DC BRAU Brewing Company

BRAU ME AT:

2011-04-19T11:24:00.000-04:00

2011-04-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

2011-03-01T08:24:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone,

Sorry we haven't posted here in a long time. We have been super busy and just haven't had the time to maintain this blog. We encourage you to join the facebook page for the most up to date happenings at DC Brau!

THE WINNERS ARE....

2010-12-07T11:56:00.003-05:00

THE WINNERS ARE:

Citizen - Russ Phillips
Corruption - Rob Shortley

Runners Up -

Citizen -

Rebekah Bina - Woodrow Wilson (who vetoed The Volstead Act) is the only president to live in Washington, DC after his terms in office. You can tour his former home, the Woodrow Wilson House Museum, located near Dupont Circle.

Mike Stein - Cali has it. Colorado too. But DC don’t. What is it? Good beer in a can and a Senatorial vote in-hand. Then Brau came round (see can
in-hand) still Citizens’ don’t count. What’s that about?

Corruption -

Bradley Walp - James Traficant, the last member of Congress to be expelled for corruption, would frequently end his speeches with “Beam me up!”

Celia Wells - In 1974, Rep. Wilbur Mills' career ended when he was stopped for drunk driving with with exotic dancer Fanny Fox who attempted to flee by swimming the Tidal Basin.

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!

2010-12-03T14:11:00.004-05:00

DC Brau Can Contest!

Ok everyone! This is going to be the best contest yet! We need your help big time. We are super busy right now with our build out but we also need to get our last two labels submitted for TTB approval. The labels are almost done, we are only missing one section: THE FACTS.

We need one “Corruption” and one “Citizen” Fact. Here are the rules:

1) You must be 21 years of age

2) The fact must relate to one of the two topics

3) The fact must be written exactly how you would like to see it on the can

4) Must be no more than 160 Characters

5) Must be submitted to cancontest@dcbrau.com by no later than Monday the 6^th of December

6) Do not post your fact on the facebook page or it will be disqualified

What will you win? If we pick your fact you will get to choose any piece of DCBrau clothing you desire as well as a private guided tour of the brewery before we are open to the public.

That’s it folks, have at it!

An Easy One!

2010-10-10T11:57:00.009-04:00

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great week! I know we were busy!!!!

OK, almost football time so let’s get down to business. This week’s challenge is EASY! All you have to do is take a picture of yourself in your DC BRAU T SHIRT standing next to one of your favorite bartenders and post it on our facebook. With so many awesome bars and excellent bartenders/mixologists in the DC area this should be a breeze. EASY!!!!!

* Only one winner each week

* Hoodies are only in sizes L and XL :(

This is Hoodie Weather!

2010-10-03T08:16:00.005-04:00

I guess you could say Fall has arrived! Perfect hoodie weather is upon us. This week's give away has to do with stickers. We have given away hundreds of stickers in the past few months so you all should be well equipped to handle this challenge. First person to post a picture of a DC Brau sticker on their car wins! Post the picture on our Facebook page and this fashionable fall garment can be yours. May the Schwartz be with you!

Reminder: Hoodies only come in L and XL

Free Stuff!!!!!

2010-09-26T23:13:00.013-04:00

Hey Everyone,

We are so excited about receiving our Brewer's Notice that we thought we would give away some stuff for free! Why not, everyone loves free stuff right? What is a Brewer's Notice and why is it such a big deal, ask our friends at Mad Fox!The obvious choice with fall approaching…is HOODIES!!!!! The catch is that the hoodies cannot be bought, for now, they can only be won. Here is the scoop; we have a very limited number of these and we will give them to you for FREE! That’s right FREE! No money needed!

There is only one problem…. how do we decide to whom we give these beautiful season ready garments? We propose a challenge, YES… a challenge. Every week we will plan a new challenge and the first person to complete the challenge shall be ordained “Victor” of the week and rewarded with a fashionable DC Brau Hoodie (thanks to my sis-in-law for modeling.)

We will announce the challenges every Sunday night. This week’s challenge is as follows: Go to DC Brau Brewing Co. (3178-B Bladensburg Ave NE D.C.) and “check-in” on facebook.

"Checking In" means that you go to the actual brewery's physical location and "check in" using the mobile Facebook App. (yeah we are hi-tech)

(Hoodies are only in L and XL)

The Ball is Rolling!

2010-09-23T16:49:00.007-04:00

Today was a crazy day at DC Brau! Crews were already hard at work when we arrived. There was one team building our demising wall and another working on a masonry project. It is quite amazing how fast the infrastructure for a wall can be put in place. Jeff and I did spend a lot of the day waiting but with more exciting results than yesterday. Yesterday, we waited around for nothing (except a fight over a forklift) Today we received some important pieces of our brewery. First to come was our glycol chiller, next a filter, and then (for the BIG finish) our boiler. When I say BIG I mean literally BIG. The Fulton is 8.5 feet tall WHOA! 3 of the 4 items scheduled for delivery made it on time. Tomorrow it is back to the grind!

As usual, you can see all the pics on our Facebook Page just click the album names below!

We're Building A Wall

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Schedule

2010-09-10T06:00:00.004-04:00

We have received many inquiries related to our equipment arrival schedule. For this reason we have decided to post the schedule below. Please remember these dates are not set in stone. If we have learned anything during this process (much to our frustration), it is that dates and deadlines are more of an approximation on a project like this. Nevertheless........

