip from Vancouver up the British Columbian coast. It is a vast area. BC is larger than California, Oregon & Washington State combined.

The first leg of the trip comprised the circumnavigation of Princess Royal Island on a sailing vessel. 16 people in a confined environment helped create memorable experiences. On the numerous stops along the way we got to see a great array of wildlife, including the bears we came to see as the main focus of the trip. We had awesome sightings of Black, Grizzly (Brown) & Spirit Bears. The latter being the elusive white version of the Black Bear.

The second leg of the trip was spent at the Great Bear Lodge where all our time was focused on watching Brown Bears catching salmon along the river.

Two days ahead and two days after the expedition was spent rambling around Vancouver. Vancouver is an awesome little city. Compact and filled with great shops, restaurants and of course a good selection of breweries.

As always we manage to fit in quite a bit of beer ’research’ on our trips. With Vancouver being in the Pacific North West the selection of hop-forward beers alone makes the trip worth it.

Based on the beers tasted it is safe to say that quite a few of our South African beers are on par with those available in BC. Sadly the majority of breweries in SA need to do a LOT of catching up. Some of our breweries are also losing the plot a bit… trying to play the volume game by pushing dumbed down beer to compete with the mega-brewers. It is a bad idea that will lead to a bad ending!

I am most definitely biased, but I think our beers & brewery are on the right track. The beers still needs some tweaking and as a brewery we have a lot to still figure out. Most importantly I think our beers can stand tall with some of the best we’ve tasted on the trip.

By now the holiday is a distant memory...

Back to the daily grind.

Back to the adventures (and lack of sleep) due to the addition of a new member to the family. (Welcome Hadrian!)

Back to dealing with the art of juggling limited funds while ordering pumps, fittings, tanks, equipment & importing a new brew house.

Ramping up a bootstrapped brewing operation is no easy task. Especially when you decide to say "Fuck it... We are doing our own way and figuring it out as we go." At least we have (we hope) resolved most of the issues and only have a couple of outstanding items to be resolved in the coming weeks.

By early to mid November we will be able to put our grubby little paws on a new custum brew house. If everything goes to plan we will be able to fire it up and start churning out beers before the end of the year.

It has been a long-ass and tricky journey up till now. Pretty sure the coming couple of years will be even wilder... A proper roller coaster ride is very likely. At least I hope the ride has a good ending and does not finish in a flaming ball of twisted metal.

2015 - Quarter 1 DONE !!

WOW... I just realized we are through the first quarter of 2015. It was actually a bit of a blur to tell the truth, but I guess that is just the way life is. Especially  when you want to juggle too many things at once. The constant feeling of actually flying by the seat of your pants is tiring, challenging, exciting + rewarding all at the same time.

To tell the truth we are not quite where we planned to be by now. There are no new shiny brewing vessels on a boat to Cape Town, well at least not yet. I guess that is also fine as we took a bit of time and again changed our plans. It has been quite an interesting dynamic between my brother and I. Initially it started with me being on the bigger is better side of the fence. He was a proponent of a small, bootstrapped approach. In a year it turned round... I was leaning towards a smaller system size being used harder, while he was going the bigger route. Finally we have settled somewhere in the middle. Our brewhouse will be not too big and not too small, yet flexible and capable of taking abuse. A lot of it will still be a bootstrapping operation. At least we have a plan.

I reckon the motto of a family friend always rings in the back of my mind: "Running out of money is not a problem, but not having a plan IS a problem!"

We have a fairly solid idea of what we want to do now; we have cleared a couple of hurdles already and we have a hit list of items to resolve. The following couple of months are going to be riddled with logistic and cash flow hurdles.

Pretty sure this first real expansion will be challenging to say the least, but in a couple of years we should be able to look back with at least one of the following possible outcomes:

Option 1: YIKES...!! It actually worked and we pulled it off.

Option 2: Oh boy, did we fuck this up or what... !?!? At least we had loads of fun and learnt tremendously valuable lessons along the way. (And we had loads of beer on hand along the way)

When everything is running we will focus on two things... OK, maybe three.

Slowly solidifying our current footprint with additional production capacity, and when we have ironed out the first wrinkles of the upgrade a steady organic growth plan.

Focusing on QUALITY! There are quite a number of areas where we need to and can improve.

Trying new things and expanding the horizon of beer in Cape Town. Sticking to the way we like things and making what we like to drink. If you want to make the lowest common denominator beer to satisfy everyone you will be doomed.

The year ahead... In terms of brewing

The new year is just around the corner and we will have to hit the ground running... From a stock on hand position we are screwed and from a production capacity point of view it is not looking much better.

At least all the pieces are coming together to put a significant upgrade project in motion. In effect we will replace all our brewing infrastructure, except for a couple of items. It promises to be a challenging year ahead.

