WHAT DO YOU THINK??? Does Antigonish really need a brewpub?

Okay folks, it's crunch time. We're getting closer to pinning down our location and getting our funding in place, but right now WE NEED YOUR HELP! We believe Antigonish really needs a cozy little brewpub with great beer, great food, great service, and great atmosphere. But maybe we're wrong? We need to be able to demonstrate this demand, assuming it really exists, to possible lenders and investors. This is where you come in: If you also think Antigonish could do with a proper cozy little pub, please take a few minutes to fill out our anonymous online survey and let us know! Feel free to forward it to friends, relatives, coworkers, and anyone else you think might be interested. The more responses we get, the better.

A new season, and a new brewing system...?

Well, it's officially fall, I guess. The air is certainly crisp, and the nights are unquestionably cooler. And as you can see, our Cascade hops are pretty much ready to be harvested!  In fact, Terry's latest IPA was brewed using some of these very hops - we're anxiously awaiting the first sip...

Not a bad crop for their first year, but we're looking forward to checking out the notes from last month's Hops Workshop in Cornhill, NB. A friend who attended reported it was a day crammed with excellent information, and should help us increase our yield in the coming years.

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.

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…

A visit to Hell Bay…

Well, the summer is truly upon us now, and an update is well overdue. The lack of spaces suitable for our brewpub available in downtown Antigonish has led us to consider starting the brewery up on its own, still on a very small scale, in an industrially zoned area of town or perhaps the county. We figure it would be best to get brewing ASAP, perfect some deadly local ales, supply a few pubs/restaurants in the area, and sell some growlers from the door and possibly at the farmer’s market. This will keep us very busy for some time, and with any luck, before too terribly long, a great downtown space will become free and we can get the pub going…

So, after reading the recent article in the Chronicle Herald about the newest, and probably smallest, microbrewery in Nova Scotia, we decided we had to head for the South Shore to check it out. Mark and Melanie Baillie, of Hell Bay Brewing Co., live in Cherry Hill, between Bridgewater and Liverpool, and are brewing some mighty fine beer in a beautiful old barn. Mark had been home brewing for 12 years before he decided to allow the general public to sample his wares this past April. He works full time and brews twice a week on a 30 gallon system, supplying a pub called Lanes in Liverpool, and only very occasionally bottling. Their two flagship beers are Anchor's Aweigh Pale Ale, and Hell Bay English Ale (a very nicely balanced bitter), and he adds a few seasonal specialties into the rotation. Right now they have a Summer Wheat Beer on tap at Lanes.

Worth Brewing?

Well, hello again, everybody. It’s been a pretty crazy time since we reported to you last. We'll start with an update on the Townhouse, including some not so great developments, and end with a great little video on a great little brewpub in Iowa, Worth Brewing Co.

An example of an excellent brew-pub location. Unfortunately it's already taken. And in Iowa...

So, last month we were full steam ahead trying to seal the deal to buy the dream location we ‘d been working toward for almost a year now, when the deal fell through rather unexpectedly. Before we’d even had time to feel the full force of the blow we’d found another potential location, a leasehold almost as appealing as the first building. We started to think we liked the idea of leasing after all, and especially the “not having to sell our (very) little, recently renovated house to buy a business location” aspect. One does get attached after putting months of work into a living space…

Visiting Valley Brewpubs

Last weekend we made a very brief but leisurely trip to Wolfville and Port Williams to conduct some research. Essentially this meant visiting the farmers market to meet wine and cider reps, hitting a yard sale where we found some great old light fixtures, and, of course, visiting some of the valley's great little pubs! This is, of course, the really pleasurable side of our business preparations (in case you're getting too jealous, I'll assure you that the week that followed was far less enviable, consisting of endless phone calls and e-mailing to alcohol and gaming officials, banks, liquor commission reps, lawyers, and architects, bugging suppliers for specs, dragging electricians through buildings and floor plans, and a particularly labyrinthine internet search for wheelchair accessibility dimensions, etc., etc., ad nauseum). 

Paddy's coffin-box beer dispenser unit.

Beer research is serious business.