A look back at 2014 (Yeah, it's one of these)

So I was going to start working on this post early next week since I was originally going to designate this holiday weekend to playing video games and not much else. However due to Playstation Network being down thanks to a hacker group that hates humanity and not being able to play Destiny (You need an internet connection to play the game,) I decided to pass the time by starting to write about this year in review.

2014 has been a year full surprises and life-changing events; Some of which I saw coming and others I did not expect. Here I'll be writing about the beers I've had as well as some happenings to mix it up. So without further ado, I give you my recap of 2014!

**Disclaimer: I'm also going to point out right now that this is also a fairly long post, so just a heads up**

January

What can be said about January? To be honest, not a whole lot. I guess the only memorable things I could take away from January would be the record breaking god-awful cold temperatures we had and a little something called Deschutes The Abyss.

With its rich and complex flavor, this beer easily stood out as the best beer in a month that I considered to be lacking. New Glarus' Raspberry Tart also was pretty good but The Abyss edged that one out, though it did make for a good trade a few months down the road.

February

The month of love was also a fairly slow month. However there was one beer that stood out to me...for all the wrong reasons. My regular readers probably know what I'm talking about but I'll explain a little further. I follow a philosophy that I never turn down free beer, regardless of who it's from. In other words, you have to screw up pretty badly to make a beer so horrible that even I wouldn't take it even if it were free.

Lo and behold, a beer matching that description made its way into my hands and it went by the name Miller Fortune.

I promise this is the last time I talk about Miller Fortune. Fortune was Miller's answer to Budweiser Black Crown and was no doubt marketed to the craft beer drinking crowd by promising bourbon-like flavors and toting a higher-than-normal ABV; Which I've mentioned a couple times before is pretentious and unnecessary. 

Needless to say, this ended up being one of the worst beers I had ever had. How could somebody take a wonderful thing like beer and make it so awful? I understand that it's a Miller product and all, but even their regular stuff like MGD, Pabst & Miller Lite, while not great, I would still consider to be tolerable at the very least. In any case, I hope Miller's next attempt at trying to gain a share of the craft beer market is....less terrible.

March

Finally a month that isn't mediocre! In early March, I was contacted by David Grandmaison and was offered the opportunity to help promote The Duluth Experience's North Shore Craft Beer Roundtable, which was a series of four roundtable events pertaining to the craft beer scene in NE Minnesota & NW Wisconsin. 

I cannot express enough how great it was to see well-respected individuals in the craft beer scene sit down, talk, and share their experiences in the industry. On top of that, I got to meet and network with so many great people.

April

April saw the continuation of the The Duluth Experience's Roundtable event, which featured the head-brewers from the various breweries located in the Duluth-Superior area. Much like the first event, the second part was just as engaging and interesting as the first one. 

So what made this month as interesting as March? Well for me it was the interviews I conducted. The first being the interview I did with David Grandmaison from The Duluth Experience, which I found to be extremely interesting and insightful. The second interview I did was with these guys....

I met Seth from Regular Guy Brewing on Twitter in the wee months of 2014 and we have since become good friends. Seth was awesome enough to give me the chance to interview him, which we managed to pull-off despite Google Hangout's attempts to cut our connection. Overall it was a fun month but it was only a prelude to what was to come.

May

During the first half of May, I spent a week down in Minneapolis/St. Paul for Minnesota Craft Beer Week, in which I covered various events which celebrated Minnesota Craft Beer. It was a week full of fun and it made memories that I will remember for the rest of my life. Needless to say it was also a very busy time but they always say time flies when you're having fun.

Among the thing I did during that week:

• Went to Dangerous Man for the first time and checked out Northbound Smokehouse's Buckwheat Honey Porter
• Going to Great Waters Brewing for the first time and going to a keg tapping of Surly Blakkr with Simcoe & Centennial Hops at the Four Firkins
• Making a trip to Pitchfork Brewing in Hudson, Wisconsin (It's not Minnesota beer, but I still consider it local)
• Checking out The Freehouse in downtown Minneapolis & going to Barley John's keg tapping for Warrior's Passage 2.0 Imperial IPA w/ Falconer's Flight Hops.
• Attending the food truck rally at Harriet Brewing, complete with barrel aged sours and Nutella and Bacon covered chocolate chip cookies

Those events were awesome and all, but they don't hold a candle to what the final day of Minnesota Craft Beer week had in store for me. That's because on the last day of Minnesota Craft Beer week, I met these guys for the first time....

