Before I get into anything about cider, let me say a quick word on the marathon bombings. Everyone here is okay, as are our friends and family. We're fortunate to have come out of this clean, as many people weren't so lucky. To those people, we wish you the best in moving past this terrible thing to have happened to our city. Nothing we do or say can change anything that's happened, nor will our insight really add anything or help anyone, which is why we've been silent throughout this mess. Boston is a tough city, and doesn't need our validation.
On a related note, as someone who typically has nothing great to say to about the police (particularly state troopers hassling me at the car pick-up area at Logan), I have great respect for the way they took care of business. Very impressive. Shut down the city, catch the bad guys. It's a trying time for Boston, and as the public image of Boston over those few days rested on the police, first responders, and volunteers, they delivered in a huge way, and made everyone around here proud to be from Boston.
and now, back to cider...
If you haven't heard much from us lately, it's because we've been doing a lot of prep work for our upcoming expansion. Upgrades include bigger, better and badder tanks, support systems (glycol chiller, air compressor, boilers, etc), CIP, and the pièce de résistance, our new, automated canning line. It's a very exciting time, but all that excitement leads to frustration after frustration over the lack of speed. Everything happens so fast in our minds, and slowly in real life, it can be difficult to deal with. In my head, we've got all these new toys, and we're ready to ramp up and take over the world. But in real life, everything is still being built, shipped, or ignored (cough...contractors...cough), and we're running the same old operation, which has lost a lot of its luster now that I've mentally replaced everything. The good news is that our new canning line has arrived in Boston, and is only a few days away from arriving on our loading dock.
Due to our disposition regarding the spending of unnecessary money, we opted out of having the manufacturer send an engineer to install the thing. No worries though, if my math is correct, it took me 4 days to put together my $99 grill from Home Depot, so with the three of us working consecutive 20 hour shifts, we're looking at no more than a year or two before the canning line is operational.
As soon as that bad boy's installed, this is a rough interpretation of what's going to become of the old one.*
That's all I've got for today. I'll leave everyone with something that amused us a couple weeks ago. Say "beer can" in a British accent and it sounds like "bacon" in a Jamaican accent. Simple pleasures for simple minds I suppose.
*Definitely not going to smash it. Despite its inadequacies, our current canning "line" is not only worth about 100 times the amount of money in my personal bank account, it serves a very useful function for small canning operations
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Monday, April 1, 2013
A Hawk's Tale (Kind of Gross)
At about 10 this morning, we had our doors open to let some of that nice April breeze inside, and in the blink of an eye, there was absolute mayhem. As we saw a giant bird fly in, I either bellowed in a deep growl "HAWK, how majestic!" or I kinda screamed in a high pitch voice, "holy shit, an owl", depending on your perspective (I'm still pretty sure it was the former, although others attest to the latter).
So the hawk came in and dropped something on the ground, then flew up to the ceiling, where it proceeded to make an absolute scene, crashing into all the pipes and not being nearly as smart as we expected of a bird of prey. I glance over at the ground, and there's something going kinda nuts. I notice it's a pigeon, bleeding. The hawk had eaten part of its breast, before it decided to come finish its meal inside.
Keep in mind, at this point we're only a few seconds into the hawk's entrance. Out of nowhere, big crash. I look back over to our office, where our black lab Morty is tied up to our table, and Morty is bolting for the pigeon. He snapped the leg off our table, knocking over all of our computers, speakers, router, papers, etc. He then snagged the pigeon, and unfortunately, didn't kill it (it was suffering) but just played with it. Neadless to say, there was a lot of yelling and feathers. Fast forward to a couple hours later, the hawk is still glaring at us from its perch near our ceiling (about 30' up), flying around like a lunatic every few minutes, and just being a general menace.
About 3 hours, just as swift as it came, the hawk was gone. The pigeon was put out of its misery, and order has been restored to Winterfell, I mean Downeast. So today we pour one out for our fallen homie, the brave pigeon that fought tooth and nail in the great hawk battle of 2013. You defended us bravely, Pigeon, it was an honor to serve with you sir, and may you strut around for eternity picking up breadcrumbs off the pearly, trash-ridden sidewalks that lie above. Rest in Peace.
