As promised, part two of our saga. It's been a long time coming, and we hope you enjoy our story as much as we have living it.
It's now late January, and (i.e.) brewing company has just gotten underway. So now we have a business name, and have figured out that we are actually decent at brew beer...now what? Why, we will make more tasty beers, of course! Our First Attempt turned out well, but it was based on an extract recipe, and we felt that it was missing something. Further research paved way for us to brew with the time honed method of all grain brewing.
All grain brewing, depending on who you ask, is the holy grail of brewing processes. You have incredible control over your recipe, are not limited to certain ingredients, and that freedom really lets you be creative with the final product. On our third batch ever, in mid Feburary, we brewed our first all grain batch of beer. It was a recipe we came up with that's based on recipes available on Beer Tools.com, and it was to be an IPA.
As anyone who has ever tried their hands on brewing at home will tell you, the equipment makes a huge difference in being able to control the 1000s of variables during the brewing process. All grain brewing introduces a whole new set of metrics that has a cascading effect as the process moves along. We found out the hard way that without planning and knowing the equipment, you will have a lot of fun cleaning up spilled wort (and mostly boiling hot, I might add) off the porch, kitchen floor, carpet, and shoes.
After the nearly 10 hours of work was complete, we had a 6 gallon carboy mostly filled with wort that, truthfully, tasted and smelled pretty good. Now the waiting begins. By the end of the three weeks had passed for the fermentation and conditioning phases, we bottled our first all grain batch of beer. It's mid March, and we're feeling pretty good about our first "real" batch of beer, and we can't wait for people to try it out.
The opportunity came in late march at a co-worker's birthday party in the Lookout Mountain area. We went to the party toting a 12 pack of our new IPA and were not quite sure what to expect. Will people like the beer? Will people tell us we shouldn't quit our day jobs? Since we're at a party where we don't really know anybody, we're bracing ourselves for whatever comes our way, realizing that at the very least, the feedback will be honest. At the end, our fears were unfounded. Everyone who tried our beer loved the taste, and all the comments we received were positive and helpful. From this party, we made a few important contacts who will become integral to setting up the brewery.
One important piece of feedback we got was the perception of the name, (i.e) brewing company. After some constructive comments, we decided to go back to the drawing board and come up with a business name that resonates with beer afficiandos and the general public alike. We needed a business name that is more than a name. We needed something we can build a brand from, and not the other way around.
In late April, our (new) official name was registered as a domain name, and we decided on CAUTION: Brewing Company. The name reflects our personalities, the philosophy behind our brews, and the brand direction we're taking. We have set out to run a brewery with gusto, throwing caution to the wind in how the beer tastes and introduce craft beers to a new generation of people who think about the beers they drink instead of what the advertisers tell us to drink.
CAUTION: Brewing Company was born, we cannot be more proud of what we have accomplished so far, and this is only the beginning.
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