TTB [Alcohol & Tobbaco Tax & Trade Bureau] Gives Epic the Go!

We received the email below today and it made us happy.


“Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 8:56 AM
To: Peter Erickson
Subject: Your Brewery has been approved and is in the mail!


[our contact], TTB Specialist”


This is the Federal approval of our brewery application. If we have some luck, we might finally get our building permit in the coming days. Nothing is easy, so we just have to keep pushing.

Cheers!

14 Concepts

14 different concept brews in two different cellars! We have been working hard on brews, building issues, equipment layouts, labels and loans.

Kevin and I are off to Carlsbad, CA on Friday for some R&D with many others from Utah. It is going to be a great time tasting strong ales and hanging out in the old SDSU stomping grounds.

Wheat Beer at Sunset

More concept brews with the small pilot system underway at about one a week. The Stout got going last week and is looking good. This week we hope to do a very special barrel aged Belgian style strong ale. If the flavors work out, all I can say is look out, it is going to be a treat. We will be shooting for about 10% ABV with this one and if the concept is proven to be tasty, ask to see the full size cask once we get underway at the brewery.

We have been at the City a lot these days. Support for the project is very encouraging and we hope to have the building permit in three weeks or, hopefully less. Next week we have our first visit from JVNW to discuss the install of our brew house with our contractors. Things are moving but never fast enough.

Something special that just says spring beer to you? Since our projected opening date is early spring, it would be great to have some comments as to what readers here might enjoy brew wise in the springtime.

Quick Update

The test brews are getting off to a good start. Brewed so far: two versions of Wheat, two versions of Porter, two Pale Ales, one Lager, two versions of Amber Ale and this week the first IPA will be brewed in duplicate too. The Wheat and Porters are bottled up and in the cellar. The Pales received a healthy dry hopping a few days ago.

The building clean up is on its third dumpster and we are off to the city with our plans today.

It's About Time!

Epic Brewing finally has a home. It is not much to look at yet. We will start the clean out this week and demolish the building in part as soon as we can; followed by reconstruction and a major face lift. Architect and engineers are getting busy and we finally feel like we are off the starting line looking for the hole shot!

Location, Location, Location

It is not easy in SLC to find the right location to meet the needs of the thirsty. Epic is doing something that hasn't happened in Utah since prohibition; you can imagine the zoning issues along with State and local laws that complicate the issue of where we will brew and sell our "Heavy Beer" from. We can't be too near a park, church, school, playground, etc. It is not impossible but it has taken way too long.

At any rate we have two possible downtown locations in the works and we hope at least one will play out this week. Do us a favor and make a toast to success if you will!

Poll results: Only 7 people noticed and took the poll regarding Favorite Beer Styles. India Pale Ale, American Pale Ale, and Double IPA's take the podium.

Survey Facts and OBF visit

Some fun facts from the survey…

The average survey taker bought 36 beers in the previous month.

Some of you might need to step up your game or share more of your beer with your friends since….The winner bought 144 in the previous month!

The more beers a person bought, the more likely they were to want to try an Epic made brew. Good beer, in moderation, can make you smart or at least a potential Epic Brewing Customer…

People were most interested in trying Epic for:

1. Its expected taste
2. Being a craft beer
3. Range of styles being offered
4. Alcoholic content...hmmm

Under…behavior modification: a number of people who typically DO NOT purchase beer from the state liquor store said they would start shopping there once Epic is on the shelves!

Oregon Brewers Fest Update

Kevin (Epic’s Brewer) said he needed to go out to this great beer festival over the 23rd to 26 July for work. He said it was “hard work drinking all the different styles of beer in the heat wave” in the Pacific Northwest.

We got some good leads for hops, malts and hard goods. Kevin found some new experimental malt that seems just up Epic’s creative alley. We can’t wait until we are brewing with these small batch, limited release, specialty malts, the flavors should push the envelope.

Kevin also saw our good pals at Ninkasi Brewing to help on the bottling line since they use a similar system to the one we will use; which was a good hands-on experience.

Thanks to those of you who took the time to complete the survey before it closed.

Beer Survey Says....???

Yes, we have been silent on the Blog! Maybe too much “liquid” research and cycling getting in the way of the postings….

We need your help if you live in Utah and drink beer. Peter (co-founder of Epic) is a former MBA student and via his connection to the University of Utah, found a couple of undergraduate marketing students willing to help us out with a market survey. We are honored to have a Professor Bill Moore from the David Eccles School of Business help guide them in the process survey writing, data collection, and analysis.

If you are a beer drinker living in Northern Utah, could you please spend about 5 minutes filling out this survey? Obviously, we are interested in your true feelings and not just answers that make the guys at Epic feel good.

Take the Epic Brewing Marketing Survey

Cheers!

