Well, it's been 8 months, 15 different beers, multiple beer fests, LOTS of growlers, blizzards, floods, oysters, and many, many Saturday afternoons at the brewery since we opened and we're finally taking a minute to catch our breath and say "hi". When we were planning Tilted Barn Brewery we hoped to get off to a good start but never imagined the whirlwind that has ensued since our opening day back in November. We wanted to take a minute here for a quick update and talk about what's in the works here at The Barn.
For those of you that we see almost every week, thanks! We've made some great connections and look forward to seeing you guys every Saturday. For those of you that haven't made it down yet, we hope to see you soon. We are normally open every Saturday from 1-4, unless there's a Brew Fest somewhere that day. We keep our Facebook and Twitter pages, and this website up to date every week on our hours and what's available for growler fills.
Our biggest challenge so far has been keeping up with demand. Don't get us wrong, this is a great problem to have but is something that we focus on all the time. We were initially hoping to do tastings and growler fills at the brewery twice a week and get on tap at a few local bars/restaurants. This obviously hasn't happened. We weren't anticipating such big crowds and literally don't have enough beer to be open more than once a week, let alone to send out for draft accounts. We're working on it though...more on that below. We're happy to say that even with the big crowds on Saturday we generally keep the lines and wait time to a minimum (sorry for the 2-hour wait to those of you here on opening day!).
So, on to the question we get asked all the time: "When are you going to expand?!". Since we want to keep this update (relatively) short, the quick answer is soon. Very soon hopefully. We're starting work on the barn in a couple of weeks actually to make space for new, bigger fermenters, a revamped tasting room area, and a hop drying space. Once that work is done we'll be able to get some bigger tanks in there to increase production. Trust us, nobody is more excited than we are to get to that point. As we get a better handle on the timeline we'll be sure to keep you guys updated. Once we increase production we plan to expand our tasting room hours and potentially get on tap at a few locations around the state. Time will tell. In the meantime, we'll keep seeing you guys every Saturday afternoon and will do our best to keep up with demand. Thanks for being patient.
Alright, time to get back to work. Thanks again to everyone for all of your support. There's a LOT of work that goes into each and every batch from start to finish but we're enjoying every minute of it, mostly because of the great feedback we're getting from you guys. Thanks.
Cheers,
Matt and Kara
Raise the Barn