**Side note. For those concerned, none of this happened near any product, or cans, or anything like that, not that it could, because everything is a closed system.**
So the hawk came in and dropped something on the ground, then flew up to the ceiling, where it proceeded to make an absolute scene, crashing into all the pipes and not being nearly as smart as we expected of a bird of prey. I glance over at the ground, and there's something going kinda nuts. I notice it's a pigeon, bleeding. The hawk had eaten part of its breast, before it decided to come finish its meal inside.
Keep in mind, at this point we're only a few seconds into the hawk's entrance. Out of nowhere, big crash. I look back over to our office, where our black lab Morty is tied up to our table, and Morty is bolting for the pigeon. He snapped the leg off our table, knocking over all of our computers, speakers, router, papers, etc. He then snagged the pigeon, and unfortunately, didn't kill it (it was suffering) but just played with it. Neadless to say, there was a lot of yelling and feathers. Fast forward to a couple hours later, the hawk is still glaring at us from its perch near our ceiling (about 30' up), flying around like a lunatic every few minutes, and just being a general menace.
About 3 hours, just as swift as it came, the hawk was gone. The pigeon was put out of its misery, and order has been restored to Winterfell, I mean Downeast. So today we pour one out for our fallen homie, the brave pigeon that fought tooth and nail in the great hawk battle of 2013. You defended us bravely, Pigeon, it was an honor to serve with you sir, and may you strut around for eternity picking up breadcrumbs off the pearly, trash-ridden sidewalks that lie above. Rest in Peace.
**Side note. For those concerned, none of this happened near any product, or cans, or anything like that, not that it could, because everything is a closed system.**
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Down go the Downeasters
Tonight was the first game for the Downeasters, the semi-official soccer team of Downeast Cider House. The standard was set exceptionally high, there was a lot on the line, and when push came to shove...we lost. It was a disappointment, but not a disaster. It was a tight game, we showed some moxy, and considering that half the team hadn't broken a sweat since high school, I think things are looking very positive for us. I had a dream last night. I dreamt I was a dove flying over the sea.
And then I dove into the ocean... And I swam with the dolphins. I was
two animals joined as one... ...which meant...good things are coming.
Good things.
Plus, if this guy can play himself into shape by the playoffs, so can we. Its all about rings baby.
Plus, if this guy can play himself into shape by the playoffs, so can we. Its all about rings baby.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
working the 9-5
This has been a weird, but nice, start to the week. As some of you might know, we've moved into our new facility in Charlestown, which happens to be about a mile from where we live. Because our electrician (Scott Boudreau, don't know if you ever read these, but here's a plug for you: Scott Boudreau Electric, best electrician in town*) is unplugging our Leominster facility, and hooking us up in Charlestown, we've hit a short production halt.
In lieu of the normal hike out to Leomnister, we've been making the 2 minute commute to our new place, moving stuff around, setting up tools/equipment, and doing a lot of computer work like trying to prep for our new equipment when the money starts growing on trees, which, with modern advancements in technology, should be any day now (I hope we get a really big money tree because we just got quoted $60,000 for the INSTALLATION of our glycol chiller, which is basically a refrigeration unit for our tanks. The INSTALLATION!!)
Yesterday our remaining cans shipped over here, which was a pretty hairy scene. Our cans come in units of 8,160 cans/pallet, stacked about 9 feet high. Each pallet of cans probably weighs less than 100 lbs, so you basically have this giant tower that's very prone to wobbling because it has no weight. So we had about 16 pallets of cans to unload off a truck, and we were borrowing our neighbor's forklift, which was finicky at best (foot down on petal, engine rumbles, no movement, foot down a centimeter more, full speed ahead). To add to the difficulty, if the pallets of cans are 9' tall, the box of a truck is 9'2". So we basically had an hour of heart attacks trying not to dump 150,000 cans all over the loading dock. All in all, we finished the job, picked up a few gray hairs, and maybe wrecked a hundred cans...not too shabby.
Tomorrow night (Thursday), we'll be at the Beacon Hill Pub from 6-8 doing some sampling and whatnot, so if you're in the area, drop by. On Friday at 5 we'll be at Gordon's on Main st in Waltham, and on Saturday at 1 we'll be at Idylwilde Farms in Acton.
