It’s been a while, we know – We’ve been real busy.

It’s been a long while since I wrote anything for the 12 Gates Blog and it seemed like a good time to do it.

Things have been insanely busy since November when we really begun the build out. It was a mad dash to Dec 12th and get the doors open.

We are finally to the point where it doesn’t feel like we are a group of Home Brewers impersonating Professionals (and hoping the general public doesn’t realize it). We are actually a Production Brewery shipping hundreds of barrels of beer to people of Western New York. As of this writing you can get our beer at nearly 200 locations in Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara County. For the first time in nearly a year, we could collectively exhale and honestly say things are going pretty damn well.

This month we also finish with our awesome contractor Picone Construction (everything else that needs to get done is now our problem!) and personally that is a huge milestone. It’s very possible I spent more time with Chris, Tony and Steamer, John and Mike from J&S Mechanical, Jerry from Amherst Electric then my wife since last November (Love you Marie XOXO). Mechanically everything in the brewery now works the way it was intended. I would be completely remiss not to thank Rob Haag for his efforts over the last 6 months to finish this build out. Great job Rob, now go build some more tables.

We are also going to begin canning our beer this summer. We weren’t going to do this for at least another year and a half but we kept getting asked for our beer in cans. It’s really a brave new beer era. (Just times have changed, lots of craft now) This summer you should be able to get canned beer from 3+ local breweries. That’s amazing. I’m confident in the next few years no one will want any beer that hasn’t been brewed within a day’s drive of their home.

The Taproom now has a handful of picnic benches outside and we are getting some corn hole games painted up so you’ll see them outside in the next week or so. A lot less people are also getting lost trying to find the brewery, so that’s been generally good news too
We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you all drinking up the beer. We’re glad you enjoy it and plan on supplying you all for years to come.

So come on down and enjoy the (mostly) completed Brewery and look for our beer where you drink. If they don’t have it, ask for it.

– BC / 12 Gates Brewing Co