Update on Shorts Brewing Co.
December 16, 2008
The following is a note posted by Scott (Shorts Brewing) – on Beer Advocate Great Lakes forums:
http://beeradvocate.com/forum/read/1690631
Well we are flying through inspections although the list was pretty deep. We hope to have almost all of them finished this week.
If this is the case it is on to brewing! The first beer will be Pandemonium Pale Ale for various reasons. So due to the fact that we will be brewing before Christmas our timeline should be starting to take place.
Remembering we have to check quality as well as getting it into a bottle there may be small delays. But assuming everything goes okay we should have enough beer to launch by very late Jan. More realisticly as logistics and presales havge to be done I am sure the distributor will opt for a Feb release.
There will be 5,000 cases going out on launch day total. It looks as if the presale should easily sell this much so if you are interested in having your store carry them they can email me at scott@shortsbrewing.com to be notified of the official presale.
Obviously Huma will be a larger share. The other 3 varieties will be Pandemonium Pale Ale, Bellaire Brown, and Soft Parade. Price points are yet to be determined but will likely be on the shelves for about 8.99 (Brown and Pandemonium) and 10.49-10.99 (Huma and Soft Parade). We tried to get it below $10 but this years hop prices are still too high. We were contracted but need a lot more than our original contract allows. Our revised contract blends the too but is still closer to $20 a lb rather than before. Our contract reduces over time though so hopfully costs will not increase elsewhere and we can either cut costs or hold them steady for some time.
As far as capacity goes this will increase our capacity to approximately 10,000 BBLs a year. It is unlikely however that in this phase we will be able to get out of Michigan, if we could it would be very limited and not until late next year at best. However when we become comfortable with our new digs we have the ability to add more tanks when appropriate. It is important that we keep the artisan and creative nature of our beers maximized else it just would not be Shorts.
Moving past bottles Joe and his crew is up to his usual tricks in the new beer department. Smores Stout was released in late November and has been receiving good feedback. Uncle Steves Irish Stout, Uber Goober, Cup A Joe (which is almost a top 100 beer), and the mystery stout have all been released. The latter develops weekly to the complexities ofthe 2005 version. Joe has lots of new beers in the works including traditional styles and some things more extreme. More on this as developments occur.
On the personnel front there have been many changes. Monica Hirth (Formely of Corner Brewery) is in training to become pub manager.
Ryan Hale (formely of Arbor) is also in training to be the pub brewer.
Tony Hansen is moving into a lead brewer position
Steve Ison (formely of Traverse Brewing Co) will work as lead cellarman.
We also welcome Curt Guntzviller as assistant brewer.
Joe will continue to work with everyone everyday, including at Bellaire.
There are more changes to come as we can all adjust into dedicated positions rather than running around putting out fires everyday.
Our new store should be online any day also.
Check out the other Shorts thread I am about to write about the anniversary party canoe trek between the two breweries.
Beer mail me with questions or you can use the boring regular email.
Scott
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