Brew festival Tour Dates!

I hope you bought your tickets early, because these brewery festivals tend to sell out quick.  There are a few coming up in the next couple of weeks, so get your tiny little glasses ready!  Here’s where you can find us:

The Heavy Table and Open Arms of Minnesota are pleased to announce the third edition of the North Coast Nosh sip-and-sample event. Guests will taste a carefully curated selection of local foods and beverages (including honey, beer, baked goods, wine, charcuterie and more) and have a chance to talk one-on-one with some of the area’s leading purveyors.

Happy New Year!

2011 was an incredible year and so far I have no complaints about 2012!  Looking back on the timeline of where Lucid Brewing was 1 year ago really puts the amount of work into perspective.  Again we couldn’t have done it without the support of our friends, family and the Kickstarters.  Here’s quick recap:

January 2011: Form the business and order the brewery equipment.

February:  Begin serious amounts of test batching with the water from the future home.

Easter 2011:  Fly to China to finalize the equipment order and inspect before shipping.

June:  Thumbs up from the city to start construction (Yah!).  Start digging a 160’ long trench… (booo!)

July:  Equipment arrives!  Begin assembling the brewhouse and erecting the fermenters.

August:   Plumbing and welding and tiling.

September:  We’ve got a boiler.

October:  Install the glycol chiller, plumb the chilling lines, connect all the sensors.  Lots of praying that the city inspectors wouldn’t slow us down any more

November:  We’re brewing!  Kickstarter drive is a success!!!

December:  On tap at 25 bars! 

As we move forward in 2012 we have lots of exciting things in store!  There is still lots of work happening around the brewery.  As part of our pledge to improve the community of brewers, we are helping Badger Hill brewing get started.  Last week we set up their fermenters in line with ours.  We will be helping them with the connections over the next couple of weeks while they await their federal stamp of approval.

We have also begun the upgrade for the community use tank and are meeting with our first community brewer this weekend to try out a pilot batch.  A plan is in the works to team up with Northern Brewer (www.northernbrewer.com) one of our local homebrewing shops for video demonstrations and to take the homebrew aspect of the community tank to the next level.  There is a lot of buzz this project and we have a good feeling for its future success!

I wish you all a very happy new year!

Cheers,

Jon Messier

Tapping Event

We had so much fun at the Public House, we thought we’d go back for another event. This time we’re bringing a Lucid CAMO with us! We’ve got a special dry-hopped version as well that will be exclusive to this party! Join us won’t you?

Did you see us on KSTP?

Welcome to Wayzata — Sunsets Tapping Event

We have Lift off! AIR LAUNCH PARTY

This has been a long time coming, so we are very happy to anounce: The first official launch party for Lucid AIR!

Join us at the Public House in the warehouse district from 5-7PM on Friday Dec. 2. We will be there sampling our beer and passing out brewery shwag! The lines may get long so come early!

Press Release: LUCID BREWING COMPLETES SUCCESSFUL KICKSTARTER DRIVE

As we approach Turkey day, we at Lucid Brewing are incredibly thankful to all of you who participated in our KickStarter fund drive.  Putting a brewery together has been a ton of work and fun and we are now ready to share the joy with you!  Starting Monday, we will begin posting updates for tappings.  AIR WILL be on tap for Thanksgiving weekend!

While you wait for the beer, check out the press release for our successful Kickstarter campaign!  18NOV11_Kickstarter release

First Brew Day!

Saturday was the first official brew day at Lucid Brewing!  It feels like a huge releif and accomplishment to have beer in the tanks.  In just a couple weeks, you will find AIR on tap around the Twin cities.  We will add a page in the next week or so with a list of bars who have made a comittment to our products and list of upcoming launch parties.  We can’t wait for the beer to start flowing through the bars!

While you wait, please enjoy a timelapse video of the first brew day.  We added some spicy music to get the day started!

To Excellence in Drinking and brewing!

Lorenzo Lucid

 

 

 

The Day of the Inspectors!

Today was one of the best days ever at Lucid Brewing. While the day started much earlier, the fun began at 10AM with the pair of State Gambling and Alcohol officials came in for an inspection. We had a great discussion about some of the legalities of distribution and they had some good pointers for staying out of trouble. Thanks for the heads up!

We continued to clean and polish the tanks waiting for the Inspector from the Department of Agriculture (I add links for my personal reference, but feel free to check out their sites) to come check out the “lab” and processing areas.  The Dept of Ag. is essentially the health inspector, so when they show up you have to make sure that the place meets all of the requirements for a food manufacturing facility.  The “lab” is just the technical term for the room where we fill and clean growlers.  The real science happens on the brewery floor.  Anyway, the polishing paid off!

As the dept of Ag. guy was leaving the mechanical inspector from the city came to check the new ventilation system in the office areas and make up air for the boiler.  Eric very kindly told him that now he was the only road block in keeping us from brewing.  Good work!  That really lit the fire under him and on top of the ventilation he went on to finalize the chilling and plumbing as well! A-M-E-N!

It has been a ridiculously long haul to get to today, but I feel completely re-invigorated knowing we will be brewing this week!  The hops are here, the grain arrives tomorrow and the east is being scaled up for our first batch.  I am completely thankful to be trading my 70+hr weeks of construction for 70+hr weeks of brewing, keg hauling and sales!  Look for us on tap and ask your bartenders to call if you don’t see the shiny Lucid tap handle!

To Excellence in Drinking!

Lorenzo Lucid

Jus’ Chillin’

The glycol chiller is a rockin’ and a rollin’ …  

                   …groovin’ and a chillin’.