The Incredible First 2 Weeks!

After the ABC license was granted, there was a short window of critical path administrative stuff to finish before opening. We immediately applied for the special event permit through the city and the Banquet License through VA ABC. All of the permits came through just in time, whew. We got all our ducks in a row at the last minute. The beer was busy fermenting and we had a backup plan for the parking lots...just in case. We received permission to park in the locations nearby. Our BBQ team was ready - Smoke's BBQ such tasty food! All of our incredible staff knew their stuff and we could not have done it without them. They were well prepared! We had the honor of the Manassas City Mayor Hal Parrish, along with Vice Mayor Andrew L. Harrover, Surpervisor Ian T. Lovejoy, Supervisor Johnathan Way and Delegate Rich Anderson, Delegate Jackson Miller come to our ribbon cutting and support the new venture!

The night before the event, we did not sleep. Since the conception of BadWolf, it had been almost one year. So much planning and preparation had gone into the business. Some people even asked what it was like on opening day. Being a new momma and all, I could only compare it to having a new baby. It was THAT EXCITING and you know, we prepared for this "baby" longer than 9 months. So yes, BadWolf is like our second son in a way. I remember tossing and turning the night before the opening worrying if we would be able to serve people quick enough. It turned out that we could not serve them quick enough because the line went across the plaza! In fact, many waited up to one hour and everyone seemed surprisingly patient and understanding.  Friends, family, colleagues and so many people showed up! It was overwhelming. Jeremy being the critic that he was of his own beer worried if people would like his beer. He did not have to worry because the six beers were a hit:

• There Can Only Be One Pale Ale
• Idea Golden Ale
• Not Bad Brown
• ESB
• Shhh...aison
• Emergence IPA

Did we anticipate a line across the plaza on opening day? No, not really though we noticed over 100+ RSVPs on the 2 Facebook invitations and figured a steady stream of people would come on by, not 500+. Word did spread fast based on the flurry of online activity and updates from friends at the last minute and of course if someone says "craft beer", people are there in a flash, especially if it's made in their own home town! I remember when Jeremy and I were looking for breweries to visit while on travel. I like to think of finding a new brewery as a quest. I am happy that we are now part of someone else's beer quest.

After opening night beer sold out each day for the next two weeks. Someone even suggested we make a new shirt titled, "Where did all the beer go?". During this time, Jeremy and his assistant brewer's brewed almost every day of the week. I am happy to say that Jeremy is now a full time brewmaster and expects to have a full lineup of beers the week after next. Thanks for your patience as we ramp up production. We originally planned to only brew twice a week, not six! We also hope to expand tap hours in the future, for now these are the planned hours.

• Wed-Thurs - 4-9pm
• Fri 3-10pm
• Sat 2-10pm

Next week we will be open for the 4th of July and continue normal tap hours (unless of course the beer taps out before closing time). I would also like to announce that we now have a real phone number, so when you call us, you hear a real person on the phone during taproom hours 571-208-1064. Google voice wasn't cutting it, lesson learned. Next week we will have an Orange Cream Wit, the Not Bad Brown due to popular demand & maybe a surprise beer on tap. Until then, have a fantastic week and we will see you on Wednesday!

Dying to Open

"Hurry the f-up already!" Someone emailed me this the other day and I just about fell out of my seat laughing. I've seen hundreds of emails but not one has arrived as demanding and as succinct as this. Then the person simply signed his name at the bottom. Later there was another one from a Dr. Who fan which came in from the midwest. They wanted a bottle of beer with BadWolf on it for their friend as a joke. The idea being to put Bad Wolf on every day items everywhere this person went. (Those who have seen the new series understand the significance.) Since we don't have beer in bottles or any beer at all just yet, we suggested he get one of our pint glasses or growlers. Someday, maybe this guy will give us an update. Yesterday, someone texted Jeremy saying it's really hot outside and he wants beer from us like pronto! Poor guy has to wait another month.

So as you are aware, we were pushed back another month due to a monster setback. The arrangement with this fellow posing as a licensed contractor to install the ventilation system never got underway and we witnessed a large sum of money basically fall into the abyss. The setback has been frustrating and a pain in the ass. When you look at the whole picture, walking with $3,260 is one part of it but delaying our opening another month means additional operating costs, delaying our permitting processes and now our ABC license is pushed out. What really sucks is that all of our future fans are delayed a taste of BadWolf beer. You know what? It's been really hot outside lately!! Here is the article published around the time the media got wind of the news. Did I mention Jeremy is dying to brew beer too! We have so many recipes and beautiful grains just waiting to utilize their potential in the new brew kettles. And our new water filtration system is fabulous. I love the water coming from our BadWolf sink. It's so tasty which means more consistent tasting beer.

New date TBA but we are looking at Mid-June. Hey, don't go on vacation just yet, we will be open before you know it!

April 27, 2013 Update

So we ran into a slight pickle but as always, the BadWolf team bounces right back. While we get ourselves reorganized and finish the last bit of construction on the ventilation system, our hope is to open late May. We've got our beer recipes ready to brew. The lineup may include:

• Idea Golden Ale
• Ginger Ale (yes, it's beer NOT soda)
• Birdie's Brown Ale
• Oncoming Storm Belgian Strong Dark
• Loveless Porter
• Jeremy's Cola (NA, caffeine free, cane sugar)

There you have it!