I met with Jon & Josh from Angry Inch Brewing in Rosemount, Minnesota for a private tasting event. Originally it was supposed to be an hour long affair but it ended up turning into a 3 hour conversation about their experiences in brewing as well as the story behind each beer and just getting to know them; All the while drinking some fantastic beers which they made for the tasting event. 

June

June started off with me moving into my new place, which put me in close proximity to all the breweries & brewpubs located in Duluth. It was during this time I started doing weekly roundup posts which continued until the end of July; I would also like to take this time to point out that those posts WILL be making a return in the near future. As for when, I don't know yet.

June also marked the final event in The Duluth Experience North Shore Craft Beer Roundtable event, which focused on the role of women in the Craft Brewing Industry. Of all the roundtable events, I found that one to be the most educational and interesting of the topics that were covered during the Roundtable series

As for the beer, there was a lot of great beers that I had that month but the one I found to be the most memorable was Heady Topper from The Alchemist. Talk about a great and well balanced Imperial IPA, I can see why all the craft beer fanatics love to post pictures and boast about this beer online.

July

July brought about something new for me: an interview with a film director. I sat down with Dave Okar, director of Crafted to Last: Minnesota Beer Blossoms, a documentary which covered the rapid expansion of Minnesota Craft Beer movement thanks to the Taproom Bill that was passed back in 2011. It was a fun interview and it gave me a really good appreciation for all the local beer which we here in Minnesota have the pleasure of drinking.

Next up is The Duluth Experience Saturday Evening Brewery Tour, which consisted of tours at Vikre Distillery, Bent Paddle Brewing Company & Fitger's Brewhouse. For me, it was my own fun little mini-bachelor party that I threw for myself. It was a great time and it gave me a much greater appreciation for the craft beer scene in Duluth.

I ended July by going to camp.....Beer Camp that is! I acquired a 12-pack of Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp, which featured collaborations between Sierra Nevada and twelve different breweries across the country. Some of my favorites included:

• Electric Ray IPL - Brewed in collaboration with Ballast Point.
• Yonker Bock Tropical Maibock - Brewed in collaboration with Cigar City Brewing.
• CANfusion Rye Maibock - Brewing in collaboration with Oskar Blues (Probably my favorite of the bunch)

Just a few days after I finished with that 12-pack, a big life changing event happened to me....

August

I got married.

Wait, that doesn't count? My mistake!

I suppose if I were to talk about anything beer related, the first order of business would be my mini-honeymoon up to Ely, MN for a couple of days right after we got married. It was my first time going through the Mesabi Iron Range and the sights were truly something to behold. 

Nestled deep in the northern edge of the Iron Range is a small brewery called the Boathouse Brewpub. It was a far cry in terms of size and scale when compared to other brewpubs in Minnesota. With that said, it was a nice and cozy place to eat and drink. 

Speaking of which, the beers were fantastic and quite tasty. I can also tell that it doesn't possess the same traffic and reputation as Town Hall & Fitger's but any craft beer fan owes it to themselves to check this place out. On top of that, the drive up there is gorgeous.

September

This the month of homebrew reviews. I reviewed not one, not two but seven homebrews. Remember Regular Guy & Angry Inch Brewing? Well I finally was able to sit down and do a proper review of their beers. 

From Angry Inch Brewing:

• Daddy's Honey Pot Saison
• 42 Short & Portly
• Menage a Trois Tripel
• Four Horseman IPA 

From Regular Guy Brewing:

• Smokey Grove Porter
• Hot Blonde Jalapeno
• Unnamed Extra Pale Ale 

Also worth noting is my interview with Sarina Otabi, who is the co-founder of Bluenose Gopher Brewery, an upcoming brewpub that will be based out of Granite Falls, MN which is scheduled to open sometime in the near future. It was a fun interview and I enjoyed learning more about the brewpub and what the future plans are.

October

The big thing to happen to me in October was being brought on board by Northland Beer, a website that is dedicated to raising awareness of the craft beer scene in the Upper Midwest. I am extremely grateful to be part of such a wonderful team and I really enjoy having another outlet to get my name and writing out there.

November & December

Finally to wrap up the year, a couple of pretty big things happened and the first thing I'd like to bring up is finding out that Angry Inch Brewing is planning on opening up their own brewery sometime next year in Lakeville, MN. They were also kind enough to let me officially announce the opening on Northland Beer's main website. 