Sept 22^nd - Boiler Arrives

Sept 22^nd - Glycol Chiller Arrives

Sept 25^th - Carbon Filter Arrives

Sept 29^th - Walk In Chiller Arrives

Oct 27^th - Keg Washer Arrives

Oct 27^th - Post-Fermentation Filters Arrive

December 13^th - Kegs Arrive

December 13^th - Mill Arrives

Late Nov/Early Dec - Brewhouse Arrives

Late Nov/Early Dec - FVs 1-4 Arrive

Late Nov/Early Dec - BBT 1 Arrives

Late Jan - FVs 5 & 6 Arrive

Late Jan - BBT 2 Arrives

Here we go!

2010-09-09T07:47:00.009-04:00

WHAT A DAY! Yesterday marked a major milestone for DCB. We received our first piece of major equipment, our Cask Systems Canning Line. We purchased this system used. For that reason it came well before the rest of our equipment. Our brewhouse and fermenters won’t arrive until late November/early December. They are being fabricated from scratch and are only about half done at this point.

As we have mentioned in the past, we chose to can our flagship brews for several reasons, the main ones being environmental responsibility, portability, and space restrictions. Our facility is only 6,667 square feet…..not a lot of space. Our canning line will take much less space than a full bottling line. Oh yeah…..and cans are just cool too!

The Cask Canning System we purchased is responsible for revolutionizing the craft can world. Before Cask came along with this system, large canning lines were simply out of the small craft brewer’s price range and in addition to the system itself, minimum can orders were far too large to be applicable to the small craft brewers who have recently embraced the aluminum packaging. Cask was able to work out a deal with ball manufacturing to make can orders realistically affordable to the craft brewers of North America and elsewhere.

Here are some pictures from yesterday, for more pics check out our facebook.

2010-08-28T10:15:00.001-04:00

HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!!!!

HAIL VICTORY!!!!!

2010-08-28T09:15:00.005-04:00

Well Hello Everyone out there in Beerland,

A lot has happened since our last post. Let’s start with the good stuff! Two weeks ago the ABC Board approved our application to manufacture and sell beer in DC. AWESOME!!! Now we just have to conquer TTB and we’ll be ready to rock.

It was a big decision: Do we use a lawyer for this or not? Jeff and I thought about it for quite some time. We all know that lawyers cost money…lots of it. But being that a production brewery was pretty much unchartered territory in DC, we decided that we would need all the help we could get. When we went for the license, we chose to use a lawyer who knew ABRA well. The lawyer we chose has been in the DC Beverage game for a long time. We think we did the right thing because we had relatively no bumps along the way.

We are all set to move into our space (check out the pic above) on September 1^st and we could not be more excited! Once we are moved in, we will begin our three month build out. We have so much to do and our equipment will start arriving in about two weeks. First to arrive is our walk-in cooler and Cask Systems Automated Canning Line. Let us know if you can help with moving any equipment!

Thank you to all the people who came out to the BIG HUNT to meet us last Thursday. We enjoyed our discussions with all of you. It is so nice to see all the enthusiasm and excitement for a local independently owned production brewery! And a HUGE thanks to Beer Director DAVE COLEMAN and the BIG HUNT for hosting this event! YOU GUYS ROCK! We weren't going to do a DCbeerweek event this year but Dave insisted and we couldn't be happier that he did! Keep your eyes peeled for Dave's brewery project "3 STARS" (coming in 2011).

See you all soon!

Brandon and Jeff

2010-07-09T13:42:00.002-04:00

Every now and then it’s nice to escape the horrors of commercial real estate lease negotiations and go have some fun. On Thursday of this past week we stopped by Bill Madden’s Mad Fox Brewing Co. in Falls Church VA. We were IMPRESSED! The space is absolutely stunning and the food is even better.

When we got there Bill had the brewhouse cranking! With 5 of his 6 fermenters full, Bill is ready to open with bang! We got to try some of the pizza and it was super yumtastic! The Buffalo Chicken Pizza had the perfect balance of blue cheese and buffalo sauce and it finished with a nice smoky kick. The New York Pizza was also top notch!

We didn’t get a chance to try any of Bill’s brews but we’ll be back for that soon enough!

Waste no time getting into Mad Fox once it opens, it’s well worth it!

For more info check out this great dcbeer.com article

and the Mad Fox Website

2010-07-06T13:12:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone! A lot has happened since our initial post, but before we get to the update let's start things off right and introduce ourselves. We are Jeff and Brandon, two long time friends and beverage industry professionals who have decided to open a brewery here in Washington, DC. We thought it would be fun to chronicle the DC Brau journey online from start to finish. We have a lot to share, so let’s get started!

The big news around here is that we are now FULL TIME employees of DC Brau. However, a lot had to happen before we were able to make this leap. First, we decided for sure that we wanted to do this (that was the easy part). Then we wrote up a business plan and hired a lawyer because we needed someone to translate all our great ideas into legal mumbo jumbo. Then came the tough part, we had to try to convince people to hand over their hard earned money, so that we could live our dream and make some great beer for the good people of DC! Good news...the plan worked!

We've learned a lot in the past two years. We learned that people really do want local craft beer from DC, that local politicians are very helpful and supportive of small business start-ups, and that things that sound too good to be true - usually are.

Keep checking back with us. We'll be updating this blog regularly.

Welcome!

2010-05-10T14:27:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the DC Brau Brewing Company Brau Blog!

We are the DC Brau guys, and we're definitely trying to ferment our own American Dream.

We will be launching our website (www.dcbrau.com) to the public soon, as well as laying out our plans for beverage domination.

Check back often for our rantings and ravings on brewing, life, running a business, and Washington DC.