This Thursday we’ll be having our FIRST tap takeover (woo hoo!), and the Albert, in Inman Park, is hosting. For just $10 you get a souvenir Eventide glass and a flight of beer which includes our Kölsch Style Ale, Pale Ale, and Dry Stout. Make sure to let us know if you’re coming! See you tonight!

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5am: The brewing begins. This doesn’t mean “Work” begins. To start brewing at 5am we spend a few hours the day before grinding grain, filling tanks up with water, and getting everything ready to hit “GO” at 5am. This means we’ve really already put 3 hours or so into the day before 5am rolls around.

8am: Keg washing begins. One of the biggest time sinks a brewery has is washing kegs. This isn’t something you are likely to think about until you have to wash 300 kegs in a few days. To wash a kegs we use a C.I.P (Clean in Place) unit. This is a specific washing machine for kegs and brewing equipment. To wash 3 kegs it takes about 15 minutes, so you can do the math on washing 300.

10am: Sales calls start. Haley is out there on the streets at 10am getting ready to make calls to all of her accounts. She will hit about 20-30 accounts a week. This is in addition to a full class load for her pharmacy degree.

Lunch: 50% chance you’ll have time for this. Also, 50% chance you’ll remember.

1pm: Social Media and Marketing takes place. To support our beer in the market you have to promote it. This means a lot of work goes into the marketing of the product. We do a lot on social media, and this blog; this blog doesn’t write itself (if only). So you’ve got to figure we are putting in about 3-5 hours a day just on marketing, in addition to sales calls. This gets spread out over scheduling events to go to, making sure we have tap handles at the correct locations, and engaging with our fans. 

5pm: We are now at a 12 hour day. Your day is probably winding down, but ours is just beginning. Once the rest of us get off of work we head to the brewery or home to do more work. Geoffrey, our brewer, is usually finishing the brewing process at this time and getting ready to head home where there’s a good chance he’ll have paperwork to complete and emails to answer. This goes for everyone at Eventide, we all put in more work once the “normal” work day is finished.

7pm: Clean up, and time to wrap up daily reports and paperwork. Alcohol is a highly regulated substance which means that every drop of beer has to be documented and accounted for. This documentation is then given to the proper government body so they know we are paying our taxes on the beer we make. There is a form for EVERYTHING. It’s honestly more paperwork than you could ever imagine for a simple batch of beer, and all of it is 100% mandatory. Clean up takes about 1-2 hours, and is a very important part of the brewing process. If our brewery isn’t clean (STERILE) it can harbor bacteria which can infect our beer.

8pm: If you’re keeping count it’s now a 15 hour day for us. We now head to the bars to grab a bite to eat, and support the locations where our beer is being served.  This is the fun part of the job for me. It’s great to walk into a place and see your beer on tap. Also, since we make every tap handle knowing (to our knowledge, we are the only brewery in the state to do this), it gives us an even bigger sense of accomplishment when we can see those tap handles being displayed.

10pm: Close it up, upload photos, and plan for the next day. It’s bed time, and for good reason.

If you kept count we began at 5am and finished at 10pm. That’s a 17 hour day. Now, take into account that we usually work weekends (sometimes we’ll go 3 weeks or more without a day off) and you’re really talking about a commitment. With all of that being said, however, we really couldn’t imagine doing anything else. We absolutely love doing this which is a big reason that we’re able to weather the physical, mental, and emotional storm it can bring. So, if you want to start a brewery, or any business for that matter, make sure it’s about more than money going into it. Love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life…but you will be very tired.

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Tasting Room: We have around 13,000 square feet of space to work with, and we’re planning on using a good bit of it in our future expansions. These expansions will happen gradually over time, but the next big expansion will be our tasting room. The tasting room will be multi-use and serve as both an event space and as a space for public and private tours and tastings. There is a great amount of work to be done before we open but rest assured that it is at the forefront of our future plans.

The first step is for us to figure out exactly what we want. This will determine how much it is going to cost us, and, once we know that number, we we can begin sourcing the funds, materials, and plans. To help us figure out what we want, we are asking everyone to lend a hand. If you’d like, please tweet at us using the hashtag #tastingroom and include ideas or pictures of your favorite tasting room concepts and designs. 

The things we know our tasting room will have are:

• Ping Pong Table
• Video Game(s)
• Outdoor sitting areas
• Dog Run
• Vintage Stuff
• Indoor stage
• Lots of seating
• Bicycle Parking

The time line for the tasting room is beginning of fall. This gives us time to design, permit, and build. The goal of the tasting room is to create an atmosphere of community kind of like a German beer garden but with our own flavor and flair. As in everything we do we’ll probably do a lot of the work ourselves, and it will be a one of a kind.

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This weekend we’re going to be doing a great deal of work at the brewery to get more great beer ready for you, and we’ll also be a part of the Grant Park Stache and Dash tomorrow.  We’ll take a short break from sand blasting, keg cleaning, beer making, and general manual labor to head up to the Republic to do a meet and greet from 2:30-3:15 tomorrow during the Grant Park Stache and Dash Pub Crawl. They will have our Kölsch Style Ale (KSA) on draft, and have it on special during that time as well. The deal is to get the KSA and an order of fried pickles for $7! That’s the best day drink combo you’re going to find this weekend! You should be able to find Eventide beer at most of the locations along the route so, if you show up late to the party, have no fear!

It’s going to be a great deal of fun, and the weather looks to be amazing, so come hang out with a few of us at the Republic on Saturday and enjoy the perfect day to “Day Drink” and help support the Grant Park Neighborhood Association. 