During a tasting party I attended for Angry Inch Brewing back in November, several people who were at the event were familiar with my blog thanks to word of mouth by Angry Inch and quite fond of my work. To me, it was a very humbling experience and it was fun talking with everyone. 

Overall, it was a fun year and I am looking forward to what next year has in store for me. In fact, I know 2015 is going to be a great year. How do I know this? You'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks for reading and have a Happy New Year!

- Nick

Regular Guy Brewing Extra Pale Ale Review

Name: Regular Guy Brewing Extra Pale Ale
Style: English Pale Ale
ABV: N/A

It's time to look at the final beer sent to me by Seth from Regular Guy Brewing. For this review, I'm treading familiar territory with their Extra Pale Ale and I say that because Summit Extra Pale Ale just so happens to be a regular visitor to my fridge (amongst other things, of course.)

Unlike the last two bottles I got, the label on this is basically a sticker that was drawn on with a Sharpie. That's because it's still a beer in the testing stages as evidenced by the label.

Now originally I was not going to give this a score at Seth's request because it's an unfinished product, but because of my rebellious nature, I'm going to give this a score anyways as you will see why shortly.

Regular Guy EPA pours a very dark orange color with a very hazy appearance. The head is very foamy and voluminous, especially with an aggressive pour which I found out the hard way. The lacing is somewhat soapy and some mild visible carbonation.

The nose has a very distinct citrus and tropical fruit scent upfront with the tropical fruitiness smelling a lot like kiwis. There's also some toffee malt sweetness and some mild yeastiness on the back end of the nose.

A relatively strong yeastiness starts things off in the flavor but with some prominent citrus hops, mangos and kiwi fruitness. There's some floral hoppiness in here too along with some caramel maltiness, which are on the back end of the palate. As for the aftertaste, it's actually very dry with the exception of a light yeast and floral hop flavor.

As for the body, it is pretty light with some fairly moderate carbonation, which is on par with other EPAs that I've had before.

For an "Unfinished" EPA, this is actually quite good and the flavor provides a unique spin on what is an otherwise familiar style to myself. While some traditionalists may be put off by the fruitness of the beer, I for one welcome it and would gladly buy this if this were available in stores.

Regular Guy Brewing Extra Pale Ale - 8.5/10

Regular Guy Brewing Hot Blonde Review

Name: Regular Guy Hot Blonde
Style: Blonde Ale
ABV: 4.5%

It's time to look at my second beer that was sent to me by Seth from Regular Guy Brewing. This time it's their Hot Blonde. As you may have guessed from the name, it's a Blonde Ale brewed with Jalapeno peppers.

Now I'm going to go on the record here and say that I'm not terribly familiar with chili beers. In fact, I've only had maybe one of them in my life, which was from Fitger's Brewhouse. Come to think of it, my only exposure to spicy anything comes from my wife, who happens to make Indian dishes on a regular basis.

Much like Smokey Grove, Hot Blonde has a very professional looking label that could probably pass off as one from an actual brewery. The only thing missing is the Regular Guy custom cap, but I've already got one for my collection but I'll let it pass!

Hot Blonde pours a very hazy yellow color with a thin, yet foamy head. The lacing retention is actually quite good and the carbonation is rather low in terms of appearance.

The aroma is somewhat yeasty with a nice spicy aroma that is not too overbearing. There's also some pale maltiness in here too with a bit of barley, some mild hoppiness and light peppers.

The flavor, much like the nose, starts out with some yeastiness and a nicely balanced spicy heat. On the back on the palate is a very strong peppery taste that starts to interfere with the rest of the flavor save for the spiciness. There are some malty notes and light hops, but they're all but eclipsed by the sheer raw peppers.

The palate is thankfully very light in terms of body and the carbonation is also very light, which is a good thing too when you consider that this is a chili beer and any carbonation would no doubt intensify those spicy flavors.

I like the aroma, I like the overall body, but the flavor needs some work. To be fair, the flavor itself is actually quite good and has a nice heat to it but it tasted like too much like a liquid Jalapeno and therefore way too peppery for my liking. All that needs to be done is to tune down the raw jalapeno taste (not the heat itself) and you'll have an awesome chili beer on your hands.

