South Plains Project: Live Interview on the Radio

Sveriges Bryggradio

I recently did a live interview on Swedish Brew Radio. Click on the link below and for the opening, I do a intro, then there is a interview with Greg Koch from Stone Brewing Company and I come on after that, at about 53 minutes. Public speaking is not one of my strong points.

http://bryggradio.com/arkiv/SBR-31-Greg.Koch.&.South.Plains.mp3

The live radio interview, from my perspective

South Plains Project:Label Design

Not just another boring beer label.

It seems I have been working on these labels forever! I feel I'm finally approaching the end.I wanted a label to reflect my beer, one that pushes the limits. I decided on my logo to be a raised fist, symbolizing rebellion against massed produced beers. First I had a front and back. Now I have a rectangular shape that wraps around the bottle. On the left side I have a description of the beer along with a description of what I do. Here's the excerpt from the Pale Ale:

A darkish yellow with copper tinge, this moderately bitter ale has a strong hoppy floral bouquet with hints of blackberry & citrus.

An artisan craft ale, brewed with purity in which we only use water, barley, hops &  yeast and are  free of any additives. This is a real ale,  unfiltered &  unpasteurized so when it is young, it is quite acidic and as it ages it gets smoother and smoother

Jeffrey Scott Brown, Brewmaster

Then on the right I have some information on the beer: alcohol percent, volume, batch number and International Bittering Units, IBU's, it tell how bitter the beer is (really something for beer afectionanados), and then the bar code to track it with and the 'pant' symbol for recycling bottles.

For the fonts, I use a rock garage font on the top with the initials of the style, then put the style in a Alias font. I'm meeting today with graphics designer Joshua Alvarez at Sveneighteen to put the final touches on. I hope to send these finished designs off to the printer soon.

South Plains Project:The Warehouse Keeper

Today I submitted all the necessary documents to the Swedish Tax Office, Alcohol Division in Ludvika. The way things work here is you need to be approved as a ware-houseman for a taxed storage shelter (skatteupplag). I need to have whats called a 'class 2' security system, which means alarm connected to a security company, video surveillance, heavy duty lock, etc. Then the beer that I store will be subject to 7½ crowns per liter alcohol tax and the a 25% national sales tax (moms or VAT) upon sale. There is alot of taxes on alcohol sales here, like anywhere, but I don't really pay those, I just collect them and pass them on, I need to be careful and keep those separate. When I get approval, I will have a special number to sell, import and export beer. The alcohol tax is declared and paid monthly while moms-VAT is reported quarterly. Then when I sell to a pub for example, they also have a tax number, and both those numbers are recorded on the invoice.Everything will be tracked by bar-code. To sell strong ale, that is ale over 3.5%, I can only sell to the public via the Systembolaget, the Swedish state run alcohol store. Most of the ale like I make is between 6-8%.Sweden has a long history of prohibition, alcoholism, and strict alcohol laws but I have found the Skatteverket (Swedish Tax Office) and Systembolaget, (the Swedish state run alcohol store) quite flexible, polite and easy to work with, you just have to fit in their rules.

South Plains Project: The New Brewery Design

New Brewery Design with 1200 liter kettle and 3- 900 liter fermenters

South Plains Project:The Plate Heat Exchanger

I ordered the plate heat exchanger from Processor inn Spånga just outside Stockholm. It will take roughly 4 weeks for them to build it for me.Cost:6800 kr.($1000). It will take 900 liters of boiling wort and pass it through this chiller to put the wort in the fermenting tanks at 20-22 degrees Celsius (68-72 Fahrenheit) so I can add my yeast culture and start fermentation. I will be using well water to pass the opposite direction which costs almost nothing.

Wikipedia describes it as this:






'The concept behind a heat exchanger is the use of pipes or other containment vessels to heat or cool one fluid by transferring heat between it and another fluid. In most cases, the exchanger consists of a coiled pipe containing one fluid that passes through a chamber containing another fluid. The walls of the pipe are usually made of metal, or another substance with a high thermal conductivity, to facilitate the interchange, whereas the outer casing of the larger chamber is made of a plastic or coated with thermal insulation, to discourage heat from escaping from the exchanger'


    So this is the last piece of equipment I need, I now have everything to put together my brewery. I feel like I'm really making progress!

Equipment comes to The South Plains Project

Phil & Julienne Munts's old mill farmhouse in Arrie

Haik Avanesian

I got a call Thursday that the truck with my equipment would be on the overnight ferry from Germany and the driver would be in Trelleborg early Friday morning. When I got to the farmhouse in Arrie at 8:00 am, he was waiting for me. Last week I was there with Thomas Fransson and Haik Avanesian to tour the possible location for 'The South Plains Brewing Company'.

Haik is a chef from Copenhagen I've worked with for many years. 

Thomas works at the Malmö Brew-house and runs a national syndicated radio program for artisan craft brewers.

Thomas Fransson

Thomas is also the one that got me to enter the competition in August 2011 when my IPA took the bronze medal. Also he has been just a tremendous wealth of knowledge for me starting up this brewery.

We found some Polish guys with a forklift at a scaffolding company that would unload my truck for a little cash & beer. So the polish forklift driver managed to unload the kettle (500 kilos/1100 lbs) and the hot liquor tank from me and the German truck driver (neither spoke English or Swedish) when I looked down to see oil and water running out of the bottom of the forklift. The 40 year old forklift had broken a axle. The Polish guy went for help and me and the German truck driver muscled the 3 fermenters and the mash-tun off the truck and I managed to lollygag them into the garage..The German truck left and I had my tanks in the garage and the kettle sitting outside.. I then borrowed a pallet jack and jacked it up under the kettle and as hard as I tried, I couldn't move it. And the Polish guys came back and we couldn't move it. Finally I found a old Swedish farmer up the road and after a hour, he came with a ancient Volvo tractor with small fork-blades and was able to put the kettle in the garage. Only took me fours hours but I got it done. Everyone was happy with cash & beer. I feel like I've made a huge accomplishment getting my equipment here.

1200 liter kettle with hand crank sitting on the street on Möllegårdsvägen 12, Arrie

South Plains Project: The Steam Generator

A year ago I had never heard of a steam generator, now I need one. This is the most expensive piece of equipment I've bought, 3320 Euro (29,000 SEK or $4300) with the optional condensation recovery tank. I decided to buy new because I was a little nervous of buying a used thinking it could blow up. The Maxi 60 by Ghidini, just outside Milano, Italy can put out 5 bar of pressure and has a output of 55 liters steam using a 60kW fuse that can give me 51,700 kCal/hour or 81-83 Kg/hour. In short, it ROCKS! I'll be able to power my 1200 liter kettle and 650 liter Hot Liquor Tank and use a steam gun for cleaning. I need one more piece of equipment now, the brazed plate heat exchanger and I've found one I like for a good price, I just need to get the company to build me one and then I have everything for The South Plains Project.