09 Mar BUILDING ANOTHER BREWERY
By: Justin Rizza, Head Brewer
As I embarked upon a journey to begin the brewery installation at our third Flix Brewhouse location, I was filled with a mix of nervous anticipation and curious excitement. Upon my arrival, my nervousness vanished. Our newest location in Carmel, IN (just North of Indianapolis) seems to be perfectly located and sized for us to bring an eager population joy through food, movies, and craft beer.
Upon walking through the doors of a still very active construction site, it became immediately obvious that progress was dead-on, or ahead of schedule. It was much different than my first experience with our Des Moines project. Instead of walking into a sea of metal studs, I saw walls of sheetrock with mud and tape already applied. There was even some painting already underway.
During the next four weeks I was obligated to complete a number of brewery related projects. Plumbing the lines for the propylene glycol solution that will provide temperature control for fermentation, as well as keeping all of our tanks of freshly crafted beer cold for serving was the first priority. Compared to Des Moines it was a dream. The problems created by the staggering length of travel that the piping in our last project had to span was only exaggerated by the fact that it was all split between three very different elevations.
Here in Carmel the path is on one elevation in a very short and easily accomplishable “L” configuration. It all went together very quickly and painlessly and once finished we were already ahead of schedule. In the weeks prior to my arrival, the brewhouse, fermentation tanks and serving vessels had arrived and were lifted into place. The 60 foot windowed display of tanks in Des Moines seemed hard to beat but the dynamics of the layout in Carmel actually appear to have a “wow factor” advantage. The 60 feet of glass that displays the serving tanks will flow almost seamlessly into a display of equal length containing all of the fermentation vessels, as well as our stunning show piece brewhouse. The lobby area clearly will have a more intimate feel while being hugged on two sides by stainless steel vessels being used on a daily basis to proudly craft our proud beers. It will be truly a marvelous place to brew and drink finely crafted beer.
Currently, construction continues and all of the very important and necessary details are coming together as we push on with our plans to be brewing our first batches in Indiana by the first week of April.
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