Accountants, Lawyers, gold medal

I met with the tax and legal gurus for their wisdom on what type of entity Lucid Brewing shall be. The choice was basically between a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or S-Corporation. I selected LLC, for now. A LLC gives more options for potential investment situations, like this really matters, since this assumes someone or someones will want to invest in Lucid Brewing. Seriously, I am open to investors, so send them my way, please. Once Lucid Brewing is creating revenue, and under the assumption I have no investors, I will change the company to an S-Corporation. An S-Corp gives an owner more flexibility around income taxes.

This past Friday and Saturday was spent at the Upper Mississippi Mash-Out (see previous post) judging home-brewed beer and consuming large amounts of locally brewed beer, both home-brewed and professionally brewed. All beers were very good. I entered a couple of beers, my Cream Ale took home a gold medal. I will post some of the feedback from the judges when I receive my score-sheets.

This week I am finalizing the LLC paperwork and looking around for potential brewery sites. The equipment search is quite a learning process. It is tough, when looking at a brewhouse, to figure out what is included and what is not included. The business plan has quite a ways to go, but it looks like I will be going with a 15-bbl brewhouse, but a 30-bbl brewhouse in not out of the question.

I look forward to this weekend’s test batch, a Northern English Brown Ale. Nutty, caramel goodness in a bottle.

Drinking cask conditioned ale in St Paul

This past Sunday the entire family went to St Paul for some fun. First we went to the Minnesota Children’s Museum, where our son Liam enjoyed himself thoroughly. The ant colony room kept him running and crawling and kept Alyssa and myself spinning.

After the running and chasing at the museum, we strolled over to Great Waters Brewing Company for some food and cask conditioned ales from the beer engine. Great Waters always has a minimum of four cask ale on the engines at a serving temperature of 52 degrees Fahrenheit. I found their house ale and Mr. Smooth very tasty.

I will be sure to enjoy more of Great Water’s ales this upcoming Friday at the Upper Mississippi Mash-Out’s indoor pub crawl. Mash-Out is one of the nation’s larger home-brew contest, in which several Minnesota breweries and brew pubs bring growlers to quench the thirst of the volunteers on Friday night. I will have a keg on tap for the volunteers to enjoy between judging sessions during the day. Trust me, there is no shortage of beer or mead to enjoy at the contest.

Later this week, meetings are scheduled with accountants and lawyers for the business structure setup. Maybe, if time allows, some progress will be made on Lucid Brewing’s logo.