It's been challenging and a lot of work to move from our original property to the new property. Getting the family settled and happy while trying to progress with getting the new brewery building up and running and keep up with my full time job hasn't been easy.
Christine and I, along with other farm brewery stakeholders, have been working with the county to get a zoning amendment (ZOAM) approved to legally operate in the county for about 8 months. We are still not there yet, but close. It has been through a zoning department working group, planning commission, and now is with the board of supervisors. Hopefully, they will pass this ZOAM on January 21st which lets us start operating as soon as we are ready.
So where are we you ask?
- We have received our grading permit and will hopefully have the new driveway, parking, and building site graded by mid January.
- We are waiting on the approval of our zoning permit, but not sure how the January 21 BOS meeting will impact that if they do not approve it.
- We have ran into a snag with the septic... turns out that the drain field is failing and we will need to have a new one put in to handle both the residence and the brewery. What a nice extra expense to have after just moving in.
- We took a while to get a builder lined up and we are under contract to have the building erected some time at the end of January or early February.
- We are starting a kick starter project to raise some additional funds to help us out, so look for a post about that. That should kick off on January 9th and run for 30 days... if we make my goal, we get the money; otherwise we get nothing.
- We are in the hunt for a used 10 barrel brewing system but may have to settle on new. New is great but there is a typical 5 month lead time to delivery. Either way, as soon as we can get the building to a usable state, we intend to open using the original 2 barrel system.
- We have resubmitted our application to the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Commission (VABC) in order to switch our current brewery license to the new address.
We are trying to bootstrap as much of this as possible on our own and with your help, but we will need a loan for the equipment since these brew system plus fermentors and the sundries required to operate will cost around 175K... yup.
With that said if you are a local contractor (like a plumber, electrician, etc.) and you want to help out, maybe we can work out something.
For those of you interested in understanding all the steps required to get a farm brewery up and running in Virginia, and specifically this county, look my new "Starting a Farm Brewery" page on the website. It will contain a lot of information beyond just the opening process, but what I leaned about submitting excise taxes and label approvals along the way.
The customer pickup a couple of weeks ago of our English Barleywine, Old Hoe, was a success. This was brewed back on 1 January of 2014, fermented and aged in Catoctin Creek rye whiskey barrels, bottled and wax dipped. Extra bottles i have will be available when we reopen (that will only be about 20 bottles)
That's the new's. I'm grateful for our BHB patrons patience during our expansion. We hope to provide you with that same intimate experience you've come to enjoy from us at our previous location.
Cheers!
