Hermits no more

It was a crazy 2019! We had this blog post drafted last year and never posted it. Better late than never!

First Keg event at home

So as Roger started ripping apart the mini-fridge for a kegerator, he made space inside for our very first keg. EVER. It was an experimental Saison-like-thing Roger had played with a few times and we decided it was time for public human trials to begin. Armed with the fridge, keg, CO2 tank and a picnic tap, we decided to host our first real event on the property. We decided to sell glasses of the new brew for only $1 each until the keg runs dry. And run dry it did. In less than 4 hours. The picnic tap was handy but the next phase in the fridge’s life was about to begin.

Keezer

With some lucky timing and knowing we need some storage for kegs (Roger was gassing and storing kegs in the beer fridge, effectively removing three shelves of beer bottle space) we got our hands on a decently priced used chest freezer that we will eventually turn into a 6 tap KEEZER!!! Yes. 6 taps. No idea where we’ll put this thing but dammit it’s going to be awesome. We’ll be taking this thing on the road to festivals so we don’t have to lug along a gazillion bottles. So right now it has a gas line and two picnic taps so we can gas kegs and serve but eventually it will be a full-blown service machine.

Registro Sanitario and Labels

Darth Lager and Just One Mora Blonde are licensed!!!! This is a little crazy. Production volume-wise Roger is willing to bet we’re likely the smallest licensed brewery in the country if not the continent. We only do 40L at a time right now and most people don’t believe us when we tell them. Finally getting here has been such a long and painful process for so many reasons. So now we breath a sigh of relief that lasts about 23 seconds before we start on our next beers to get licensed, figuring out how the taxes work, and all the other official junk that goes along with just trying to sell beer. We’re working towards larger equipment for larger production but it’s slow.

Cold Room

One of the first steps in producing more beer is WHERE THE HELL DO WE PUT IT??!?! So yes, we’re working with refrigeration people right now to get a portion of our basement turned into a cold room for keg and bottle storage. The beer fest in May really taught us we really need our own storage. BAD.

Chili Cook Off

We stole back our kegerator from Fauno for a day at L&S Meats for their annual Farm Party and Chili Cook-Off out near Quiroga. 14 competing chillies, tons of BBQ, tons of people, and our surprise experiment success I Love Yuca Light on tap. Was a long but very fun day. Side by side with our two flagship beers: Darth Lager and Just One Mora which we had in bottles, the yuca beer actually outsold both of them. Also a happy surprise. It’s fun just pulling glasses of beer from a tap in an atmosphere like that.

Our first taps/kegerator/Fauno

A long time ago in an apartment far far away, we bought a small mini-fridge to store brewing ingredients. This came down to Ecuador with us and Roger recently got his hands on not only some CO2 tanks but a single tap beer tower as well. It took three days of work but this tiny fridge has now reached its final stage in evolution as a kegerator!! We’ve loaned the kegerator to our friends at Fauno and they now have our beer on tap! Starting with the Oatmeal Stout. They recently moved to a larger space as well and it was pretty exciting when they sold an entire keg of Darth Lager in a single night too at their grand re-opening. The place was packed, bands rocking through the night, good times all around.

Sangolqui Event in Quito

We belong to a group of artisanal brewers in Ecuador called ASOCERV. They put on a small event in Sangolqui just south of Quito that was free for members to setup and sell. We discovered that …. it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Since we don’t have a vehicle yet we hired a driver to haul us and our beers down for the down. It was in a mall. And a quiet part of the mall to boot. All in all it was an interesting learning experience, main thing being that we’re so tiny there really is no point in going all that way. We’ll stick to the Cotacachi area. By the end of the event we finally broke even on the travel costs and a little extra to buy a pack of beers from our table-neighbours from Django Brewing (they’re Milkshake IPA is amazing btw). But yah that was about it.

Canada Day Celebrations

The final day of the Inti Raymi festival just happened to be Monday July 1. We’ve been a tad busy. Just a bit. So the decision to host our second event ever for Canada Day was a very short notice decision but we’re so glad we did. The Thursday before we said “oh hell why not?” and put word out any way we could. What resulted was a larger very happy crowd, flags all over, and everyone from any country with maple leaf hats on their heads. We actually had some food this time and we were selling Darth Lager for $2/bottle instead of the normal $2.50. Inti Raymi even came to us. Later in the day a particular crowd showed up at our door. They didn’t so much show up as they marched in playing their instruments and we had an instant dancing circle happen inside our gate and many of our guests joined in. It was all kinds of awesome.

Finca La Cascada

We swam in a waterfall on a coffee farm. Hell yes.

Hiking Cuicocha again

Gas Line up

Life in a small town Ecuador. Every once in a while a “gas shortage” happens and households are limited in the number of tanks they can get for a time. Even the number of tanks for a neighbourhood can be limited and you have to get a ticket or no tank for you! We were lucky to get a ticket and Roger had to go wait in line at 6am at the basketball court on our block in order to replace one of our empties. We made sure very early on we always have several tanks in circulation. We’re lucky that we can even do that as the upfront cost of a tank is pretty high. To swap an empty tank for a full one is very cheap though. Ever since we hooked up our electric stove we haven’t needed the gas for anything but brewing and BBQ’ing. Many of our neighbours don’t have a backup, only a single tank and when that’s gone that’s it. So days like these you see folks lining up hours in advance of the truck arrival.

Kerry and his yuca.

We get the yuca for our light beer from Finca Abundancia just north of Apuela. It’s run by a fellow named Kerry Klages who is originally from Michigan but as been living in Ecuador for a number of years. The yuca, as with everything on the farm is completely organic and sustainable. There’s an amazing video (link) about Kerry and his work.

Granja Samay

So we went to a friends environmentally sustains fish farm.