Capital Brewers potential co-location with TOG

[phoenix]

Best of luck Shane, fair play for your efforts so far

[Shane Phelan]

Thanks lads, heading in there in a few hours to put forward our case! 6th birthday party afterwards and ye are all welcome to drop in if around. I will update the thread with any information that I get but all I am really looking for from TOG at the moment is a Yes/No to move things forward and what sort of space we can expect to have in m². If I get the go ahead then we can start planning what we want to do with the place.

[Will_D]

Hope all goes well Shane!

Next TOG location: Try to get a 9999 year lease!

[Shane Phelan]

At the party now but im approved to give full member access for €20/month.  TOG are delighted to have the brewers work with them. We have proven ourselves to be a friendly and reliable bunch since the start and that has really paid off.

I let them know what we would need in terms of space, at least 3 chest freezers for fermentation,  lagaring and a keezer. In addition to deep sinks, equipment for brewing, etc...

Im going to be in the comittee to find new locations so will be able to influence it to an extent. Ie parking, space, etc

[armedcor]

Amazing! All sounds very positive.

[Vermelho]

Excellent news. Well done. This will be a great addition to the community.

[brian_c]

Excellent news, well done Shiny. Already ideas are running through my head about what to do.

[phoenix]

Great news, well done Shane

[Shane Phelan]

Have a think about what type of facilities we would like to have beyond brewing equipment which of course would be a given. Specialised things that people wouldn't normally have at home that they could drop in and use when needed. Here is an example of the facilities Vermelho's brewclub had on offer:

 
•    Temperature Controlled Fermentation Room
•    Filtered Water
•    Natural Gas Blichmann Floor Burners
•    A Gas Range/Stove
•    Large and Small Brewing Kettles
•    Mash Tuns
•    Deep Basin Sinks for Cleaning
•    Automated Power Grain Mill
•    Both Immersion and Counter Flow Wort Chillers
•   Various Spoons, Siphons, Hosing and Strainers
•   Aeration Wands
•   Hydrometers, Thermometers, and Refractometers
•   Measuring bowl, Cups, and Scales
•   Misc. Brewing equiment

I can add 5 or 6 sets of full yeast management kits to that list for example so people could come in put on a starter and collect it the day before they pitched if suitable.

[Shanna]

At the party now but im approved to give full member access for €20/month.  TOG are delighted to have the brewers work with them. We have proven ourselves to be a friendly and reliable bunch since the start and that has really paid off.

I let them know what we would need in terms of space, at least 3 chest freezers for fermentation,  lagaring and a keezer. In addition to deep sinks, equipment for brewing, etc...

Im going to be in the comittee to find new locations so will be able to influence it to an extent. Ie parking, space, etc

€20 quid a month has me seriously tempted. A few questions as follow up.

1. Is there a minimum time you can become a member for?
2. How long before you would be able to get access without having to be let in? I would be interested in late night access that suits my nocturnal brewing pattern cause if kids.
3. Does this membership allow access to other equipment that tog has?

Shanna

[Shanna]

Have a think about what type of facilities we would like to have beyond brewing equipment which of course would be a given. Specialised things that people wouldn't normally have at home that they could drop in and use when needed. Here is an example of the facilities Vermelho's brewclub had on offer:

 
•    Temperature Controlled Fermentation Room
•    Filtered Water
•    Natural Gas Blichmann Floor Burners
•    A Gas Range/Stove
•    Large and Small Brewing Kettles
•    Mash Tuns
•    Deep Basin Sinks for Cleaning
•    Automated Power Grain Mill
•    Both Immersion and Counter Flow Wort Chillers
•   Various Spoons, Siphons, Hosing and Strainers
•   Aeration Wands
•   Hydrometers, Thermometers, and Refractometers
•   Measuring bowl, Cups, and Scales
•   Misc. Brewing equiment

I can add 5 or 6 sets of full yeast management kits to that list for example so people could come in put on a starter and collect it the day before they pitched if suitable.

Storage of that kind of stuff will be important. You know how brewing crap takes up loads of room so I would start thinking about stackable boxes for storage. I have one or two spare that I could give you gratis to get the ball rolling. I hate to say it but if you have shared stuff you also might want to consider some do/don't with respect to what is e expected of people using it.

Shanna

[Shane Phelan]

€20 quid a month has me seriously tempted. A few questions as follow up.

1. Is there a minimum time you can become a member for?
2. How long before you would be able to get access without having to be let in? I would be interested in late night access that suits my nocturnal brewing pattern cause if kids.
3. Does this membership allow access to other equipment that tog has?

Shanna

I don't know if there is a minimum time you can become a member, but it wouldn't really be useful if people were continuously dropping in/out of membership. The rent needs to be paid every month regardless and paperwork needs to be processed every-time there is a new member, in addition to cutting keys, etc... My proposal to TOG was that I could get a good few members if they were paying the low rate. My hope is that this rate is low enough that people would be happy to pay it for a few years before reconsidering their membership?

