And if you'll recall from a ways back, we were teetering on the cusp of having our brewhouse ventilation system installed before we had that whole kerfuffle with the town.*** But we shall teeter no more - ventilation is underway!

And if you didn't already see, we got a nice lil' writeup from DRAFT magazine yesterday, alongside the other folks in the area who have some wares in the works. Check it out!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go sleep off that pie.****

​Well hello there! We've finally calmed down after all the good-news-related prancing from last week, and things have slowed down a bit due to some sort of year-end celebration that people keep talking about. 

We're still pluggin' away on the brewery, though our current project is apparently a bit dull - as evidenced by the fact that friends and relatives have explicitly asked us not to talk about it.* But! We've got some big things on the horizon! We're installing our hardwood floor soon, and we're scheduling up our contractors** to finish up all the work that - according to "city officials" - needs to be done by "licensed professionals" who can do a "competent job" instead of by two "knucklehead brewers" who "make things up as they go along." But that'll hopefully go relatively smoothly, since we mostly just need the contractors for one thing (though it is a big enough job that it somehow requires the services of a plumber, an electrician, and some HVAC technicians). ​

Howdy and hello, welcome back to our blog! We've been promising some big ol' news for a while now, and things have finally come to pass, so we'll cut the jibba jabba and get on with the newsin'! 

That's right - we finally had our hearing with city hall! For those of you not already in the loop, city hall is supposed to approve the site plan for any building before major renovations start taking place, and our landlord apparently didn't file that paperwork, which means that building and/or occupancy permits have been unobtainable pending the outcome of a hearing. It's been super fun, let me tell you. Anyway, as our email subscribers already found out, we had the hearing for our site plan on Monday night, and it! Got! Approved! This means we can finally (finally!) make real moves towards brewing you some friggin' beer! 

Now, before we get too excited,* there are a few caveats worth mentioning. For one, there's still some work that needs to be done - specifically ventilation, plumbing, and a little wiring - and all of that needs to be approved by city hall. What's more - and this is a big one - the occupancy permit we'll be getting (which will allow us to, y'know, occupy the unit we're renting) will be temporary at first. In short, our landlord needs to pretty up the outside of the building and make it look like less of an abandoned trashfactory and more like the site plan by the time the temporary permit ends or we're SOL. That's quite nerve-wracking for us, particularly given the... extended timeline that some of the other work on the building has been on (not to mention the fact that our exterior beautification is supposedly starting at the beginning of a New England winter), but we're choosing to exalt in the good news for now: we get to brew soon! Things are looking good for a February/March opening! (although we've made a couple similarly optimistic assumptions about our opening date in the past, and those didn't exactly turn out the way we'd expected)

With all that "actual news" out of the way, we present you with what you all came here to see:** we finally finished the floor!*** While we will usually admit that concrete repair tends to rank pretty low for both "interesting" and "newsworthy," things ended up taking a turn towards the slightly ridiculous. We were expecting it to be a dull classroom and/or prison gray (you know, the same color as the floor in every other brewery in existence and also the stairwells in most parking garages), but it ended up being completely silver and tinfoil shiny! That's sort of a weird thing to get excited about, but we're pretty stoked that it looks like our brewery was designed by a Bond villain.****

Lastly but far from leastly, thanks to everyone who came out to say hi during the Bit Fest event last week! It was a great time, and we're glad we got to hang with our neighbors and meet some of y'all!

​Hello, friends! It's been another fun-filled week around here at Bone Up Headquarters, home of the Perpetual Unskilled Construction Project. This week has focused on floor repair (the last step before we can coat it, which is the last step before we can use it), which has required us to teach ourselves an array of new construction techniques whilst simultaneously attempting to employ said techniques (things got a little interesting at times). We also apparently developed a foolproof method for helping people remember forgotten dentist appointments and the like! All we have to do is start talking in detail about concrete repair and people suddenly remember all kinds of friends who need rides to the airport, bar mitzvahs, court dates, and one person even mumbled something about an "emergency... wedding" before running off!

Expert badge unlocked.

So we'll spare you the nitty-gritty details, but suffice to say we were a little bit worried about our ability to repair and resurface concrete flooring given our previous underestimations of project length/difficulty (coupled with the fact that our education on the subject consisted entirely of reading the directions on a package of cement). Nevertheless, we busted out the concrete leveler* and it worked like a dream! (we have lame dreams) So after a weekend chock full o' chiseling and troweling and getting mad at hammers (don't ask), our floor is finally ready to coat! But that should be easy since it's just like painting,** and we've certainly done our fair share of that these days. ​

Ah, concrete repair mix: the epitome of stimulating dinner conversation. Did we mention it's self-leveling?

In actual, relevant news, our neighbors are up to some shindiggery this Friday! We're a little light on details, but it involves video games and beer and it's going on in the common area of our building! This is the very first event ever being hosted in our building*** and we're just thrilled to see some new faces! And rather than stare forlornly out our door while wishing we could be part of the fun, we decided to be part of the fun! We can't bring our own beer or anything, but we'll be helping out Bit Fest and (most likely) pouring (or at least drinking) some beers, so come on out and say howdy!

We're loving how "scenic/sunny/beautiful" Everett, Mass. is becoming a thing.

But wait! There's more! Do you enjoy reading our blog, but dislike Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / remembering that it's Wednesday? Well now we have a newsletter! That way you can notified yet another way about our sassy ramblin's. Seriously though, we won't actually be emailing you every time we put up a blog post - we'll be focusing on the real actual happenings around the brewery**** (with maybe just a little added sass) once or twice a month. So sign on up! It'll be good times for all!

*A fairly upsetting amount of the floor was slanted towards the drywall instead of the drain, hence the need for leveler.
**Except worse!
***Unless you count the VIP party Jared and Jimbo threw for themselves when the roof finally stopped leaking.
****Although that's arguably what this blog is supposed to be for. 

Heyo! We got a blog post here! We have, as always, been as busy as we can be around these parts (although admittedly we did take off an entire half day for pie and naps last week). We're finally putting the finishing touches on the painting (though we'll likely still be finding paint in odd locations on ourselves for weeks to come), which means we can finally put away our rollers and brushes and dropcloths until next time! Which will hopefully be never!

​On a related note: in a paint-fume-induced frenzy, Jimbo up and decided to paint our wall in the common area of the building so that the entrance to our brewery won't look so damned creepy all the time!* Check it out! 

What's more, after going through a roll or two of decorative chain, several packs of zip ties, and an uncomfortably long period perched precariously upon a wobbly ladder, we got us some lights! While we can't yet install those growler lamps that we talked about a few weeks back,** we did hang up some cool-ass string lights! Can't you just imagine yourself romancing a beer in the soft glow of our indoor beer garden?***

And in case you missed it: we got contacted by Journey to the Beer Store for an interview a little ways back, and it went to press**** last week! Go on and have yourself a looksee, why dontcha.