It occurred to me that, once again, it’s been months since we provided a proper update on where we’re at with Halo Brewery, and it feels like so much has happened since then.

You may have seen photos of our equipment on site, and since then we keep getting asked the same question: “When do you start brewing?” In short, barring any unexpected setbacks this month, we’re still on track to have beer ready for you this Spring.

If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty of what we’ve been up to over the past few months (read: become a crazy person whose life revolves around construction and bureaucracy), let’s get you up to speed…

November-December: Breaking Ground

When we ordered our brewing equipment and signed our lease in the Fall, we knew that the equipment arrival time was going to be a key moment for the project. There was a ton of structural work that needed to happen on site before that equipment could be installed.

We spent much of November and December in a pre-construction phase where not much happened on site. As complete newbies to a construction project of this scale, Callum and I got pretty antsy and had to restrain each other from taking a sledgehammer to random things. “When can we start digging holes and breaking stuff?” was a question our very patient general contractor, Christopher, had to answer on a daily basis.

But realistically we learned that spending the time to get proper quotes from subcontractors, ensure we had a detailed schedule and scope of work, and finalizing our architectural drawings, was extremely important to ensuring actual construction went smoothly. We managed to get the wall behind the brewing equipment tiled in November. Finally, in December, after our building permits were approved, we brought in a huge concrete saw and cut out a big part of the old slab. Although this slab was in perfectly good shape (and 10" thick!), we needed to install a trench drain and have the floors sloped toward it.

We closed out 2015 with our provincial beer Manufacturer’s License conditionally approved, new concrete poured and curing… and the news that our brewing equipment would (SURPRISE!) be ready ahead of schedule in mid-January instead of mid-February if we wanted it. This may have never happened before in the history of brewery equipment purchases, and that all seemed like good news except we were staring at wet concrete floors that needed to harden and be coated with polyurethane, plumbing rough-in work to be completed, and a glycol system (for controlling the temperature of our beer!) to be installed before that equipment arrived.

January

January is a bit of a haze. Most of what I remember is waking up too early every day to meet our general contractor and various trades on site, and staying alert with americanos from our neighbours, Cafe Neon.

Somehow we managed to get all the major structural work in time to receive our equipment mid-month. And that was an epic 12-hour day. The truck arrived early along with our riggers. It took us a few hours just to unbolt all the equipment in the trailer and lift it out into the parking lot.