It is actually quite crazy when you realize how many things have to be planned, synchronized and decided upon when planning a brewery expansion. All the pieces of the puzzle representing a brewing operation is intricately intertwined. If you change one thing it effects a myriad of things, from financial prediction models; amounts to be financed to the various parts of the practical operations of the brewing process itself. Just deciding the actual brewhouse size and fermentation cellar capacity is a process of note.

Thanks to a lot of research, reading and listening to podcasts it is clear that it is not necessary to have the biggest possible brewhouse. Instead it is more important to have a flexibly piece of equipment and one that can be run multiple times in a day or shift. Even when planning to run a relatively small brewing operation one can learn from big breweries. Large breweries always use fermenters a couple of times the volume of their kettles. This results in always blending a couple of batches together, evening out small batch variations, resulting in more consistent and repeatable beers. It is also more effective in terms of space, cost and other resources. In order to push the number of brews per day / shift, some large breweries run two kettles for the same mash / lauter tun. If correctly planned the output capacity of a relatively small brewhouse can be doubled from a 2/3/4 batches per shift rate to a 4/6/8 batches per shift capacity with the simple upgrade of adding a second kettle.

If all goes to plan the increased production capacity will allow us to grow the business and increase our market footprint. We should also have enough inventory on hand to make sure all beer gets enough time to condition properly and that we have a reasonable stock buffer to deal with spikes in demand and unexpected large orders.

The bigger capacity will also provide the opportunity to play with some new ideas to push the boundaries in the Cape Town beer market. Beer for us is about experimenting. Given the large wine & distilled spirits industry in the Western Cape the base material, i.e. barrels, for a barrel aging and sour beer production setup should be available.

A barrel program requires three basic areas to be covered: Time & patience; space to keep barrels; and the willingness & capability to experiment + learn from mistakes and others. I am confident we can cover all these with some dedication, hard work and the space we have.

Despite all the side projects like barrel aging, sour beers and other one-off beers we plan to refine our production of flavorful and hop-forward beers. Our passion and core dedication will remain with these beers as they are aimed at showing beer consumers that there is no reason why beer should be bland or dumbed down. We all deserve to drink beer with more character than fizzy yellow dishwater with trace amounts of hops and real malted barley.

May 2015 be a memorable beer year...

It is almost the end of the year...

We are in the last stretch of the year... Finally !! I am honestly running on fumes at the moment. This has been a long-ass year. I am tired, need to break away and drink beer for days on end while gazing at the ocean to clear my mind.

As always there are way too many things I planned to get done in the year that never got done. Luckily a few things got done and a few unexpected issues were handled along the way.

Achievement number one is actually just making it to the end of the year - we've managed to sort out some form of balance between raising a toddler, starting a small business and dealing with the aftermath of a huge company merger. Number two is that we are getting the hang of our brewery and it looks like we are building a good base to grow from. Number three is sorting out my responsibilities in my day job... Well, sort of, I think... in order to do what I am good at and love (designing structures) and less of what I hate (tedious admin and holding other people's hands because they do not have the balls to try things for themselves).

As always about this time of year I go into some form of reflective mode. Sometimes it is really a bit depressing. This time round a couple of things are weighing on me...

I am 35 and pretty sure there is no fucking way I will carry on with my current job until I reach retirement age. Somehow I need to figure out some kind of balance between work, hobbies, play, what I want to do and income. Seems like an impossible task!

Our country is in a mess! Our government is well on their way to run everything into the ground. The president is a thieving, uneducated, thug and an idiot. He has so much dirt on the other idiots in his party that they simply keeping protecting him. In addition to this there are too many people in our country doing jack-shit, living off welfare grants paid for by the dwindling number of taxpayers. Looking to start a life elsewhere is increasingly in the back of my mind.

The private sector in SA is taking strain. It increasingly looks like even our yearly salary adjustments are in jeopardy and any chance of bonuses being paid are looking seriously slim.... Despite the fact that our department was super profitable and made 3.7x our targets. All thanks to other fuckers who cocked up. Too top it all workers in the public sector are demanding increases in the order of double the inflation rate! Ridiculous! 

It may sound like I feel like giving up, but giving up is not an option... We'll just have to keep our heads down and grind on. Adversity is always the breeding ground for new things. Often quite rewarding too... To do this some sort of plan or goals are required. Not having a plan or some goals is the most effective way of failing.

Even though it is probably a little early for jotting down New Year's Resolutions the following things I need to get sorted:

I need to get fit again... Mountain biking, trail running, jogging, whatever. No more time for excuses!

We need to expand our brewery seriously. We either do it properly or call it quits now. Half-assing anything never works.

I need to figure out my day job. Either I am where I want to be when I reach 40 or the brewery needs to become my day job.

I need to spend more time on my personal life and less time on my office life.

My bike will be customized and ridden more...

We need to find another old car to restore or turn into a bad-ass hotrod.

