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You'd Think I'd Be Able to Come Up with a Better Title Than "We're Floored"*

5/27/2015

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Remember a few weeks ago when we said that our new floors had been scheduled for "next week" for several months? And it seemed like we were doomed to be stuck in Construction Limbo? Well the concrete has finally been poured!** Apparently writing a sassy blog post is all it takes to make some progress around here (it worked with the TTB too, somehow). We're still a ways away from being done with our buildout,*** but this is far and away the biggest single item that needed to be accomplished. More importantly, it was a bottleneck that was preventing other work from being done (finishing the plumbing, hooking up gas to the brewhouse, setting up proper ventilation, etc.), so now there's a bunch of stuff that will (hopefully) start moving along much faster. Anyway, check out our kickass new floors!
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*But, sadly, I can't. So now we all have to live with it. 
**Technically it's only like 80% of the concrete for some reason, but it's the most important 80% so we'll take what we can get for now. 
***As Jimbo put it: "the space is starting to look really good! As long as you don't look at the rest of the floor. Or the ceiling. Or the walls."
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Retrospectin'

5/20/2015

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Well hey there, cats and kittens! Round about now we're celebrating something of an anniversary here at Bone Up Headquarters. That's right! This week marks the one-year anniversary of this here blog! And, somehow, it originally managed to be even less chock full o' news than it is now. 

Since we spent our Weekly Blog Ramblin' Times last week talking about the way ahead (and since there's nothing new to report on that front except that our new floor is - for real this time - going in this week. Supposedly. Maybe), we figured we'd spend a little time looking back. 

Now, it might not seem like a lot has gotten done in this past year, but we've been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that, frankly, isn't very interesting. 

For instance: after spending several months looking at potential spaces, we found one that we thought would work (the one we're in now, in fact). But before we could even think about signing the lease, we had to get the zoning for the building modified. And that meant meeting with a handful of people in City Hall (no easy task, considering we had day jobs) and - of course - filling out paperwork. Once our paperwork got rejected,* we had to schedule a hearing with the zoning committee, which only meets every four weeks. Our first hearing was cancelled because not enough people on the committee showed up (in their defense, it was pretty nice out that day). That almost happened at the next hearing, but that one was merely delayed... until somebody could go get the only missing committee member they could get in touch with... the one who was recovering from eye surgery (he couldn't drive himself in because he had to wear dark sunglasses at all times). 

Riveting story, right? Now take that story and stretch it out over fifteen weeks or so, and it becomes substantially less gripping. That pretty much sums up our lives at the time. 

But seriously, we've had one hell of a year: this time last year, we didn't have our lease signed, we didn't have any of our brewing equipment (nor any of the handsome and elegant merchandise available in our very own shop!), and our impending TTB paperwork was just some gremlin looming off in the distance. Hell, our company didn't even have the same name at that time. So it's been a hectic year for us here at headquarters, and Jimbo put together this great infographic to illustrate our biggest milestones (both past and future):
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Just as importantly, we've encountered a lot of great people over the past year. And we'd like to thank everyone who's given us support, information, advice, encouragement, and hops knows what else. We're lucky to know as many fantastic people as we do, and we're excited to join an industry with so many people that look out for each other and help each other out. 

We'd also like to thank you, dear reader, for reading this ridiculous blog (and, where applicable, giving us feedback**). We know you could be doing a lot of things with your time other than reading the news page for a brewery that doesn't exist yet, and we do try to make things at least a little entertaining because of that, but even so we really appreciate you checking back here every week. 

*Yes, it was a required part of the process to submit an application for the express purpose of having it rejected. No, I don't know why.

**Admittedly, a lot of the reactions we've been getting to the site have been along the lines of "... you guys are weird." And that's cool too. Ain't no law sayin' how high you gotta let your freak flag fly.
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Questions Unanswered! As Always!

5/13/2015

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The one question we've been hearing most often (i.e. whenever we talk to anyone) is "when are you gonna open?" And of course our usual answer is "That's a good question!" followed by mumbling something about an important dentist appointment and briskly striding out of the room. But we hear it often enough that we figured it would make sense to answer it here so that we have a written explanation of how and why we have no idea.

First things first - we've been telling people that we're hoping to open in June. And while we are technically still hoping to open in June, the odds of that actually happening have slid from "optimistic but not unrealistic" down to "hilariously improbable."  It's still looking like we'll be able to get up and running this summer, but at the moment we're being held back by two separate-but-related things: government approval and buildout. 

Government Approval
As we've mentioned previously, our state-level brewer application has been filed with the ABCC (the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission - it sounds so formidable! So Orwellian!*). We don't have any sort of timeline for when that will be issued, but they've at least contacted us to request a wide variety of moderately insane supplemental information (bank statements from our lenders, an authorization form that isn't mentioned in the application or anywhere else on their website, a new copy of the floor plan that they lost, etc.), so we know that things are more-or-less progressing on that front. We also need to get seventy different town level approvals, but many of those depend on...