Brewhouse Update

We have been busy working on the final details of our brewhouse system. Kevin traveled to Ohio see a never installed system, but it had several issues that made it just as costly as a new system in the end. Used equipment was the initial plan, but we believe in the support of beer aficionados in the beehive, so we have increased the budget and narrowed our plans down to three suppliers of NEW systems. Yes, a brand new 10 barrel brewhouse is coming to Salt Lake City and we plan to place the order by next week.

It will take about 8 to 12 weeks for the system to be custom built and ready to travel to our location. I hope to be able to share more location information next week.

Sisters & Bend

Three Creeks Brewing, more good people; Dave (the brewer) was very open and full of great advice! Wade, GM and Founder of the pub, let Peter and I pepper him with business questions for hours. Finally, Peter and I had the chance to have an Entrepreneur “geek out session” while Kevin kept up a steady pace of beer geeking with Dave. Dave has connections to SLC so we hope to see him at the Brewery later this year.

The town of Sisters is a good time, just like the IPA Dave is hopping up at Three Creeks Brewing! If you want to impress the locals at Three Creeks order a Squirrel, it is not on the beer list but Pete and Kevin sure enjoyed it. This pub has good family friendly dinning too. Sisters is a mountain town just 20 miles east of Bend. Bend is the site of the 2009 Cyclocross National Championships and Sisters could be an interesting alternative to staying in Bend for you Utah Cross fanatics.

USAC doesn’t mention Bend as home to Deschutes Brewery but seems like they should since beer plays a major role in cross history here and across the pond. Bend’s Deschutes Pub was packed on Wednesday night and from the photos you see they earned some medals...we enjoyed Obsidian Stout, some pales, and how can we not mention ALL SIX IPA's on tap...schizzle! Six IPA’s in the small town of Bend and some say the 801 can't handle 3 at one shop, don't despair because we're bringing it!

Then somewhere in East Oregon, we nearly rear-ended this guy! We were not sure if we should just write him off as insane or negotiate our distribution and trucking contract on the spot…seems he has survived going 3 mph on this highway for years!

Oregon Road Trip, Day Two

Today we went south to Conby and visited JV Northwest, an impressive manufacturer of major brewing equipment. Phil gave us a great tour and reviewed our plans with us.

Then off to Eugene to hook up with Paul, who does some consulting for us. He is at Ninkasi now helping with a major expansion project. They where adding a dedicated whirlpool kettle when we visited and we saw the plans for even more. They just do local distribution in bottles and kegs!! Paul let us tap a few fresh draft pints since it was pretty close to noon we had to say yes…the IPA was fantastic. (Robyn, Paul, Peter, Kevin in front of Ninkasi)

(Fermentation room, keg prep, and loading up)

More great brewers in OR! Thanks to Paul and Robyn for the tour and great discussions.

And check it out $18 beers at a special shop in Eugene!

PORTLAND BREW BIZ ROAD TRIP!!

Here you can skip the business plan details and other boring crap and head out for the first EPIC ROAD TRIP in search of brewing equipment and inspiration in Portland which just happens to have a 130 year plus, truly American Brewing History!

...drive 10+ hours from SLC, and stress out drafting up the ass end of trucks for 20+ miles when Kevin and Peter thought the Honda was joking about 0 miles of gas in the tank...then crash in The Dalles after a great cod meal and some Bridgeport IPA, Mirror Pond Pale Ale among others...

Wake up to meet the owner, Paul and crew at AAA manufacturing. Great guys, fantastic stories of projects for breweries from UT to ROGUE and see shining tanks.

Down the road in Hood River, Kevin talks his way into Full Sail at 9 AM!! They don't open till lunch but we get the private tour with Marketing guru Sandra after Kevin won't let her escape from the front door to do real work. She had an inspirational story about pushing vendors to offer recycled paper for certain packaging materials, F.S. stayed firm and moved a lot of the industry in the right direction. To end the tour, Peter is Swedish so he asks for free samples of the Sessions Lager they are bottling...guess he was ready to session drink at 10:00 am...

Drive from Hood River to meet dedicated and driven Charlie from Metal Craft Fab. and get treated to a lunch and beers at New Old Lompoc Brewing, 5Q salad...brewing and the executive barrel aged display decision is made on the spot.

Then to see a salesman but he's got no junk in his trunk and is missing so we go...

...thankfully, and as luck would have it, to HUB (Hopworks Urban Brewery) 'cause Charlie found out I love bikes, says he used to wrench b4 building beer tanks and did some cool stuff for this pub in the NEQ that is about bikes and beer. Not to mention Green as Green, like bio diesel fired kettles, organic and other progressive stuff. The owner and brewer, Christian was way inspirational and as all good brewers, out of his way friendly.

BTW, this guy can lay down an IPA fresh like UT powpow sprinkled with hops on top and resin dripping down to re-crystallized layers. We got to see his just installed 6 head machine running, the kind we hope to install. Awesome stuff. He even has chain links printed on the bottles of his Pale Ale!

Thanks Christian!!!

Check out the beer board, 12 styles on draft and the video of the filler running!

More on the First Epic Road Trip to come...