We've purchased the building!!!!

Closed on it this morning.

Special thanks to Troy and Dave at Hiawatha National Bank for all of their help!  Glad to be doing business with you!


We'll schedule an open house soon - watch here or on FB!

Micah.

Some meetings....

Continuing to work closely with Small Business Development Corporation, met with a potential BIG distributor this morning, and am working with a local lender to get financing for the building lined up.  Big week, and some late nights getting stuff done, but man - things are getting real!

Onward and onward....

New pumps came today!  Awesome killer pumps that'll go on the Nano system (2 barrel, or 60-ish gallons).  Got a new wort nozzle through which those pumps will push the 'soup' made from malted barley and purified water before the boil.  It is very cool, and I've never seen anything like it used on a system this size.  More fittings are coming and I'm thrilled to say that I'm finally seeing results from my welder, which means the big units are coming to completion as well.

Working diligently on the licensing process.  I cannot begin to tell you what a duplicitous pile of paper this is, and how circular the effort must be in order to get to the end of what I suppose could be a linear process.  I suppose it just has to be this way - eager to send this thick packet of stuff to Topeka!

Thanks for following along -

Micah.

The Name......

So here's how Crazy Eye Brewing got its name.  I love telling people who know me, or who are looking at me about this title.  What happens, almost every time, is that whoever hears the name, looks me in the eye(s), starts to laugh/smile/make some exclamation, and THEN - stops, looks a little horrified, and says something like "That's neat.", stifling what otherwise should've been a belly laugh.

When I was an impetuous almost-8 year old young man in rural Nebraska, I was given a pocket knife by my Grandpa Hall, who is gone, but who remains one of my favorite people ever to walk the planet, and who liked good beer.

Grandpa always had a pocket knife in his pocket, and in fact, had a collection of small 2-bladed pocket knives and whittle stones distributed between his nightstand, his tool boxes and in drawers through the house.  Their bone/plastic/wooden handles demonstrated gentle wear, their blades been sharpened so frequently they were actually misshapen.  Always mindful of the utility, the simple beauty and the timeless technology, I'm sure I never spent time with him that I didn't see him use one.  When you are 7 years old, however, that elegance of this timeless tool is irrelevant, and I just wanted to use my new knife to cut the world into mastered shreds.

So, within days, I'd injured myself, having affected my right eye forever.  Two surgeries later the lens from the right eye had been removed, and my brain began sending the right eye away from my left  eye because I always see double, and the image in the right eye is unfocused and obscure.  With my right eye off center, I focus on the image from my left eye and 33 years later, it seldom occurs to me that the second image is even there.

The eye is the reason I was never a Sea Bee, a branch of the military that I'd actually sought to join when I lacked direction before and during college, and a branch my Grandpa Bicker served and spoke of with pride.  I was fortunate to have had two Grandfather-heros.  Recruiters used the term "non-starter" in reference to my vision as recently as one year ago.

So, about 9 months ago, on Facebook, an intelligent friend gifted with both humor and no reason to be concerned about offending anyone, suggested a name for the brewery.  I think the quote is something like "Not to be a dick, how about Crazy Eye?".  I'd gotten dozens of brilliant ideas from a number of good friends, but this one was an instant slam dunk.

Now, as I read business plans from other breweries, every single one spends a paragraph explaining the name of the establishment.  Off and on I've spent moments considering what this paragraph would say.  Even as I type I consider that my Grandpa Hall gave me so much more than a birthday present.  I had heard him lament that gift, but as I consider the pebble in the pond that knife became, I'm increasingly grateful.  I married a pacifist, and didn't go to war, and we've got the most beautiful family anywhere.  I can empathize with the damages other people carry, sometimes as liabilities and sometimes as purple hearts, and that has been a tremendous help in my medical career.

Literally, I do see things differently, focused and otherwise, off-center, and sometimes I completely ignore at least half of what I see, for better or worse.  As I consider the paragraph I'll include in my business plan it'll probably say something about the way we all look at the world, and that as we come together over a locally brewed libation we can maybe see a few things eye-to-eye.  And, as likely, it'll say something about being able to laugh at ourselves, our shortcomings,  and to be able to tap into our passions and make enjoyable things happen in spite of them.

So that's the name.  Stephen, my friend with the artist's eye, has begun marketing that will take us a long way with Ryan's astutely honest title, and I'm eager to SEE where all of this goes!

Thanks for tagging along.

Micah.

The Permanent Site of CEB!!!!

Is to be established today.  It's a 4000 square foot building on a great site in Hiawatha, Kansas.  It has the electricity and water required for such a venture, and the owner has been very reasonable.  As paperwork is complete this week I'll post additional details here, on FB and on Twitter.  I'll also post a mess of pics once I get keys and officially have the place on October 1st. 

The upsides:
1) Once I have a physical address I can formally start certification with federal, state, and local agencies as a microbrewery.
2) No waiting on a completed building project.
4) Actual brew system plans can be formalized. 
5) You can come by, hang out and see the place while we are waiting to get formalized and brewing! 

The downsides:  Can't really think of any right now.

I'm excited.  My board of directors has signed off on this, so away we go!

Giggidy, heh, heh....

So some things are afoot which might just send me into brewing very quickly!  I'll be able to discuss it more at length in the next several days - I'm changing some plans and ramping up!  Spread the word - this might be going a LOT faster than I'd anticipated!

Learning to LOVE Beaurocracy!

Indeed!   Need information?  Ask a government official!  Need to verify that information?  CAN'T!  Someone is out of the office and the form hasn't been submitted and the meeting is next week, and the guy you talked to wasn't authorized to make that decision and he didn't know what he was doing!  Obviously, what you've been told isn't correct, so what you've planned needs to wait until the new fiscal year or until you just do it without permission, and then you might get fined!  Oh, and don't even THINK about cutting down that dying tree on the property, because it was never really yours, but do get insurance in case it falls into the street and crushes a school bus, 'cause it'd be your fault for not cutting it down when you knew it was sick.

So, that's been my day.  I'm ready for a beer, and I'm PAST ready for one of my own!