It is the aspiration of the vast majority of homebrewers to turn pro. My reasons are many, and many of them are shared by all professionals: a passion for the product, a deep desire and compulsion to share.
Walk into any brewery around the Seattle metropolitan area (and likely even much further), and you will find all the usual suspects: IPAs in the West Coast and East Coast (hazy/juicy) styles, something "dark" (porter/stout), perhaps a handful of continental lagers (kolsch and German lagers are trendy right now).
You might find a handful of places offering something different: a Belgian tripel, a doppelbock, kettle soured beers. Some of these craftspeople sell only beer, relying on food trucks to supply their patrons with an acceptable dining experience. A small, rare bird is it, indeed, that offers full restaurant service.
My friends know me as a passionate beer lover and brewer. Many more know me as a dedicated pupil of the kitchen, cooking cuisines from the world over -- Italy, Germany, India, Thailand, making everything possible from scratch: pasta, pastry and cakes, including a tiered wedding cake, bread made with home-milled heirloom grain, and freshly roasted coffee.
Teri and I have amassed close to a thousand bottles of wine in our cellar, covering some the best and rarest California and Washington wineries. [We plan to offer the best wine list you've ever seen at a brewery.]
We throw dinner parties pairing either beer and/or wine with a thoughtful menu. One grand dining experience. This is ultimately what we want to offer to our community.
We have chosen the food and beer of Belgium as the inspiration for this endeavor. Teri and I have been visiting Brussels regularly for almost two decades. Few cultures on earth have done better at pairing food and beer than the Belgians. Waterzooi (Ghentish chicken stew), carbonnades flamandes (Flemish beef stew), and abbey-style ales will be the brewpub's mainstays, and I've spent many years trying to perfect my offerings.
Have no fear, though, we will not be 100% Belgian-focused. We will still offer some of the usual suspects (for my taps, at least): Classic American Pilsner, my house and rye IPAs, a porter, a wee heavy (Scotch) ale. Likewise, we will offer some extraordinary "normal" food such as Chicago-style deep dish pizza and Italian Beef sandwiches. [I was born and raised in Chicago.] A burger? Maybe. Maybe not.
Teri and I have grandiose plans on what we'd like to offer you. Naturally, the best beer dining experience we are capable of providing is foremost. When I say "experience," I mean more than just the beer and food we serve. We are trying to create an experience for our guests. It must extend to the quality of the staff, your dining environment, tableware, glassware, and everything in between. Cheap, stamped flatware will ruin an experience as quickly as an overcooked steak. We won't settle.
My guests have high expectations of us when they attend one of our parties or join us for a meal. We will have no lower aspirations for delivering this experience to you, our future patrons.
I owe myself no less. I owe you no less.
There is a story behind the packaging. It began as a promotional project for my company Uglyboxes Creative. Seeing as I am a graphic designer and have been for a very long time, it was odd that our brewery friends only thought of me as a "professional drinker" and not an artist.
One fateful day, one of our brewer friends (not sure if he'd like to be named), was complaining about how long it was taking to design their identity. He said that they were on their 35th round of designs! Needless to say, my face said it all... he obviously figured it out quickly and exclaimed: "OMG! I forgot you were a designer!"
He suggested that I come up with some designs for a brewery and well, this was the result. Keith immediately remarked that I couldn't sell the designs.
They were HIS.
What is quality? Every craft beverage producer has a passion for their product(s), and every one of them says they focus on quality. Does that mean they sell "bad" beer? What does "bad" even mean? Is "bad" spoiled? Oxidized? Forgot some ingredients? Missed your vision? All these things definitely relate to quality.
In my opinion, there are two aspects of quality that are often ignorantly smashed together: technical excellence and the lengths to which one will go to ensure they will produce the best product that is technically possible.
When we talk about whether a beer was oxidized due to overexposure to the environment or infected because of poor hygiene, these are technical deficiencies in a brewer's skill. These can be fixed, even if it may take great effort to do so. It is within almost anyone's grasp to become a technically proficient craftsperson.
On the contrary, most brewers miss the other part of quality. I call this discipline, and it entails doing whatever it takes outside the realm of technical excellence to make a beer, including an ability to critically taste and adjust beer formulations, a willingness to let a beer sit in the chiller until it is ready, and other factors.
An example that infuriates me to this day is rushing to serve a beer. That sounds odd. It is, of course, a business imperative to make beer and sell it to your customers. However, if you are truly obsessed with quality, that also means dumping hundreds of gallons of beer down the drain because it did not meet your quality standards. Dumping a bunch of hops into it and calling it a new style IPA is dishonorable not only to the brewer's craft but to your guests.