Regular Guy Brewing Hot Blonde - 7/10

Regular Guy Brewing Smokey Grove Review

Name: Regular Guy Brewing Smokey Grove
Style: Porter
ABV: 6.5%

Well it's finally time! After months of waiting, I'm finally getting the chance to review some beers from Regular Guy Brewing Company. Some readers may recall my interview I did with Seth Treptow, one of the brewers from Regular Guy Brewing, that I did earlier this year. Right now, they are planning on opening up a nanobrewery in the St. Louis, Missouri area but for the time being, they're brewing in the comfort of a tricked-out garage.

I received 3 beers from them last week and I was going to hold off reviewing this particular beer until I went through the others but temptation got the better of me. I give to you Smokey Grove, Regular Guy's Smoked Porter which is brewed with apples. Ever since I first heard about Smokey Grove, I've been curious to try it out and was actually about to get it back in May, but the forces that be broke the bottles while in transit. Luckily, things turned out differently and now I finally get a chance to try this out.

First thing you'll notice about the bottle in the photo above is the label. I may not be the most knowledgeable about graphic design (even though I do dabble in Photoshop,) the label looks professionally done or could be passed off as such. However, my favorite part is the custom "Regular Guy Brewing" bottle cap. It's definitely going on my bottle cap fridge magnet collection!

Smokey Grove pours a pitch black color with a very foamy head. The lacing retention is quite good and there is a hint of carbonation climbing up the sides of the glass.

The nose has a strong smoked malt and apple scent. Also present in the nose is a prominent oak characteristic and a moderate roasted barley profile. It's like they took a rauchbier and infused it with apples. It smells like autumn.

As far as the taste is concerned, smokey is right! That is because the smoked malt and apple flavors again take center stage in the overall taste itself with a solid roasted barley foundation with some chocolate notes and a very mild bitter hoppiness. As far as the aftertaste goes, it's more smoked malts and apple flavor that was present at the beginning.

The palate is moderate in terms of body and carbonation. It's also got a bit of thickness to it as well, which is actually quite nice.

If this were to, somehow, be made available in stores, I would be buying this on a frequent basis because this is an outstanding porter! Everything from the aroma and right down to the taste is rich and robust in its very own way. If I had it my way, it'd be available year-round but I can see this being an excellent fall seasonal. For the time being, the only thing I can do is wait until I can get this in stores.

Regular Guy Brewing Smokey Grove - 9.5/10

Interview with Seth Treptow, Head Brewer/Co-Owner of Regular Guy Brewing

With the number of breweries in America at a record high, we are seeing more and more breweries pop up everywhere. Amongst these breweries in the works is called Regular Guy Brewing based out of Granite City, IL; Which is situated right across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, MO.

Intrigued by what his brewery will have to offer to beer drinkers, I connected with Seth Treptow, one of the owners of Regular Guy Brewing. I asked Seth to sit down with me to discuss his plans for the brewery as well as the challenges associated with starting a brewery.

You can also find Regular Guy Brewing on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/regularguybeer
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/regularguybrewing


Seth, tell me a little bit about yourself. What is your background?

Well my background is in communications. My college degree was in broadcasting; Worked in television and radio production and currently work as a communications director for a non-profit in the St. Louis, Missouri area and I started really getting into beer here and there during college and went through the cheap beer phase just like everyone does. After college I decided I wanted to try something other than swill and dabbled a bit, tried some different things and really became a fan of craft beer and gained more and more appreciation of it.

Sometime shortly after getting married, my in-laws gave me my first Mr. Beer kit, so I learned the basics of making beer and played with that for a few years then a few years ago me and my two partners with Regular Guy Brewing really got serious about it and went All-Grain and have been more and more with every brew that we make.



What's the story behind Regular Guy Brewing? What's the story behind the name?

Well, you know, we kind of looked at craft beer and there is a perception of who drinks it. You know, there is the artsy hipsters with their big black glasses and their tiny, skinny jeans. And then you have the yuppie crowd with the import kind of thing and really the average person, just the regular Joe, the average guy is just kind of dismissed. I think they are dismissed way too often as the Joe Six-Pack kind of idea where, you know, your Bud Lights and Budweisers are good enough for just, you know, guys who work blue collar and white collar jobs and we kind of take a different point of view.

