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Evolution of a Trench Drain
A trench drain is a long, low sloped drain much like a narrow trough submerged into the floor. Instead of having to drain liquids from just one round drain in an area of the floor, a trench drain allows for continuous drainage along a straight line. While not required for breweries and a little more…
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How To Start A Brewery: Selecting The Right Property
It took us well over a year of searching properties before signing a lease for Wooden Hill’s location. During that time we attempted to lease three other properties that didn’t work out for various reasons. We even considered buying a building and nearly put in a few purchase offers. Breweries are complex business operations, especially…
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Watch Your Step
It’s starting to look like we’re on an archaeological expedition at the brewery. There’s a maze of holes neatly cut into the concrete floor and huge piles of dirt everywhere. No, we aren’t starring in an episode of “Bones”. Since water doesn’t drain up we have to dig down to lay the network of pipes…
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Breaking Down Walls
Week two of construction proceeded as scheduled and is now in the books, but nothing was actually constructed. Rather, walls came down, floors were scraped up, and other various materials were removed as part of the demolition process before any building can take place. So yes, the article title is meant to be interpreted quite…
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All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go
Surprise! We received our brewing tanks! Except they can’t live with us yet. Last Friday, August 10, two trucks made it from the long drive from Colorado to deliver our shiny new stainless steel vessels. Since our brewery space is currently full of construction obstacles such as half-broken dangling fluorescent lights, low sprinkler heads, and…
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Construction Update: Construction Permit Issued!
What It Takes There are many layers of issues that need to be addressed before a construction permit is issued. We started by reaching out to Edina’s Economic Development, Bill Neuendorf. Mr. Neuendorf arranged for a meeting with the leaders of all the major city departments that would play a role in licensing the brewery.…
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More Space
Back in January, we announced our lease of 4,755 square feet of space in an industrial building in Edina. Originally, we thought this would be just enough space to fit the brewery and taproom. However, during the initial design phase it became clear that more room would be ideal. A few months later, our neighboring tenant,…
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Design Update: 3D Modeling
Earlier this month we introduced our architect, Gregg Hackett and showed a sneak peak at the initial layout of our space. Several iterations later, we’re getting closer to the final layout. Gregg has started working on 3D images of the taproom and adding in design features so we can start truly visualizing ourselves in the space.…
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Brewing Equipment Ordered
We’re excited to announce our brewhouse, fermenters, and brite tanks have been ordered from Rocky Mountain Vessels! The anticipated delivery date is June, 2017. What We Ordered After a great deal of research and interviewing other brewers, we decided to order a 10 barrel, indirect fired brewhouse (10 barrels = 20 kegs = 310 gallons or…
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How to Select Brewing Equipment
We researched brewing equipment for about two years before placing an order. There are so many factors to consider such as size, number of vessels, type of heat source, cooling the wort, as well as country of manufacturing and engineering origin. Here’s a summary of the main issues that were considered and our approach to…