Normally there is a probationary period of 3 months before becoming a full member. In that time you would need to be visiting the space the odd time so that people get to know you. After the 3 months, if it has been established that you aren't an axe murder, you will get a set of keys and access to the space 24/7. Before that time you would only be allowed in the space when other full members are there.

If you are a full TOG member then yes you have access to everything such as Laser cutter, lathe, work tools, 3D printers, brewing equipment, etc...

I know what you mean in terms of shared stuff potentially getting damaged but for the most part brewing equipment is quite robust. The biggest issue I foresee is people not cleaning equipment properly after themselves. I agree all that will take up a lot of space but it will take us a couple of years to get all of that equipment together. We can start with the essentials and build on that, the more members we have the more space we can use.

[molc]

Some ideas off the top of my head:
1. Water filtering and treatment in site would be funky, maybe even having some prefiltered and ready for brewing. Since the water would be a known element for the are, you could even have treatment guidelines for beer styles on site.
2. Yeast bank I mentioned before.
3. Rims/herms/electric brewery rig? That could be a real draw for brewing on site.
4. On site taps and kegs, for the more social aspect of sitting around and having a few brews. If you have the space, you might as well make it into a full clubhouse.
5. Barrel storage? Could be handy for the barrel projects etc, where it needs to be left in situ for a while.

[Vermelho]

€20 quid a month has me seriously tempted. A few questions as follow up.

1. Is there a minimum time you can become a member for?
2. How long before you would be able to get access without having to be let in? I would be interested in late night access that suits my nocturnal brewing pattern cause if kids.
3. Does this membership allow access to other equipment that tog has?

Shanna

I don't know if there is a minimum time you can become a member, but it wouldn't really be useful if people were continuously dropping in/out of membership. The rent needs to be paid every month regardless and paperwork needs to be processed every-time there is a new member, in addition to cutting keys, etc... My proposal to TOG was that I could get a good few members if they were paying the low rate. My hope is that this rate is low enough that people would be happy to pay it for a few years before reconsidering their membership?

Normally there is a probationary period of 3 months before becoming a full member. In that time you would need to be visiting the space the odd time so that people get to know you. After the 3 months, if it has been established that you aren't an axe murder, you will get a set of keys and access to the space 24/7. Before that time you would only be allowed in the space when other full members are there.

If you are a full TOG member then yes you have access to everything such as Laser cutter, lathe, work tools, 3D printers, brewing equipment, etc...

I know what you mean in terms of shared stuff potentially getting damaged but for the most part brewing equipment is quite robust. The biggest issue I foresee is people not cleaning equipment properly after themselves. I agree all that will take up a lot of space but it will take us a couple of years to get all of that equipment together. We can start with the essentials and build on that, the more members we have the more space we can use.

For new brewer members it's always good to have supervised brew sessions. I know in Chaos you had to do 3 supervised brews with a full member and have the member sign off a sheet each time before you could be a full member. Something like this would allow all users to get familiar with the equipment prior to solo brewing. In general the cleanliness of equipment was never really a problem as brewers should be conscious of cleanliness by default. The only problems I remember happening the odd time was broken equipment, especially hydrometers

With regard to Shanna's point on storage this was achieved through each brew space having hooks to hang equipment and each space having an exact and the same amount of equipment. All other equipment was organised through boxes etc as mentioned by Shanna.

Some ideas off the top of my head:
1. Water filtering and treatment in site would be funky, maybe even having some prefiltered and ready for brewing. Since the water would be a known element for the are, you could even have treatment guidelines for beer styles on site.
2. Yeast bank I mentioned before.
3. Rims/herms/electric brewery rig? That could be a real draw for brewing on site.
4. On site taps and kegs, for the more social aspect of sitting around and having a few brews. If you have the space, you might as well make it into a full clubhouse.
5. Barrel storage? Could be handy for the barrel projects etc, where it needs to be left in situ for a while.

I think it would be best to stick with 2 brewspaces at first with different booking slots i.e. morning, afternoon and evening. I also think using gas will be much easier than electric as it's much more user friendly. Equipment I'm sure will build over time but a fermentation room is probably essential. One of the best features of the site was hot water to start off brews as this cut down brew sessions on most occasions by approx. an hour.

[Shanna]

Having some mad thoughts here like rain harvesting and solar powered panels that could cut energy & water costs. It would cool to see if conventional filtration for water could treat rain water safely so that it could be used for brewing. Longer term I would love to implement all of these things in my shed at home. They are really long term projects & a bit pie in the sky but it would be super cool to have all water collected + heated for brewing.

Shanna