We say: You work hard, you earned something better than watered-down corn water. You don't need to have your tongue and mouth assaulted with hops to feel like you're doing something good for you and good for craft beer. We want to create a beer that's for everyone and figured what better way to make that clear with our brand and just be upfront about it. We're regular guys making beer for regular guys. 



Now I was reading an article today about the number of craft breweries in America. At the last estimate, there was about 2,500 craft breweries in America right now with countless others in planning. I know here in Minnesota, I can name at least 5 off the top of my head that are not even open yet and people are already paying attention to them. What, besides from appealing to the Average Joe, makes Regular Guy so unique amongst the new contenders in craft beer?

It's tough to say to be unique because you're right, it's a fast growing field. You know, I look at the St. Louis area and just a few years ago, you had Anheuser-Busch and really beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot on the beer front. You had Schlafly (Brewing) and it was certainly there and you had a few small production breweries but really only in a few years has craft beer exploded. Now there's dozens of them all around. Another place that really comes to mind to me is Ashville, North Carolina, which is one of my favorite places in the country and I was there a few years ago just on vacation and was really impressed by the beer scene there. Then I went back about a year ago for my sister's wedding and just in a few years, somewhere that was already known for craft beer, had exploded even more. So there's more and more stuff out there.

You see ideas that sound original for the first time when you see it, but before long you see them everywhere like Hoppy Wheats; They're everywhere. So it's hard to find a way to differentiate yourself because as far as the beer goes, it's like anything, there's only so many original ideas out there. So really what it comes down to is not just what you put in a bottle; Well that is a big part of it but really it's how you present yourself and there's a lifestyle thing, it's a style, it's all that part and I really think that does separate Regular Guy Brewing apart. It's the fact that we're not going to turn our nose up to you if we see you drinking a Keystone. We're not going to give you a high-five and a thumbs up because you're drinking an Arrogant Bastard Ale. Beer is good for whoever it is and whatever you like, we're okay with that. You want to drink it from a fancy glass? Awesome! If you prefer it straight out of a bottle, we're okay with that too. So really, I think that's what where we're approaching from is that it is what you make of it and whatever it is, we're cool with that. We're not sure if that'll be enough to stand out when the time comes but we hope it is.


Speaking of beer, and this is probably what everyone will want to know. What kind of beers do you plan on offering? I looked on the website and it was talking about a Rye-Red Ale...?

It was a Red Rye and that was...I don't know if you saw my blog post but it's what I described as the Mean Girls of beer: It was beautiful to look at but a bitch to try to drink. It was way too rye, way too bitter; We went a bit too much.

We want to try things that are outside of the convention. It's kind of like when my two buddies, Justin and Brian and I made short films years ago. We didn't just want to do a romance, we didn't want to just do a comedy, we didn't want it to be just a Sci-Fi; We wanted it to blend and find ways to kind of merge and approach one idea from multiple angles and that's what we are kind of carrying over to our beer too.

So you'll see things like our Hot Blonde, which is a Blonde Ale but we've infused it with jalapeños. So you have a very light, low body but kind of sweet beer then adding a little spiciness in kind of adds a dimension and that's kind of what we are looking at. You're not going to see chamomile or cinnamon in anything we do but you're going to see ingredients that any man....or woman would enjoy. Just your average kind of person that would say "I can appreciate that."

The Red Rye-Der...we kind of want to go with something like an Amber ale but then we'd want to go with just your general Irish Ale. We wanted to go with something with a little bit of a different flavor to it. In my travels I've found several different Red Ryes I kind of liked and thought "Let's give that a go!" There is nowhere around here that I know of that has something like that so it'd be something different. It just didn't work out for us on that one, maybe next time it will but we'll see.


And what about the Smoked Apple Porter?

That is our Smokey Grove, which we just brewed another batch of on Friday night. If you had to find it, it would probably be as far as the beer judging criteria, it would fall right under that robust porter category. But it also has quite a bit of smoke flavor to it. In addition to my love of beer making, I love smoking meat, so I have a nice array of smokers on my back patio. We took a quarter of our grain and smoked it for about an hour with applewood to add a little bit of extra flavor to it for the smokiness. Then we add apples into the boil and to the secondary to add a bit of extra sweetness. So when it's all said and done and it all ferments out, you're going to have a good amount of sweetness with a little touch of smokiness and a little bit of that apple-y flavor to bring it all together. Porters are kind of a darker beer & has a lot of malty characteristics. These additions: The smoke, the apple will kind of enhance that to another level.


