The first post on this blog was October 21st of 2007. If you have no life and have followed our journey since that first post you know that this day has been a long time coming. And yet despite all the drama and turmoil we have come to expect during our efforts to open a packaging craft brewery in Tampa, our first brew day went incredibly well. No real problems, mishaps or explosions. The first brew was Maduro our Oatmeal Brown Ale and it was oddly anti-climatic. I was half expecting some paper-pusher from the city to come rushing in with a court order forcing us to cease and desist all brewery related functions immediately. It never happened. Instead we just brewed beer and later drank a few beers. Then toward the end of the evening we lit up cigars and cleaned up. I know that we will face challenges in the coming months, but for once everything went smoothly. And CCB now has beer fermenting! Naturally I snapped some pics.


The mash tun is filled with grain and those yummy sugars are being extracted.


My dad lends a hand.

Wort being pumped to the kettle as seen through the mash tun site glass.


Filling the kettle for boil.


Wayne tosses in the first hop addition.


Raking out the spent grain.


Chatting during boil. (Jeremy Pate from Auburn Ale house-left, Wayne-center platform and Alan Shepard from Premiere Stainless-right)


Joey enjoying a celebratory cigar.


Wayne reaching for Godzilla's cigar.

Next week will be a busy schedule including long brew days for Wayne. This weekend Wayne is heading up to Atlanta for the Cask Ale Tasting and hopefully he can relax a little. We sent a cask of Hanuhpus Imperial Stout (our Mayan chocolate imperial stout) up for this and I am eager to see the response it gets. I am really proud of that beer and Wayne for brewing it.  We also still have to clean, sanitize and pressurize all our keg stock (over 400 kegs) and then I get to go out and try to sell our beer! And then there is the bottling line to get running. There is a lot to do still, but CCB is at least brewing now and so the mission of this blog and my lifes desire is very close to being fufilled.

Cheers,
Joey Redner