Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Lessons from a Community Owned Pub and Veteran Brewer



Well, we have one more whirlwind trip to the valley behind us, and finally some potential pub locations before us! But we'll have to move quickly, so we're thinking about our funding options again. As part of the Self Employment Benefits Program that has allowed us to dedicate so much of our time to getting this whole brewpub thing up and running (someday, sooner than later, god/universe willing), we’re paired up with someone from XEDC, as kind of a business mentor/therapist/case worker. We recently were assigned to a new XEDC liaison, Melissa MacMaster, who has turned out to be a real dynamo! She’s really gotten behind the brewpub idea and is actively investigating the community-supported funding angle with us. She thought we should have another, closer, look at the CEDIF model (Community Economic Development Investment Fund, discussed on this blog a while back along with Community Supported Restaurants), and recently arranged a meeting for the three of us with the CEO of the investment group behind The Port Pub, a community owned “gastropub” in Port Williams (which we visited once earlier this spring and have also discussed here), to talk about their experience setting up the CEDIF that raised $1.2 million to fund their start-up.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Bitters are Best! Notes from a beer tasting

The aftermath...

Hi everybody, before we get to the tasting I just want to mention that all may not be lost on the downtown brewpub location front! It’s incredible, for the past month we’ve been feeling rather stuck, that we had completely exhausted all the options for a decent location, and that no matter how much effort we put into this the horizons continue to look more like brick walls. And then one week later, and I won’t say much more than this (I’m hoping I’m not already jinxing us by saying anything at all), we are feeling a seismic sort of shift in the universal alignment and #boom# a host of new possibilities appear! Our hopes are cautiously renewed, and with them comes renewed energy and optimism. Cross your fingers for us, please…