Buildout
There are some building improvements that we strongly prefer to finish before we start brewing (turns out it's really hard to redo the floors if you have five hundred gallons of wort and/or beer sitting on those floors). Now, if any of you out there have experience dealing with contractors, you know full well that it can be a bit... frustrating. That floor redo we talked about has been scheduled for "next week" since February, and there are a lot of things we can't do until that's done. But that is dependent on the successful completion of our plumbing, which has been hovering at 60% done since that time we got all excited about it, and... well, you get the idea.

Sorry to get you all amped up for some non-news, but "I have no damn idea" is the best answer we've got for the question of "when will you open" (also acceptable: "hopefully soon"). We sure would like to have a real answer for you, but most of this is out of our hands for now, so all we can do is wait.
*Considering the higher-than-average number of Orwell references in our brewery blog, you might be wondering if he's the only author we've heard of. That's not true! There's also Kurt Vonnegut and that wheelchair guy. 
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And Now for Something Completely Similar

5/6/2015

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It was recently brought to our attention that one of our merch suppliers (specifically, the people we got our awesome tulip glasses from, who we'll be working with much more in the future) was having a contest. If you don't feel like clicking through and/or reading that whole flyer, the gist is that they want to hear the stories behind new breweries, with some focus on community involvement, branding, and/or marketing (which makes sense, considering what their company does). And so, in typical Bone Up style, we decided to make them regret assigning points for originality. 

But seriously though, we had fun writing our contest submission, and we thought you might have fun reading it. Much of it will sound pretty familiar to regular readers of our blog (both of you), but here it is anyway for your reading pleasure (bonus points if you can spot the moment in the narrative when we said "to hell with it, we're not gonna win anyway. We might as well enjoy writing it").
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While we weren't writing for your amusement, we spent a lot of time this week weighing out our hop haul. It smelled excellent.

Bone Up Brewing: Made From Ingredients.

At its heart, beer is a sociable beverage. We've all bonded with people over beers, and we've all heard many an old-timer wax poetic about the loss of the pub as a communal meeting place in town. Hell, our company founders met because of a shared love of good beer (well, beer and heavy metal, but that’s beside the point for now). But in many of our recent adventures, we've noticed - to our delight - that we seem to be getting some of that good old-fashioned sociable beer culture back! And, somewhat unexpectedly, we've been finding it in brewery taprooms tucked away in industrial parks.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves (where are our manners?). We’re Liz and Jared Kiraly, the founders of Bone Up Brewing Company! We’re an easygoing husband and wife duo that loves brewing - and drinking - delicious beer. Having lived and worked in the Boston area for nearly a decade, we’re proud to call it home and are thrilled to add our fermentables to the burgeoning beer scene. Though Bone Up Brewing Company isn't quite open for business just yet, we’re well on our way (we've received our federal brewing permits and our Massachusetts permits are underway), and we've got some big ideas.

Our branding - like our beer, the fixtures in our taproom, and our head brewer's "lazy pants" that might just be stapled-together blankets - is handmade by us. And, like our beer (but not so much the pants), we're pretty durn proud of it. Most of our artwork centers around our logo character, who is a dapper mustachioed skeleton named Horatio (though often, as in the logo itself, you just see his face). The choice to use a skeleton is inspired in part by a literal interpretation of the name of our flagship beer, Extra Naked, though it was also inspired by the fact that we think skeletons are cool. We've concocted a McDonaldLand-esque world that Horatio inhabits - and if you’ll bear with us, we’ll bring you there on the Ship of Imagination...

***

Imagine if you will, a land where the tributaries flow freely with beer and one can lounge lazily in a lake lousy with meringue whilst sipping a refreshing Key Lime White. A world where the scent of freshly hopped wort wafts down the avenues and alleys and all the bars have free chips. It's here in that we see our hirsute hero, Horatio Skellingham, commute to work in a hollowed out orange, zesting his way through a rich Chocolate Stout river. After a full day’s work, he likes to round out the afternoon with a brisk constitutional accompanied by El Pulpo, his pet octopus, who is keen to chase the many fermentation goblins that shimmy through the shadows. At the end of this walk is, of course, the Bone Up Brewing Company taproom where he can enjoy the company of his neighbors and reflect on the day's events over a pint of Wasted Life IPA (or, if he's in the mood for a pint that nigh-on demands he follow it with a second one, Extra Naked Premium Ale). If it's a warm enough evening in scenic Everett, Massachusetts, he may take his glass to the twinkling beer garden outside, where the background noise of children playing ladder ball and the soft clinks of pints meeting over bright chatter all but silence the pervasive thought of "before Bone Up, this place was such a dump."

***

Sure, we make tasty beer. The best, in fact (hence our slogan, “Made from Ingredients”). But we're firmly aware that, in the bulk of our best beer experiences, the beer isn't center-stage. What's most memorable is the company, or the events of the night, or even the food. Much like the host of a good party, beer should guide the night in subtle but noticeable ways instead of calling all the attention to itself. And that sums up our first and foremost goal - we want to make beer that facilitates relaxing and having a good time (after all, the best possible compliment a beer can get is “can I have more?”), and provide a space that encourages doing so. In a lot of ways, we’re trying to make our own version of The Moon Under Water (our version, incidentally, will be almost exactly nothing like Orwell’s).