The full pub crawl timeline is listed below:

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In 1996, well before Eventide Brewing was even conceived, two of our co-founders went on a 413 mile bike ride together but had no clue about it until 14 years later. Nathan Cowan and myself, Mathew Sweezey, were both big bicycle riders in our youth and decided to join a group of 2 thousand other riders to ride from Atlanta to Savannah in the summer of 1996. Since both of us share a passion for cycling, an instant connection was made when we met Katie.

As the conversation progressed, Katie pulled out a hand made koozie to show how she was planning to raise the funds to make the trip. Her hand made koozie was a one of a kind, and something we had to have. So, we bought a few to support her cause. Here’s a picture of Haley modeling the new koozie. The best part of Katie’s koozies is the hand pocket. This keeps your hand warm while keeping your beer cold. Genius!

To show our support for her cause, we want to share her story with you so that you, in turn, can support her too. She has a goal to raise $4,000, and is half way there. We’re going to be buying a bunch of these to help her get closer to her goal, and, if you like cool koozies and helping people, we feel it would be great of you to purchase one or more as well. If you want to know more about the best way to dress up your beer this winter season check out Koozies by Katie; you’ll thank us later. 

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This goes for our brewery, our beer (of course), and even the tap handles which are used to serve our beer. For us, craft isn’t just in the beer or the building, it’s in everything we do. The tap handles are a great example of this, and they were crafted in a collaboration between our head of marketing Mathew Sweezey and many volunteers.

We thought it was so unique to us that we wanted to make sure it was recorded for everyone to see. With that being the case, we made this short film documenting the making of our tap handles. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.

Mat S.

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The crowd was excited as well and the demand was so high that all of our kegs (8) kicked within the first 3 hours of the 5 hour festival. The four of us took turns braving the cold to pour beer and, every so often, one of us would look up to see a smiling face that had returned to tell us how good out beer was and how exited they were that we were in Atlanta. One person even told us we had the best beer at the festival, so, of course, we poured him another!

Very few people will ever understand the difficulty of opening a brewery, but anyone who saw us Saturday knew why we’d go through all of the trouble to get to this point just to stand in the cold. To give you better insight, this journey has been akin to most other entrepreneurial endeavors. You spend years working, perfecting, and agonizing over everything little thing in hope of the one day when it all comes together. This Saturday it all came together for us, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again soon. If you weren’t able to make it out to see us, and you want to try the Stout, we’ll have a list up in the next few weeks of places you will be able to find it. Also, don’t be shy at the bar, go ahead and ask for an Eventide Stout. If they don’t have it then, there’s a good chance your inquiry will get it there soon.

Here are a few of our favorite highlights from the AWBF:

• Handmade coozies : Picture and post to come just about these!
• Pouring our Stout for the first time ever
• Eating the best hotdog ever, from Poor Huey’s 
• Catching up with Matt, the owner of DBA barbecue (they have us on draft)
• Selling out of beer!

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Our core offering line up is the Kolsch Style Ale, American Pale Ale, and the Dry Irish Stout. We’ve been wanting to launch this third key offering to you, and, now the weather has officially signaled the start of Stout Season, we’re happy to finally release this beer into the market. If you’d like to try it there are going to be plenty of places around town to pick it up next week. We’ll be sure to let you know where as soon as possible, but if you want to be one of the first ever to try it then you’ll need to come to the Atlanta Winter Beer Fest this weekend.

On January 25th, we’ll be there with the Eventide team, to celebrate the launch of the Dry Irish Stout. If you want to know how we feel about it here is our Brewmaster and head brewer Geoffrey Williams with a few words:

“The Dry Stout has always been a favorite of ours, but we found that most offerings lack the body and flavor that we’d really like to see in the beer. To remedy this we upped the grain bill with more of the roasted malts associated with the style which adds an extra .5 abv and more of the coffee, toffee, and chocolate notes that we really want. It’s a great beer that becomes phenomenal on a nitro pour, and we cannot wait for you to taste it. In fact you may have to get in line behind our  marketing director, Mat Sweezey, and our brand manager, Haley Cowan, as it is their favorite beer of the styles we offer.” 

We’ll look forward to catching up with all of the other Stout fans on Saturday. Until then, have fun and check your local bar to see if they will be bringing the Dry Irish Stout to their lineup. Oh, and being that it is poured on Nitro Gas, it will  be the first Atlanta made Dry Irish Nitro Stout. Cheers!

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The journey to launch has been two years in the making, and now that we’re in the market we know with full certainty that it was all worth the hard work and dedication which got us here. We could not have gotten to this point without the love and support of our friends, fans, and family, and we want to make sure all of you know that we are incredibly grateful for sticking it out with us. Also, the amount of local love that Atlanta has shown us is just amazing. Keeping in the tradition of giving back, we want to share a few of our highlights from the week. Enjoy, and look for more events around Atlanta and Athens in the coming weeks.

Mathew: “My favorite memory from the week was signing the cellar wall in BrickStore Pub. Being considered worthy enough to sign the beer wall at one of America’s best beer bars is one of my favorite memories of all time.”

Geoffrey:  ”My most memorable moments from the week are seeing my friends and family come out en masse to support me at the launch party, hearing the positive reviews across the board, and having the beer on tap at Brick Store Pub, The Porter, and Taco Mac.”

Nathan: “Finally getting to buy our beer, after all this time, at the bar. That was just awesome. Awesome! I am going to keep that glass forever”

Haley: “Two favorites from the week…1st, the fact that the zoo keeper took the time to grab a card and token from the zoo before they came out to support us. What was meant to be ‘just a little something’ to welcome us to the neighborhood, overwhelmed me with happiness to be a member of the Grant Park community.”

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