Good talk, see you out there.
*Based on a sampling of 1 electrician, but in fairness, he's very good
In lieu of the normal hike out to Leomnister, we've been making the 2 minute commute to our new place, moving stuff around, setting up tools/equipment, and doing a lot of computer work like trying to prep for our new equipment when the money starts growing on trees, which, with modern advancements in technology, should be any day now (I hope we get a really big money tree because we just got quoted $60,000 for the INSTALLATION of our glycol chiller, which is basically a refrigeration unit for our tanks. The INSTALLATION!!)
Yesterday our remaining cans shipped over here, which was a pretty hairy scene. Our cans come in units of 8,160 cans/pallet, stacked about 9 feet high. Each pallet of cans probably weighs less than 100 lbs, so you basically have this giant tower that's very prone to wobbling because it has no weight. So we had about 16 pallets of cans to unload off a truck, and we were borrowing our neighbor's forklift, which was finicky at best (foot down on petal, engine rumbles, no movement, foot down a centimeter more, full speed ahead). To add to the difficulty, if the pallets of cans are 9' tall, the box of a truck is 9'2". So we basically had an hour of heart attacks trying not to dump 150,000 cans all over the loading dock. All in all, we finished the job, picked up a few gray hairs, and maybe wrecked a hundred cans...not too shabby.
Tomorrow night (Thursday), we'll be at the Beacon Hill Pub from 6-8 doing some sampling and whatnot, so if you're in the area, drop by. On Friday at 5 we'll be at Gordon's on Main st in Waltham, and on Saturday at 1 we'll be at Idylwilde Farms in Acton.
Good talk, see you out there.
*Based on a sampling of 1 electrician, but in fairness, he's very good
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Day
Woke up, dropped laptop off bed, broke screen.
Spent the next 9 hours attempting to make tee-shirts using a silk-screen.
Net result: 0 shirts made, 1 Tyler T-shirt destroyed.
Drive home.
Nobody ever said you win 'em all...
Spent the next 9 hours attempting to make tee-shirts using a silk-screen.
Net result: 0 shirts made, 1 Tyler T-shirt destroyed.
Drive home.
Nobody ever said you win 'em all...
Monday, January 28, 2013
Moving
Since our last post a lot has happened and nothing's happened. Our biggest project right now is moving for the third time to what will hopefully be our final resting spot in Charlestown, Ma. This will cut our commute down an hour. I can see our building out of my bedroom window. It's a great spot, and we're excited to get it up an running. Our first project, installing our cooler (needed for cold storage of inventory), has been a complete disaster, so while we expected to be fully up and running by now, we just have a whole bunch of cooler panels and tools lying around. That, and a lot of pent up rage. Imagine a puzzle where your goal is to take a bunch of different sized pieces and make a cube. The pieces all lock together with a latch on one panel, with a corresponding hook and an adjacent panel. Now figure that out, except the pieces are all big, heavy, and break way too easily for how big and heavy they are. And, to get a professional to put it together costs almost as much as the unit itself, which is unfortunate because our money tree still isn't blooming, leaving us high and dry. It's all very upsetting, and just typing this is making me a dangerous combination of angry and sad, so I'll move on...
Once the piece-of-equipment-which-must-not-be-named is up and running, we'll move our tanks over and basically resume what we have going right now in Leominster. Once we catch our breath, it's time for expansion. Our new canning line is set to arrive late February, at which point we'll start to battle operational bottlenecks as they come. This will include more kegs, larger fermenters, a new brite, and the million and one other pieces of processing equipment like chillers, air compressors, condensers, etc. Thinking about all of these non-sexy, but very expensive things is making me angry and sad again, so I'll move on...
Aside from the moving stuff, we're doing our best to keep Downeast rolling in the right direction. We're working on a couple exciting new things for this spring, but they're kind of super-secret. This probably isn't a very exciting update, I think the cold weather is draining us. We'll be more fun when the sun comes out.
--Downeast
Once the piece-of-equipment-which-must-not-be-named is up and running, we'll move our tanks over and basically resume what we have going right now in Leominster. Once we catch our breath, it's time for expansion. Our new canning line is set to arrive late February, at which point we'll start to battle operational bottlenecks as they come. This will include more kegs, larger fermenters, a new brite, and the million and one other pieces of processing equipment like chillers, air compressors, condensers, etc. Thinking about all of these non-sexy, but very expensive things is making me angry and sad again, so I'll move on...
