Half Acre Brewing

What is the best thing to do when you are unemployed? The responsible people out there probably think "look for a job" and the practical people think "drink." You know what is awesome about being a brewer, you can do both. I did a little multitasking today by visiting Half Acre Brewing, drank some beer and talked with some brewer, which may or may not help me get a job at some point.

Half Acre is another relatively new brewery in the Chicago area, the beer has been around Chicago for about two years, but the brewery just started making beer in Chicago this month. They started out having their beer contract brewed in Wisconsin, but are only distributed in the Chicago area. The brewery is in a cool old building, but at this point, everything beyond the actual brewing equipment is very much a work in process. They are still building some things like their mill room, wall in their boiler and finish their front shop area. They aren't putting in any sort of pub at this point, but will be selling beer and merchandise on site.

Quick rundown of the equipment, they have a 15 bbl three vessel system and seven uni-tank fermenters (three 15 bbl and four 30 bbl).

Hot/Cold Liquor Tanks, Three vessel brewing system

Fermenters

While I was there, the guys were obviously busy trying to get everything up and running and aren't really set up for tours, but it was great to see a brewery at that stage in starting up. Once again the tour brought up a lot of ideas about starting out, one being location. Rent is a lot cheaper in industrial parks, but there could be some benefit to being in a more visible location. Is the "cool" building/location worth the extra money? I guess that will depend on my goals for the brewery, so we'll see. A location like they have could eventually morph into a pub, restaurant, who knows. Even though I am not going to be in Chicago, I am curious how things develop for the guys at Half Acre because it seemed to be very similar to what I would like to do.