Aside from making sure your equipment is clean as I've learned with my experience in homebrewing, what are some of the challenges you have run into so far?

The biggest challenge for me is knowing when to stop. I love adjusting, I love tinkering. Every single brew I think of something new that we can try in the next brew that might make things more efficient or make things a little bit better or easier for us or better for the beer. Part of...especially when you are brewing to build a business it's not just about the quality of the beer but the consistency of the beer. We really do try to operate as much as we can as a....even though we are probably at least a year away from getting our licensing and being able to sell it to anyone, we've been operating from the get-go with the mentality that every brew we make is research and development for what we're going to do. So we take notes, do all that stuff but because of my tinkering nature the hardest part I have is dialing it back because every little change that you make can change what the beer becomes. With that idea of consistency, at some points I just have to put the brakes on and just reel it back in and it's something I struggle with.


As far as planning goes, you had mentioned licensing and being able to distribute. Where exactly are you at in those phases?

We are very early but we are seriously early. Looking at the whole brewing thing, I think anyone who has brewed their own beer has had someone say "Dude, this is great. You should sell this!" And yeah, everyone has probably had that thought "Yeah, I could do that!" I've had many good homebrews and many that are better than professional, giant brewers out there. What separates it really is the drive and ambition; It's a lot of work that goes into it and it's easy to brew beers on a Friday night in your garage but to actually go through the steps of your licensing, getting your equipment, the scale, opening the doors and doing all of that. It's a lot of hard work that goes into it and that is hard work we are not afraid of. We know what we want to do, we have a basic idea and plan. It's really fine tuning things, dotting I's, crossing T's, then finding the right spaces, finding the right things that would work for us and all along, just fine tuning things out.

I really don't want to go into too much detail with what we plan on doing. Despite many articles I've read and blogs to the contrary, what we actually are going to be starting out is what we call a "Test Kitchen Stage." We are going to be a nanobrewery or nano-production brewery. We're talking 1 BBL (barrel)......maybe less initially at launch and we're not opening our doors to the public. We're going to self distribute to two or three bars at very low quantity. Probably for the first year, it might be enough to cover the bills but it'll certainly...hopefully add up to break even compared to what we are doing for homebrewing right now. And really take that time to build relationships with those small number of locations, build relationships with clientele, get feedback; Get active feedback. Concentrate on being really small and being really good at being small and then organically grow from that point. Then seek investments, seek all that other stuff then grow as we have demand to grow.

From what I understand, beer is unlike restaurants, unlike a lot of other small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. People love beer: At the best of times, people love beer and the worst of times, people buy beer. I know, and I'm sure you have too, you've drank bad beer. You don't have to have the world's best beer to make a profit making beer but when you start small, you have to have relationships and this will give us a chance to do that in a very effective way and then know our small footprint and kind of grow out and take our time and doing it right every step we take.


When you are talking about opening a brewery, but what is one thing that people absolutely need to know if they want to open one up themselves?

I'll tell you, the one thing that scares me the most is...and it might sound crazy but it's just the whole drainage and wastewater issue. You can't just figure "Oh, I'm going to open up my own brewery in my garage," or "I'm just going to a warehouse," or something like that. When you brew beer, we do five-to-ten gallon batches now and we probably spill a gallon of hot, steamy liquid and it's not abnormal to spill a half-gallon or a gallon at a time. Now you suddenly boost that volume up and you've got hundreds of gallons potentially being spilled on any brew day and you have to have drainage in your floor that could handle that and there's only spaces where you can have piping that can handle high temperature..hot, sticky wort and processing it through and not melting pipes, not causing issues. You have to look for slope, your finishing on the floors; Your space is really just a huge portion of what you have to look into. I see is one of our biggest challenges going into it is finding a space that has a floor big enough to do what we want and not to have too big of a hole in our pockets. It's going to have the basic amenities and something like that will make it work.

The other big part of it though, and you touched on it with the homebrewing and cleaning, the making the beer portion of having a brewery is really like this much of it (holds up his hand with a small gap in-between the thumb and index finger).

