This weekend we’re the official beer of the Franco-Ontarien festival. This is a wonderful event for us for many, many reasons, but one of the main ones is simply that it proves we can do it. There was a lot to figure out for the event. Here are my top-three funny ones:
1. It was accidental that we actually had enough beer to supply the event. We were seeing sales spiking as we were getting closer to summer, so we decided it would be nice to build up a “buffer” of extra beer. We figured that if sales stayed within reason, it would at least allow us to do some testing on extra-long aging on the beer. As it turned out, the amount we brewed as a buffer will allow us to just squeak by.
2. We didn’t have that many kegs. After getting the go-ahead from Daniel, the general director at the festival, I did a count of extra kegs and we were more than 20 short. So we scrambled and bought a pile off another brewer.
3. How the fudge can we move the beer to the festival? 70 kegs weigh approx. 10,000 lbs when full. Our cargo van holds 3,000 lbs. Dad’s minivan and our minivan sales vehicle can each take 1,200 lbs. So we figured we could get 19 kegs into the cargo van, 8 in each of the minivans, and do 2 x 3 vehicle convoys up to Ottawa. Perfect, except on the first trip only 18 could fit in the cargo van… and then a few customers called in emergency delivery requests… so our second trip up had a fourth vehicle, courtesy of Phil’s buddy Little Jeff.
The beer dispensing team got a bit of a chuckle watching us unload from a series of minivans and 4 passenger cars, I’m sure. But guess what — we got it done! We were able to brew enough beer, get it into kegs and get the kegs where they needed to be, when they needed to be there. I’m proud of that. The event runs this weekend (June 15-17) and should be a blast — and the beer at the festival is going to taste great this year.
À votre santé! Steve
1. It was accidental that we actually had enough beer to supply the event. We were seeing sales spiking as we were getting closer to summer, so we decided it would be nice to build up a “buffer” of extra beer. We figured that if sales stayed within reason, it would at least allow us to do some testing on extra-long aging on the beer. As it turned out, the amount we brewed as a buffer will allow us to just squeak by.
2. We didn’t have that many kegs. After getting the go-ahead from Daniel, the general director at the festival, I did a count of extra kegs and we were more than 20 short. So we scrambled and bought a pile off another brewer.
3. How the fudge can we move the beer to the festival? 70 kegs weigh approx. 10,000 lbs when full. Our cargo van holds 3,000 lbs. Dad’s minivan and our minivan sales vehicle can each take 1,200 lbs. So we figured we could get 19 kegs into the cargo van, 8 in each of the minivans, and do 2 x 3 vehicle convoys up to Ottawa. Perfect, except on the first trip only 18 could fit in the cargo van… and then a few customers called in emergency delivery requests… so our second trip up had a fourth vehicle, courtesy of Phil’s buddy Little Jeff.
The beer dispensing team got a bit of a chuckle watching us unload from a series of minivans and 4 passenger cars, I’m sure. But guess what — we got it done! We were able to brew enough beer, get it into kegs and get the kegs where they needed to be, when they needed to be there. I’m proud of that. The event runs this weekend (June 15-17) and should be a blast — and the beer at the festival is going to taste great this year.
À votre santé! Steve
2 comments:
Wow, talk about perseverance Steve, good job! I may "actually" check out the festival this year...finally a beer I can honestly support at an outdoor event. Cheers, and continued prosperity. Oh one other thing, we always ask for a Lug Tread in any pubs we go to.
C'est fantastique!
Well done Steve and FFO. I'm thrilled to see a festival go the extra mile to serve local (and much better) brew than the typical mega-brewery products.
I'm sorry I missed the festival however!
Cheers,
Ben B
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