Aside from the moving stuff, we're doing our best to keep Downeast rolling in the right direction. We're working on a couple exciting new things for this spring, but they're kind of super-secret. This probably isn't a very exciting update, I think the cold weather is draining us. We'll be more fun when the sun comes out.
--Downeast
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Mondays and Enemies
Hi all. We haven't really posted anything recently about what the heck we're even doing these days, so I'll run everyone through a typical week now-a-days:
Monday: Fill the brite tank. The brite tank is the final resting place for our cider before it's either canned or kegged. We awake our cider from its cold conditioning in the cooler and pump it into the brite. The tank itself holds about 800 gallons of juice, along with a lot of pressure. We introduce CO2 to the cider, and they dance overnight and then in the morning, POOF, we've got a nice, carbonated, finished product (it's a little more technical, but I prefer my explanation). We then clean the conditioning tanks and go home. At home we take care of fun things like entertaining the hoards of government agencies that regulate everything we do, paying off mountains of bills, and fending off sales people who want us to sponsor their events. I can save us all some time though: in a typical week we eat about 8-10 pb&j's, and another 8-10 grilled cheese sandwiches. Does that sound like the diet of a strong cash flowing company. I think you're looking for a small VT company called Woodchuck, I hear there's some loose cash flowing over there (I see you Canney and Dan in Rutvegas).
I just realized it's going to be way too long to write what we do in a week, so I'll just break it down over a few blogs. If I wrote it all out I think the only people who would read the whole thing would be with our moms.
I will add one more note about a seemingly one-sided arch-enemy situation we've found ourselves in. It's a pretty funny little story. I won't give any names, and I won't tell you if you ask, so don't bother. So there exists a beverage company somewhere on planet earth that utterly DESPISES Downeast Cider House. It all started a year or so ago when we posted a blog about having a promotional party at a bar in Maine. It wasn't anything over the top, just a bunch of Downeast posters everywhere, and we were walking around with trays of shot glasses with cider samples (that we bought). A few days afterwards we got a call from the Maine liquor licensing agency asking questions about the party. After they came to the conclusion that nothing illegal was done I pressed him to find out how he came to hear of any of this, which is how I found out someone had read our blog and called in to report us, twice! I pressed further and found out who.
I also found out from a sales rep who works for one of our distributors that this company was spreading weird little "news releases" to them such as telling our rep that we weren't going to be canning or packaging, etc. Odd. This company also informed a different distributor's sales rep that they would "put [Downeast] out of business". Those are just a few. We've had reports of this from ALL of our distributors. Hate isn't a good look on anyone.
But, it goes on! Most recently we checked their website and found out a few interesting facts about our own cider that we didn't even know. Apparently, we don't use local apples. Yet Harpoon's cider does. Those damn snake in the grass cider mills! I always had a sneaking suspicion that they were pressing the juice, then separating the local and non-local juice, and giving us out-of-town stuff. Either that or those quaint local apple farms are putting up fronts for their back-door Chinese import operations. You can never be too careful with these folks. Also, we apparently add sugar and and flavorings. I guess there is sugar in apple cider, so we're all guilty? As yes, guilty as charged with adding flavorings, but it was really really hard to market our "Original, Original Blend", which was an empty, vacuum sealed can. It was sooo pure, but due to complaints, we decided to flavor it with some hard cider. Finally, we learned our abv isn't actually 5.1%. We thought that since we were the ones who made it every day that we would be keen on that sort of info, but we've been set straight. I'm sure samples have been sent to labs for the appropriate testing. Much appreciated!
Anyways, we've learned quite a bit about ourselves from this other company, and we'll certainly have to consult them in any future proceedings, lest we make careless mistakes like allowing people to enjoy samples, knowing what we make, and generally existing. But most importantly, everything you read on the internet is true.
