September 8, 2014

The New Barrel Warehouse

It's exciting to announce we have signed a lease on a barrel warehouse in Madison.  It is currently an old run down building that hasn't been used in 30+ years, but it will be completely renovated this fall and ready for us to officially move in on December 1st.  I'm a big believer in showing you guys the ugly side of things as well as the pretty side, so here are a few images of its current condition.



As you can see from the outside, it's pretty run down.  The inside is no better.  But, the pretty side to this, is that the building is being completely remodeled.  We (actually my wife) is pretty talented when it comes to building design and remodeling plans.  She laid out the concept, the owners loved it, and this is what the space will become:

The location is one of main draws to this site.  The address is 1604 Gilson St. which is very close to where I live downtown.  On days not requiring hauling wort in a truck, it will be nice to simply bike down to the warehouse.  No, there will not be a tasting room initially, but yes, it is something I plan to do when barrels mature.

This winter I will be buying wort from a number of breweries, and you can be sure O'so Brewing will be one. My goal in sourcing wort from multiple breweries is to try to build a wider spectrum of lambic barrels to blend with.  The recipe will be the same across any brewery that I source wort from, but differences such as water source, brew systems, local microbes, temperature, etc should lead to having some distinctions between the resulting barrels and how they develop.  This will only help create complexity and depth to the final product.

Additionally its fun to do.  There are some brewers/breweries who are very interested making lambic, but don't want to have wild bugs in their brewery and don't have a coolship nor barrel space.  It's kind of a way to collaborate with the very talented brewers out there.

Its amazing how far this project has come and I want to thank all of you for your support.  When the space is up and running, I hope you will all come visit.

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