Taking Ownership....

This will be the first time that a post is not beer related... Well, at least not directly.

This week I've come to some sort of realisation.

There are some basic principles that apply in life and to some extent they determine how you progress in your career and life in general.

In my normal day job I am part of the construction industry. Projects are complex, stop-start, subject to crazy deadlines and in general quite tricky. Projects take forever to get off the ground... To finish them takes even longer. Some people work quite sucessfully on projects and complete them acceptably. The difference comes in the following: There are people who "own" their projects while others just take care of them. The former ensures that everything is done correct and as good as humanly possible no matter what happens... Even if they are tied up with other work, out of the office / country, on leave or start their second shift at 10pm after putting the kids to bed. The latter just makes sure things run smoothly and they do their job while they are there and within normal working hours... And maybe a bit more than normal working hours... But just a little bit. When they cannot be there the project simply becomes somebody else's responsibility to handle.

Some people never take initiative to figure things out for themselves. The moment they feel unsure or find themselves in unfamiliar territory they freeze and others have to assist. I am not like that... Sometimes you just have to say "Fuck it !! What is the worst than can happen...!?!" And just figure it out by trial and error.

People who get somewhere in life see the opportunity in any situation, no matter how dire. Others just bitch and get grumpy because "other people get all the opportunities".

Guess what... To some extent getting ahead in life is thanks to a fair amount of luck, but mostly it is because of seeing things differently and creating opportunities for yourself.

Craft Beer in Cans - Looking GOOD in the UK

In May of last year, Camden Town Brewery became the first “microcanner” in England. The brewery cans its own Hells Lager and two beers it brews for the Byron Hamburgers eateries. This autumn it will can two more beers. The beers are canned on Cask’s automatic five-head filler & seamer machine.

This summer two more London craft brewers -- Fourpure Brewing and Beavertown Brewery -- each purchased Cask equipment and joined the UK microcanning movement. Fourpure is the first UK craft brewer to shift from bottles to cans for its core beers, while Beavertown and Camden Town include cans among their bottled offerings.

Fourpure’s can sales have far surpassed its 2013 bottled sales. “In our first month,” brewery co-founder Daniel Lowe says, “our cans doubled our historic bottle sales. The second month they quadrupled them.”

Logan Plant, founder of Beavertown, says his bottle use is waning. “I’m looking to push bottles out but for a few specialty beers,” Plant says. “The acceptance of our cans has been amazing. We started up our Cask canning line in May and cans have already become 65% of our sales, while bottles are just 7%.” 

Current sales data (from IRI) shows that US sixpack and twelve pack sales of canned craft beers for 2014 are up 89% and 79% respectively, compared to 16% growth of bottled sixpacks and twelve packs.

Canned craft beer is the hottest craft beer package in North America.  This segment is just beginning in England, but it’s starting out much faster than it did in the US.

Craft canned beer makers and consumers appreciate the benefits of cans. Cans provide complete protection from light and oxygen, a fresh beer’s biggest enemies. Cans are also highly portable, welcome in places bottles are not, and easily and infinitely recyclable. 

Plant says his richly flavored canned craft beers benefit from the freshness-keeping power of aluminum cans. “We use a lot of US hops in our beers,” he says, “with those big resiny and tropical flavors. The only way to look after them is to shove them in a can. I don’t think a bottle is up to the task.”

Those can benefits and others (including reduced shipping & fuel costs due to their light weight) have fueled the massive rise of American canned craft beer.

According to the Brewers Association (the US trade group for craft brewers), over 10% of the US’s nearly 3000 small and independent craft brewers are canning all or some of their beers. A US website, CraftCans.com, lists about 1500 canned craft beers from 418 US craft breweries, in a wide array of different beer styles. 

UK beer lovers seem open to the idea of small-batch canned beer. “We meet naysayers,” says Camden Town founder Jasper Cuppiadge, “who prefer the bottle. But once they find out that small breweries are canning, it totally changes the way they think about canned beer.” 

Plant says there’s a stigma in the UK that “cheap, mass-produced beer comes in cans. So we need to educate people. We’re all on a mission,” Plant adds, “to make great beer and push it forward. Cans are the package for doing that. They are the best for keeping beer fresh and full of all of its flavor and life.”

(Post text from Cask Canning Newsletter)

Not quite sure about this one from SABMiller

About two year ago we attended a beer dinner hosted by SAB. The CEO at the time was Norman Adami. He was actually on stage promising that they will never compete with small brewers and that they would like to assist the small guys and grow the beer segment of the market for all.

I do not quite think this is in line with his promise. This smacks of pay-to-play, undercutting the small guys, etc.

At least people who appreciate proper beer are not really brand loyal. If SAB converts fizzy yellow water drinkers to beers with a bit more character we all may end up winning a bit. Unfortunately their tactics will create a barrier to entry for many of the smaller breweries.