This week, two important things happened:
1. Jared completed so much supplemental paperwork trying to get our state permit successfully submitted that his brow may now be permanently furrowed;
b. Jimbo got to play with a blowtorch for the first time! (not near the paperwork)

Now, you don't just hand an overexcited brewer a blowtorch for any dang reason. This particular scenario involved the continued use of our branding iron in an attempt to make us some tap handles! 

We tested out our branding heads on several different types of wood with some success: pine, oak, cherry, poplar, possibly an antique dining room table that we were explicitly asked not to work on, birch... maybe some other kinds too, but it turns out skulking around a lumber yard is more overwhelming than you'd expect so it's tough to say. Anyway! After a bit of practice we came up with some prototypes to play with at home while we keep honing our new wood burning skills:

We're pretty thrilled! While the pictured handle is unfinished, and we've still got a ways to go with our technique, this is a rough idea of what y'all will see when asking for your Bone Up in them Boston bars! Stay tuned for more updates on this project over the coming weeks. 

**Great thanks to Jimbo's dad Sam for helping create these and lending us his workshop space and (more importantly) his time this weekend!** 

It's been another (not very) exciting week here at Bone Up while we patiently await our state approval! While we do in fact make progress towards getting beer into your mouth every day, most of these small victories are things you're never going to care about (wow, there's a new hole for a drain in the floor! Is that spackle on the wall? The government responded to my email in less than a week! Are those eyeball-shaped lollipops you've got there? and so on). 

Seriously though, great things are in the works! Jimbo's headin' down to her homeland in Connecticut to construct some slick-ass tap handles this weekend, Jared ordered a lot of shiny stuff to help make beer (mostly bells and whistles like safety equipment, a water heater, and - yes - more tubing), and we've continued hoarding hops here at HQ. Enthralling news indeed. 

Anyway, in a not-at-all-desperate attempt to give you a reason to keep checking our "news" page every week, we've got some stuff for you to look at! This time around, it's the original list of contenders for our first t-shirt design, some of which are still under consideration for future printing runs (note: this may be the first time in recorded history that we didn't use one of our company founders as a t-shirt model. That's largely due to the fact that few of the below shirts ever "existed"). 

It's been another slow week around here at Bone Up Headquarters, but that's largely to be expected - we're waiting on renovations and permits, and neither of those is exactly known for being a super speedy process. But never you worry, I've brought along my bag o' exclamation points to try and squeeze every last damn drop of excitement out of this here blog post! So let's get on with it!

For the most part we've been busying ourselves with stockpiling all the equipment and supplies we need, but that ain't hardly news since nobody could possibly care about tubing that much (except our head brewer, and please, just... don't get him started again. We just got him to stop). But! We've also been playing around with some ideas for stuff to put in the taproom! Most recently, we've been talking about painting the tables with chalkboard paint so y'all can doodle while you drink. In order to make sure it would be worthwhile, we painted up some tables and Jimbo got to making us some arguably-beer-themed doodles! It turns out that chalkboard tables are surprisingly fun to have around, so we'll call that idea a keeper.

Speaking of the taproom, we finally got our fancypants three-bay sink for behind the bar! We didn't feel like that was photoworthy though, because you can probably picture it pretty easily (ever seen a sink? It looks like that). 

We also got a shitload of hops that we'll use to make you tasty beer, but it turns out that a hundred pounds of hops (about two months' worth) isn't really as impressive looking as it would sound (it looks like a couple largish boxes inside of our freezer). So, uh, yeah. That's some medium-exciting news right there. But never you worry! Things are in motion, and we're sure to have some tales of interest for y'all soon enough! 

Wouldn't ya know it, another week's come and gone with no noteworthy changes in these parts! Well, we did find out that the state of Massachusetts received our brewery application, but we only know that because they cashed the check. But anyway, us sittin' around on our duffs ain't hardly newsworthy, so here's some fancypants nonsense that Jimbo cooked up!

Well howdy folks, Head Brewer Jared here to ramble at you about another tradition we've got going here at Bone Up Brewing Company: our brewing paddles. 

Now, this all starts way back in the day when I was living in Virginia and working at the best damn homebrew store around. There came a time when I got my first Big Boy Brewing job, and my friend/coworker Dave - being rather handy when it comes to wood - decided to make me the best damn brewing paddle he could. See, Dave had the inaccurate-but-more-awesome-than-reality notion that we brewers would all bring our own paddles in and use them to brew. In reality: the place I started at had a giant, automated brewhouse and breweries that aren't automated tend to use a communal beat-up old canoe paddle (or a plank of wood cut into a roughly paddle-like shape). I won't bore you with the details, but this thing had all the bells and whistles you could hope for in a paddle and then some (all that anyone but me notices is the bottle opener in the handle, but trust me - it rules).

But anyway, I told you that story so I could tell you this one: we're bringing his slightly-ridiculous vision to life! Our resident handyman/woodworker/head of making phone calls - a man who goes by the name of T-Bone - made a paddle for Jimbo! And let me tell you: it's pretty dang sweet. We opted for a different set of bells and whistles this time around (I guess we'll have to use my paddle if we really need to open beers and stir at the same time), but regardless of that, we (as always) are gonna beat the absolute hell out of this thing in the name of making you tasty beers. Check it out!