Renovations and tanks

In our production space we need a cold room for a few reason--to carbonated our beverage, crash  cool yeast, hold product before the distributor picks it up, and more generally, store yeast, nutrient, etc.  Since walk-in freezers are expensive, we decided to take on the endeavor ourselves (bootstrapping). The ingredients for this cold room include leftover hardwood print linoleum, tile print linoleum, Blue Board insulation, Tuff-R insulation board, salvaged board from the Manter’s barn, half of the door to the old cold storage room in the Manter’s barn, and a lot of advice from a local contractor, Ray Breton. We ended up getting it all put together and now all we need is a door and an A/C unit… small stuff.

Our second project was getting our tanks from one room to the other. We did this with bruit strength and ignorance--we don’t have a lot of bruit strength between the three of us, but we make up for it in ignorance. Anyways, we managed to get the tanks down onto two dollies, wheel them into the next room, and stand them up again without any issues. All and all we had a nice little weekend of projects.

Happy Thanksgiving 

Moving and Grooving

Down East Cider House is not, as the name would suggest, located in a house. We actually occupy an old mill. Mills, as you may know, are quite large and we are not the only business that occupies the mill. We share the place with a righteous organic coffee roaster (http://www.mattscoffee.com/) and a moving company, Pro Moving Service. From time to time we call upon our fellow tenants for a hand. In fact, we've used nearly every single tool Peter (Pro Moving Service Founder) has in the entire building including, but not limited to, pallet jacks, hammers, circle saws, screw drivers, ladders, etc... Today three movers helped us clean out some heavy objects from our space, incredibly helpful. We are looking forward to the day we can enjoy a glass of cider on a Friday afternoon with them.
On another note, the triumvirate at the top and bottom of Down East Cider House continues to move towards our first production cycle in mid-December, which requires a great deal of attention to details. As John Wooden says, "It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen." For example, we play quarterback and wide receiver vs corner back football on a daily basis. At first, receivers struggled to get a great deal of separation from whoever was corner back. After a few weeks of playing we've begun to run more detailed routes, allowing for easier passes from the quarterback to the receiver. Little things, like a fake here, a fake there make all the difference.
We are still in process of establishing a social media presence, if you'd like, please follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook and keep reading our blog.


Since it's Friday we are going to honor our, Employee of the Week:

Ode To Elusive Subway Sandwich Artist

You greeted me as I came in
With a lovely grin
Your sandwich making skills rival my own
Except your sandwich isn't homegrown
You make the best Subway works of edible art
When you make my sandwich, it never falls apart
Keep doing your thing
Because you keep Subway in full swing

First Blog Ever

What's up everyone.  The crew at Downeast Cider House will now be writing about our trials and tribulations as we work our way toward quenching the American populace's unknowing yet undying thirst for a tall, cool, crisp apple cider.  As a precursory statement, please note that despite what you might read here, we are actually doing real work.  We will probably be inclined to write more about promotional events or our daily football sessions, but that is because we're not sure you want to hear about Tyler trying to balance our checkbook on Quickbooks, or me reading a book on marketing and realizing that I'm a dinosaur because I don't know how to blog or tweet.

So please follow our blog,  follow us on twitter @downeastcider, and like us on facebook.com/downeastcider.  Also, feel free to make fun of Ben for having a blog.

PS - speaking of not knowing tweeting or blogging, it is shocking to find out the amount of stuff you don't learn at an unnamed liberal arts college.  When I type 'how to' into google, I am disturbed to see the wide range of things I don't know how to do.  Google auto fill highlight of the week: "How to mop a floor"