Things are rolling right along here at Westbrook Brewing. Since I last posted some cool stuff has happened:

• The governor signed the beer tasting bill into law! This was a big relief for us since we’ve been working really hard for several months on designing a very cool tasting room for the brewery. It would have been pretty lame if we weren’t allowed to use it! We don’t expect the tasting room and tour hours to start until sometime in October, but if you live in Charleston and you just can’t wait that long to go buy beer from a brewery, check out COAST’s blog for info on their tour/tasting hours.

• Our brewing tanks are just about ready to ship from the factory. With this equipment, we’ll be able to brew about 30 barrels (equal to 930 gallons, 60 kegs, or 413 cases) of beer per brew session and ferment up to 300 barrels at once. We’re also on the lookout for a few smaller used fermentation/aging tanks, in the 10-30 bbl range.  Our plan is to use these for yeast propagation and small batch/experimental beers. Unfortunately, the supply of used tanks in this size range seems to be  just about dried up.  For example, I tried to buy some 15bbl fermenters yesterday but was apparently 20-30 minutes too late, since they were gone within 2 hours of being put up for sale. Frustrating. If anyone has any leads please let us know!

• All of the concrete on the interior of the brewery has been poured, the cinderblock walls are going up, and the steel crew is almost finished with the roof.  So far we are still on schedule for a mid-September completion and “first brew” date.

That’s about it for now. Cheers!