Discipline also means not serving a beer before it is ready. Mimicking old Orson Welles commercials, "We shall serve no [beer] before its time." I make several high alcohol and lager beers that are not suitable to serve for many months. This is the pursuit of true quality. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've been served maibocks, doppelbocks, tripels, and other beers requiring significant aging after only two weeks of rest. That is not what I would call quality. Certainly not the same quality that many of these breweries claim to value.
I will never serve you a beer until it is ready to be enjoyed.
Okay, well it's only prototypes for now, just to see what people like and what we like. We don't much care for the boring, printed t-shirts and trucker caps. And we are on the fence with silk-screened growlers. We want the quality of our product to extend to our merch too.
There are several zippies available so far:
And wide-brim knit beanies:
We have access to a great catalog and a really great vendor! There are t-shirts, dress shirts, and possibly jean jackets coming soon. It depends on demand.
What does one do with about 1-kg of fresh bread crumbs? Why, make BEER of course!
A few months ago, Keith was making bread when our neighbor's mother was in town and she wanted to see how it was done and maybe get a lesson or two. The type of bread that Keith makes is not like other home-bakers: he grinds his own flour and does everything by hand. She thought it was too much work!
Well, this time the bread didn't rise properly and like he usually does when something doesn't work: he tosses it. If it isn't up to his standards, it isn't served. EVER. So in this case, he decided to simply grind it all up into large bread crumbs. As he was fuming about it, and spreading the crumbs on cookie sheets, I remembered a brewery from one of my CEPE classes. This brewery made it's own bread from their spent grain, then made beer from their leftover bread. A true ouroboros.
I went searching before mentioning it.
I didn't find that UK brewery but what I found was even better: Brussels Beer Project and their Babylone beer instead! I pulled it up on the screen and made his day.
The rest will be history we think. We are hoping to bring Bread Beer to the US in a major way!
Way back in 2014, as part of the promotional design project that I did for my design firm, Uglyboxes Creative, I also did a full set of coasters. We are wondering now, if we should have them printed up to use as a kind of calling card?
Shoot me an email with thoughts?
Again, way back in 2014, when I was working on the promotional design project, we originally came up with the name Troll Bridge. It started as a commentary on the fact that ALL ROADS INTO BELLEVUE ARE TOLLED, or soon will be by 2023 when Washington state finishes its addition of the light rail over the I-90 bridge. As evidenced by my sketch, and the original mockup designs, everything was good-to-go and I even had brochures printed up using the Troll Bridge badging.
While searching for trademarks, we found that there was a winery in Napa Valley called Troll Bridge. We could not use the name. We were devastated.
Then during a chance meeting while on one of our regular "market research" bar hops in Tacoma, a friendly couple made us realize that we could very easily change the name to Toll Bridge and keep the meanings of the whole idea behind our place!
Trevor the troll was the one who owned the toll bridge that the three billy goats crossed to get to greener pastures. Trevor was the one who was knocked off his bridge so that the "old goats" could go and eat grass from someone else's backyard!
Now we just needed to put Trevor's Toll Bridge right under the I-90 in Factoria to complete the story.
Back in May, we had our bi-annual meeting with DJ, our financial advisor over at Ameriprise. Normally, this takes about fifteen minutes to go over our numbers and accounts (we are really easy) and the rest of the hour is all BS and small-talk. We tend to get along very well with people!
In October, I sent him our business plan for Toll Bridge after I finished the CEPE class. It was just to get a sense of what we might be missing or needed to expand upon for when we head off to get loans. Since we hadn't heard back from him, we thought that all was a bust. Just before the meeting, Keith made me promise not to bring up the brewery and he promised me that he wouldn't mention it either.
Our advisor had other plans.
First words out of his mouth were, "Where are you on this brewery?"
We nearly fell out of our chairs; I pointed at DJ and looked at Keith who's face was white as a ghost. Keith said, "What about our portfolio?"
"It's crappy like everyone else's at the moment. Let's talk brewery. It will be more fun. I have a PowerPoint I want to go through..."
We spent the next hour and forty plus minutes discussing the brewery plans and business plan. Oh, and he had read it, all of it. And now he seemed to want in or at least he was going to do his damnedest to make it happen.
Keith's last words were, "Where am I going to find 2-3M?"
DJ said, "You find the property, I got the funding covered."
I never did get to see that PowerPoint.
Through our very good friend E, we were put in contact with a corporate real estate broker! We have a call setup for Monday, August 29, 2022 at 2pm.
Stay Tuned!
Many of you may know my story... my run in with the three old goats who wanted to get to the other side of the water to eat and fatten themselves up. I used to own that bridge they wanted to cross. They played dirty and one day, I found myself knocked into the water being carried away by the current.
It was then that I decided to do something that even they wouldn't take from me.
I decided to make beer.
Now, no one runs from me!
