It has already been a busy 2017 as we continue to prepare for our opening. While we’ve had some delays that have put us back a few months, we hope to be brewing by March. We are very excited about our new brewing system. We will be brewing on a three barrel brewing system from Stout Tanks out of Portland, OR. In addition, we will have three 3 barrel fermenters, three 1 barrel fermenters, additional 1 barrel aging tanks, and several brite tanks. All of this means more beer for everyone once we start brewing!!
We are also evaluating options in our building to house oak barrels and our koelschip program, which will enable us to produce mixed fermentation (sour ales) and wild ales. For those not familiar with the term “koelschip” (also known as “coolship”), it’s a fermentation vessel used in the production of spontaneously fermented ales. The koelschip process of fermenting involves transferring boiling wort to an open air fermentation vessel. As the wort is exposed to the air, it begins to cool overnight and becomes inoculated with wild yeast and microbes. Once the wort is inoculated, it is transferred to oak barrels for further aging until it is ready for packaging. The end result yields a beer with a tart, funky, and incredibly complex profile. These beers truly represent a sense of place, or terroir, since the wild yeast and microbes are from the air in our neighborhood.
Speaking of beers we will make, we have started submitting labels to the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and the Missouri ATC for approval. As labels are designed and approved, we will be updating the “Our Beers” section of our website. If you click on the artwork for the beer label, it will take you to more specific info about the beer. Many thanks to 5Studio6 for their great work designing the labels. Our hope is to eventually capture your photos of our beers and add them to the pages for each of the beers. If you’ve got a great photo of our beers, feel free to send us an email with the pic or post it to our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page and it might end up on our website. You can see what we have so far by clicking here: https://bksartisanales.com/
Lastly, we have a limited run of BKS Artisan Ales t-shirts available in heather grey and heather green colors. Instead of using a crowdsourcing site, we opted to sell t-shirts through our ecommerce site to help support the brewery start up process. If we can sell all of our t-shirt inventory, those funds will go to purchasing more fermenters, which equals more beer for everyone! Check out our new ecommerce site https://squareup.com/store/
When do you open?
Hello. Sorry for the late reply. We can’t say a specific date we will open because it really depends on city approvals going through. Shouldn’t be too much longer.