Brewing is going to be the easy part, it's the part we already love. Even the cleaning part: I enjoy cleaning after....I'm a slob but I don't mind scrubbing out a kettle at the end of a brew night because I know I did something to make it that nasty. But when you go to that big of a scale, you have a giant kettle that you have to scrub out and seeing things get cleaned but even with that part, that's making something you love and that people are going to love. So that's almost still tolerable it's going to be then having to, on a regular basis, change your hats, go out and have to basically live this business outside the brewery portion of it; It's definitely going to be a challenge. You aren't just brewing beer while you're there, you're running a brewery all the time.


Now when I think of St. Louis, I think of the big player that is Anheuser-Busch. The other big brewer I can think of is Boulevard (Brewing). What kind of market is there for a nano-brewery in St. Louis?

The great thing about craft beer it's really opened up the whole appreciation of local much more than any other type of beer has. We're at a great time between social media and increasing awareness of craft beer, what it is and the quality and the time that goes into it where it's really become a destination thing. A craft beer lover will go out of their way to try a craft beer that they have heard about. You're not going to go out of your way to have a Bud Light. You're not going to go out of your way to have a Heineken. You're not going to go out of your way to have a Coors or a Stag, but you will go out of your way, 20-30 miles, to go try out a beer that you read about or saw on Twitter; You'll go out of your way to try something out that a friend talked about on Facebook. Like tomorrow for instance, I'm travelling to Springfield, Missouri for a couple of days for a press check for a magazine for my work and I've already put a little bit of time looking into what kind of craft beer is available in that area that I've never tried before.

As far as nano-breweries, it's tough to say. I don't know the steel of every brewery I goto. Most nanos, and just to be clear when I talk about nano, I'm talking about 3.5 BBL or less. Most of them operate as retail operations, so it's either a taproom or they have a brewpub situation. I don't know of any that are going to be starting off at the scale we're talking about that distribute but there are more and more popping up all the time. And because craft beer drinkers have a respect for local, much more than any other things and because they are willing to go out of their way to support the thing that they love, I think that as long as you put your word out there about who you are as long as you get a little bit of feedback and a little bit of positive reinforcement I think you can sell your product, no matter how big you are.


As far as reception goes, what has the whole general consensus been?  

Well to be honest our feedback so far has been pretty good. Being a homebrewer, you only really have so much distribution you can do. Friends, family, we pass along for family, friends of friends, family of friends, and friends of family friends. So you maintain a little distribution and build your network and it's been good enough that we've had people say that "I don't care if you get in trouble or not, I'll pay you next time...make sure you get a six pack," which we are not gonna do at all. We've gotten so far very positive response. Now I am also cognizant of the fact that some people might be being nice because they like us as human beings. Now we have gotten a little bit of honest criticism from people that we have respected and we appreciated and we've incorporated that in and I think we've evolved from that as well.

So it's tough to say right now; We're actually planning this year to enter into every competition we can and just so that we can get some honest assessment. Maybe a year from now if all those assessments come back and say "Your beer sucks," we'll be scraping our plans and going some different directions but we're pretty confident that we'll fair okay. We'll take our feedback and we will apply it to make it the best we can and I think that every bit of feedback is a learning experience. Like I said, it's tough to say because the people who do get your beer when you're technically a homebrewer have some attachment to you and so I don't know if we had what I'd call Objective Feedback but what we have and especially from the people we respect has been positive and we appreciate every bit of it.


One final question for you, what's your favorite style of beer?

I'm actually a big IPA (India Pale Ale) drinker which my co-horts, Brian and Justin, they are not hop-heads at all. I started out as a wheat guy following into the Hefeweizens and kind of evolved. Went from very malt and over time to the extreme. I will drink an Arrogant Bastard Ale on occasion but I don't like to have my mouth raped with hops on a regular basis but I do love a Red Hook Longhammer. I actually really enjoy the Sierra Nevada Torpedo. New Belgium's Ranger is actually my goto IPA; Something sessionable but still with enough flavor to give you a bit of a kick, to let your mouth know that it's alive.

The ironic part is that because the other guys are not on IPA and because IPA is the "vogue" craft beer style, we've kind of put an unofficial decision that we're not to be making an IPA. We are, instead, going to be doing an Extra Pale Ale which we actually have in the fermenter right now which we are really excited about. It's not as hoppy as an IPA but it's a little bit hoppier than an American Pale Ale so that's why we're using the "Extra." We figured it'd going to be a nice compromise between the two.

A big thank you to Seth for sitting down to talk with me and to the rest of the guys over at Regular Guy. I'm really looking forward to seeing how their brewery turns out in the near future!