In order to create the welcoming atmosphere we’re looking for, we’re going to need to do a little more than just serve pints and fill growlers. As we mentioned previously, pubs aren't quite the community meeting place they once were, so we've got to convince people that we’re in it for the greater good. To (mis)quote the great Ray Smuckles: "we got to dodge this crazy stigma that a bar is a bad place to spend your time. A bar is a place where drunk people smoke and say things they haven't thought about. This is a ‘public house,’ you know? It's kind of just a room where life happens, and you can eat tasty food and put back a few pints. It's like your childhood, but with pints."

We first need to breathe life into a place was until recently in a state of total neglect: we’re creating a beer garden out of a dirt patch that's currently occupied by a broken cement mixer, some old rebar, and - perplexingly - the bench seats from a quarter dozen minivans. Our taproom (formerly an industrial laundry) will comfortably seat several dozen fine folks and offer flights and pints of our four flagships, as well as taproom exclusives and one-offs. We’ll have a few lawn games, a couple books to read, some coloring books for the kiddies, local food trucks on weekends, and oh but it will be ever so much fun!

Once that’s up and running, we've got some cool ideas for events to host for our local community: small music performances, charity events, chili cook-offs, trivia nights, food truck festivals, beer education events, and more (Jared is lobbying pretty hard to have “more” in this context mean “Mario Kart”). The brewery’s urban location also allows us to create private label brews for the dozens of craft beer bars and restaurants nearby. And what’s more, if the government will allow it, we'd like to focus part of our business on crafting personalized beers for weddings, charity fundraisers, and other events (preference will be given to those of the taco-related variety). And since we have an in-house design team (i.e. Liz), we’ll be able to offer custom glasses to go with those custom beers! Sure, it’ll be a lot of hands-on time with our customers, but why wouldn't we want to get to know our adoring fans? And in the unlikely scenario that the aforementioned event can’t drink up a whole tank of beer, we can always put some of it on draft in our taproom so any Johnny-come-latelies can still join in the festivities! After all, what better way to cap off a celebration than to share the spoils with your neighbors?
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Are you excited? We're losing our minds with excitement. 
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  • Home
  • Find
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    • Upcoming Events
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  • Beer
    • Extra Naked
    • Key Lime
    • Wasted Life
    • Shut Up Kelly!
    • Weekly Cask
    • F.A.O.
    • Joybringer
    • The Protector
    • Ginger Extraordinaire
    • Joyrider
    • Buffalo Nickel
    • Melvin the Mammoth
    • Best
    • Stone Valley
    • Lazy Pants
    • Bone Machine
    • Estate
    • Past Brews >
      • 100
      • Adelle
      • Armchair
      • Azacca
      • Beer of Truth
      • Believer
      • Belma
      • Biere de Krampus
      • Big Boots '17
      • Big Boots '18
      • Big deLICious
      • Bison Penny
      • Black Witow
      • Blood Built
      • Bone Smasher
      • Bullhead
      • Cello
      • Chance
      • Chaos
      • Chromo
      • Clusterbomb
      • Come Out and Play
      • Comet Bomb
      • Cosmic Showers of Love
      • Cryptic Nonsense
      • Danzig
      • Death Salon
      • DNA
      • Doomrider
      • Doyle
      • El Pulpo
      • Fermento-Tainment!
      • Four Star Smoothie
      • Galena
      • Ghost Dragon
      • Ginger Jamboree
      • Ginger Spectacular
      • Gnasher
      • Green Smoothie
      • The Gruncle
      • Hartshorne
      • Hillcrest
      • Honey 'n' Hops
      • Idaho 7
      • J.A.R.E.D.
      • Jabber
      • Jaunty
      • Jimbo Jaliper
      • Jodi
      • Josh
      • Korey
      • L.I.Z.
      • Lawbringer
      • Lawn Chair
      • Library
      • Life Sentence
      • Lil' Delicious
      • Lil' Witeon
      • Loretta
      • Love Doctor
      • Madeline the Destroyer
      • Marimba
      • Maybe Saturday
      • Mo'Biscuits!
      • Monarch
      • Mr. Buttons
      • Nerd Farm
      • Nick
      • Nug
      • Oh My!
      • Orange Red Dead
      • Pink Smoothie
      • Pounder
      • Pullover
      • Purple Smoothie
      • Quaddles
      • The Quadless Leg Monster
      • Rebello Fellow
      • Redeemer
      • Ruby Rye
      • Serendipity
      • Shelby
      • Showdown
      • So Nude
      • Springtime Lies
      • Stag
      • Stomper
      • Summit
      • Summoner
      • Sunken Wit
      • Teamaker
      • Test Drive
      • Thrasher
      • To Have and to Hold (My Beer)
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