Our goal is to utilize local ingredients in many of our recipes. If you know a local farmer who would be interested in supplying us hops, grains, or other beer ingredients, send us an email on the contact tab. Thank you! http://www.badwolfbrewingcompany.com/Contact-Us.html

Also, we will be giving away all of our spent grains to the community. Spent grains can be used for a variety of reasons. Let us know if you want them. http://www.craftbeer.com/craft-beer-muses/sustainable-uses-of-spent-grain

April 4, On the verge of opening...can you see the light?

If we could count down to opening day, you would be most pleased. The excitement brings back memories of the closing day for our house, only add triple the anticipation and a few more (well, several more) variables! Wave a magic wand and poof, BadWolf is ready. Not so fast! If you think it takes this long, double it. If you think you need x, think 2x. If you think you know it all, you know nothing! That's what I have learned in the past year. Plan it out in so much detail and it sort of helped, even with all the countless hours then you say, "at least I had a plan". Better to think of it as a guide. Persistence is a must and if the quality of self-motivation is nonexistent, you will be screwed. That's my take on this nano operation. At this point, remaining items: revision to the proposed ventilation system and ABC inspection. This is one of the last steps prior to our state license. Once we have the license, we will brew our little butts off. And as the wife in this operation, I will learn to brew too! I look forward to making my own beer along side Jeremy. I would like to name one of my beers "Git Some" or "BadWolf One". If you want to receive the email for our opening date, send us your email address: http://www.badwolfbrewingcompany.com/Contact-Us.html.

Cheers all! A BIG Thank you goes out to everyone who has helped us so far. We are so close and we look forward to sharing our pints with you and the community!!

March 4 Update

What is a brewery? (a place where beer is made commercially according to the wiki) This question was asked last week and I was surprised! So I gave the lowdown to the questionee and proceeded to explain how our operation would work. A brewery is a new concept around here and with it hopefully comes inspiration for others to do the same, whether it be another brewery, restaurant, or specialty shop. These places are unique, cool and give Manassas character! My hope for the future of our town is to see more mom & pop businesses. We live in a franchise city compared to places like downtown Alexandria along King Street or downtown Asheville, NC where a different brewery is on every corner. Well, not literally, but Asheville was named beer city USA and they have a lot of breweries!

This month I reveal our layout a bit more. BadWolf is simply a very small taproom. 6 beers will be on tap (usually) with our customer area just large enough to accommodate some people sitting and of course standing room. Our bar is being built from scratch which will look great. Another cool thing - we will have a sit down pacman table loaded with hundreds of games including pacman and other fun ones from back in the day. Free popcorn will be available popped right on site in the cool little popcorn cart. Of course we will provide our freshly made beer in growlers to go. You will be happy to know there is a large fermentation room to store tons of kegs of happily fermenting beer. Behind this will be an sweet office complete with 4 walls and carpeting! It does not include a window view unless we paint one. Damn.

Behind the office and down the main hall is a large room for storing lots 'o grains and you can't live without a bathroom so we put one of those in. It comes with free toilet paper and hand towels. One day, I will get BadWolf the cool sustainable Excel dryer.

T-shirts, BadWolf pint glasses, BadWolf stickers and the cool stuff will be available for purchasing once we open.

WHEN ARE YOU OPENING, GIVE ME A DATE!?

Um, this spring and sorry, but no date confirmed until we start testing our brewing system which is about to be installed shortly! Hang in there. Don't worry, we can hardly wait too.

WHAT BEER WILL YOU HAVE ON TAP?

The brewmaster has 6 recipes selected (which I will keep a secret for now) and the beer will change as we brew new batches. No single recipe will remain on tap consistently. If you have a recipe you would like us to do, please go to our website and click the taproom tab. The brewmaster may even invite you to brew with him.

Big Milestone

On February 6, 2012 TTB approved our Brewer's Notice! We couldn't believe our eyes when the approval appeared in our inbox, finally! We submitted the application in early October and we knew 120 days was the average processing time. Now it's all about the VAABC application which will be submitted shortly. Average processing time is 30 days.

All of the plumbing work has been completed and passed inspection. Just a few days ago, we passed the electrical inspection and will be starting drywall very shortly followed by grinding and sealing the floors. The brewing equipment and control panel will be installed along with our dishwasher, 3 compartment sink, hand sink, kegerators, and the bar. The bar is a simple design built from scratch and one of the cool features will include embedding bottle caps along the top and stained wainscoting.

The customer area will look like...wait, we don't want to tell you everything!

 


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The Buildout Phase

On Jan 14, the power was turned on, lighting up our sign and the most exciting news: we received our building permits! This gave us the green light to begin buildout phase. The plumbing crew, in a matter of a few days, marked the floors, cut the concrete up, reworked the plumbing in preparation for the dishwasher and sinks, then had it reviewed by the inspector which passed inspection this morning. Today they will fill in the holes with new concrete. The path of dirt between the concrete sort of reminded me of what the "Graboids" from the movie "Tremors" left behind. After plumbing work is done, the studs for walls and electrical work will be configured.

Okay, ready to serve beer? Not quite, we have completed a few requests on our application and sent those back to the TTB so they could finish reviewing it. We estimate the application should be approved by the end of the month. After this phase, we work with VA ABC for state approval which takes approximately 30 days. After buildout is complete, test batches of beer on new equipment will begin. In the meantime, you can always order your BadWolf growler or pint glass in our online store, you know, to test out the growler and glass to see if it holds beer?

We will keep everyone posted!!