To make a relatable analogy for those of us living in Pittsburgh, finishing up at CMU is the equivalent of being stuck in traffic in the Fort Pitt tunnel for four straight years, then coming through the other side onto the bridge and seeing the skyline at sunset. Cue Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man; the world is beautiful once again. And now that we no longer have to let our schooling to interfere with our education, we’re in the fast lane.
Our first order of business is our new facility at 800 Braddock Ave. We are still working with the folks from Braddock including the Heritage Community Center, who were pleased to announce to us that there will also be a restaurant moving in upstairs. We have a meeting with all parties involved in the building project next week, so there will be more news to come about the project’s status shortly thereafter.
As for our portion of the building, we plan to start renovations this Tuesday. Mayor Fetterman has given us access to the building and a dumpster so we can start clearing out all the clutter and debris. We’re planning on ordering our 3.5-barrel system next week as well, so we should theoretically be production-ready by the end of the summer. In the meantime, we’ll continue to brew and do recipe testing on our current 5-gallon system once the facility is cleaned up.
The other big step for us at this point is to begin getting all of our legal work straightened out. We recently met with a lawyer (and SAE alumnus) who gave us a large dose of information with which to begin navigating the awful bureaucratic jungle that is alcohol legislation. Although this is the least exciting area of starting the business, it’s also the most critical.
So as it stands, we are currently teetering at the top of the roller coaster, looking down in nervous anticipation. Well, here goes nothing.