Well, off to can some cider, enjoy your holidays. Be safe, and enjoy some local ciders and beers, we recommend Bantam Cider (the cherry is awesome), Jack's Abby Brewing (smoke and dagger is off the charts good), both of whom are from Mass, or if you're in Maine, give Urban Farms Fermentory a try (lots of cool experimental stuff), Fatty Bampkins (I hear good things about their Dry), and if you're into a really good, easy drinking beer, get at some Oxbow.
--Downeast
PS - I think I've been watching too much South Park
Monday: Fill the brite tank. The brite tank is the final resting place for our cider before it's either canned or kegged. We awake our cider from its cold conditioning in the cooler and pump it into the brite. The tank itself holds about 800 gallons of juice, along with a lot of pressure. We introduce CO2 to the cider, and they dance overnight and then in the morning, POOF, we've got a nice, carbonated, finished product (it's a little more technical, but I prefer my explanation). We then clean the conditioning tanks and go home. At home we take care of fun things like entertaining the hoards of government agencies that regulate everything we do, paying off mountains of bills, and fending off sales people who want us to sponsor their events. I can save us all some time though: in a typical week we eat about 8-10 pb&j's, and another 8-10 grilled cheese sandwiches. Does that sound like the diet of a strong cash flowing company. I think you're looking for a small VT company called Woodchuck, I hear there's some loose cash flowing over there (I see you Canney and Dan in Rutvegas).
I just realized it's going to be way too long to write what we do in a week, so I'll just break it down over a few blogs. If I wrote it all out I think the only people who would read the whole thing would be with our moms.
I will add one more note about a seemingly one-sided arch-enemy situation we've found ourselves in. It's a pretty funny little story. I won't give any names, and I won't tell you if you ask, so don't bother. So there exists a beverage company somewhere on planet earth that utterly DESPISES Downeast Cider House. It all started a year or so ago when we posted a blog about having a promotional party at a bar in Maine. It wasn't anything over the top, just a bunch of Downeast posters everywhere, and we were walking around with trays of shot glasses with cider samples (that we bought). A few days afterwards we got a call from the Maine liquor licensing agency asking questions about the party. After they came to the conclusion that nothing illegal was done I pressed him to find out how he came to hear of any of this, which is how I found out someone had read our blog and called in to report us, twice! I pressed further and found out who.
I also found out from a sales rep who works for one of our distributors that this company was spreading weird little "news releases" to them such as telling our rep that we weren't going to be canning or packaging, etc. Odd. This company also informed a different distributor's sales rep that they would "put [Downeast] out of business". Those are just a few. We've had reports of this from ALL of our distributors. Hate isn't a good look on anyone.
But, it goes on! Most recently we checked their website and found out a few interesting facts about our own cider that we didn't even know. Apparently, we don't use local apples. Yet Harpoon's cider does. Those damn snake in the grass cider mills! I always had a sneaking suspicion that they were pressing the juice, then separating the local and non-local juice, and giving us out-of-town stuff. Either that or those quaint local apple farms are putting up fronts for their back-door Chinese import operations. You can never be too careful with these folks. Also, we apparently add sugar and and flavorings. I guess there is sugar in apple cider, so we're all guilty? As yes, guilty as charged with adding flavorings, but it was really really hard to market our "Original, Original Blend", which was an empty, vacuum sealed can. It was sooo pure, but due to complaints, we decided to flavor it with some hard cider. Finally, we learned our abv isn't actually 5.1%. We thought that since we were the ones who made it every day that we would be keen on that sort of info, but we've been set straight. I'm sure samples have been sent to labs for the appropriate testing. Much appreciated!
Anyways, we've learned quite a bit about ourselves from this other company, and we'll certainly have to consult them in any future proceedings, lest we make careless mistakes like allowing people to enjoy samples, knowing what we make, and generally existing. But most importantly, everything you read on the internet is true.
Well, off to can some cider, enjoy your holidays. Be safe, and enjoy some local ciders and beers, we recommend Bantam Cider (the cherry is awesome), Jack's Abby Brewing (smoke and dagger is off the charts good), both of whom are from Mass, or if you're in Maine, give Urban Farms Fermentory a try (lots of cool experimental stuff), Fatty Bampkins (I hear good things about their Dry), and if you're into a really good, easy drinking beer, get at some Oxbow.
--Downeast
PS - I think I've been watching too much South Park
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