The two tanks which used to consume a large portions of our brewing floor are now up on the new stand and welded into place. We used the hot liquor tank for the first time in this position today while brewing our 4th batch of Ro Shampo. The height of the tank makes the system work much easier as we can gravity feed the hot water back out of the tank instead of having to run a 2nd pump. The now vacant floor space has been taken up by our recent aquisition of a Meheen bottling machine.

I know that I keep saying this, but Lynne and I are simply getting the brew day down. Brewing our 4th batch of Ro Shampo today was the fastest and smoothest yet at just over 9 hours start to finish - very exciting!

On the Sunday of the 11th, we attended Shoreline Brewery's Red, White, and Brews festival in Michigan City, which is a day long event each year, featuring live bands, a number of breweries, and the city's fireworks after dark. It went off without a hitch unil a storm came through just around dark. Fortunately we ran out of beer and packed up before the storm.

Finally, this past weekend was also a busy one for us. It began on Thursday evening at our tasting room where we had a full house and continued through Sunday. Lynne ran the store while I took our brews down to Broad Ripple in Indianapolis on Saturday, which was attended by most of the micro breweries in Indiana as well as a number from other states. Attendance was somewhere around 5000 people and I poured samples of our beer continuously for 5 hours, totalling something on the order of 1500 samples. The weather was sunny, but brutally hot and humid - typical weather for July in Indiana. While it did not rain during the event, some weather passed through the area on the return trip and there was a beautiful double rainbow eminating from the city behind...

On Thursday evening, we worked together with Pikk's Tavern to put on a beer dinner at Pikk's. They cooked up a family style four course meal for about 40 people, which featured four of our beers. The event was outside in the cool alleyway beside the restaurant and went very well. Many thanks to Paul, Sam, and the staff at Pikk's for making the dinner a success!

Finally, it was while Lynne and I were filling growlers last night and I was in the walk-in that Lynne answered the phone and called me out in an urgent voice for me to talk to Nancy Coster, wife of Tom Coster, owner of our neighbor brewery Brickworks in Hobart. I felt like Obi Wan Kenobi when he had to sit down because a distant planet had been destroyed, producing a large disturbance in The Force, as Nancy proceeded to tell me that Brickworks was closing...

I'm still wandering around in a daze from the news and can only hope that our friends, Tom (and family) and Brandon survive the ordeal as best as possible.

First, I want to thank my good friend and ex-pinball patriot Mark who took the time to create this beautiful 1st dollar plaque. As you can see in this photo, the serial number on this dollar, which may well technically be our first dollar earned, begins with F8 - very cool! Thanks for everything Mark...

We are working on getting our bottling line up and running, and while our current machine is functional, I fear that we will spent a great deal of our lives operating it. For this reason, I've been researching other machines and so went to visit Saugatuck Brewing Company in order to watch their Meheen bottling machine in action. The people at Saugatuck were wonderful, and while we have yet to decide our course of actions, we now have a much better idea of possible directions for a newer bottling machine.

Still drooling over the vast warehouse space which the Saugatuck people have to work in, we are slowly morphing our setup to better utilize our current facility. This weekend, Shaun and I began construction of a structure to both raise our hot liquor tanks up and off of the main brew floor and to also provide a small amount of additional grain storage area. I am continually amazed by the seemingly unlimited generousity of our friends who are always willing to come and help us out at Figure Eight. Thanks Shaun!

In addition to his welding skills, Shaun also became a made man this weekend as he scored something like 450 million on The Addams Family pinball machine at F8, which made him a "Family Member". Nice score Shaun, I will need to renew my pinball skills so that I can give you some competition :)

Saturday evening, two of our Evanston climbing friends, Bob and Sarah, drove down to visit us at F8. We had a nice evening together, eating dinner at Valpo Velvet (yum!) and then doing a bit of bouldering in our basement climbing cave. Thanks for making the long trek to Valpo - it is always fun to have our climbing friends visit us...

My brother Jim and his girl friend Cheryl came out to visit over the holiday and we decided to take full advantage of the situation :) They are home brewers and were interested in experiencing the brewing process at F8, so we brewed our 12th batch of beer yesterday, a new IPA tentatively call Snake Pro - it is Where Lizards Dare's big ugly brother. I had filled the kettle the night before and ran the kettle's burner for a while to help reduce the time it would take on brew day to bring the kettle to a boil. Annabelle and Lynne prepared the grain bill Monday morning, and we were mashing grains by 10am. My whole family shared in the fun over the course of the day and we were done by 5:15p, which is the shortest brew day to date. As the government mandates that no one under 21 is allowed in the production area, Joel observed from the new storage space outside and above the production walls. Thanks to everyone for pitching in, getting the full value "experience" of a micro brewery...

Join us at any or all of the three events remaining in July (follow the links on our home page events list for details):

The new Indiana alcohol laws go into effect in July and this means that if you are planning on having a beer in our tasting room, then you had either better wear your old man mask or appear to be at least 50 years of age, otherwise you will be carded. For carryout sales, the new law requires everyone to be carded.

In fact, you should bring your ID regardless of how old you are as we will be carding absolutely everyone. Just tape that ID to your forehead and we'll be all set.

The good news is that F8, being a microbrewery, will now be allowed to sell our beer for carryout on Sundays. For this reason, we will again be open on Sundays starting this weekend. Our normal Sunday hours will be 1p to 5p, but because this Sunday is a holiday, we are limiting our hours to 11a-2p. Hopefully this will allow all those who aren't able to make it to see us during our regular Thr/Fri/Sat hours, or aren't able to pick up our wares from Trail, Triangle, or Pat's to fulfill their last minute 4th of July needs...

We hope that everyone has a fun and safe Independence Day - cheers!

We did manage to take a short vacation this past few days to climb with some of our friends in Kentucky's Red River Gorge. You can read some of the trip details here.

Many thanks to Kyle for minding F8 while we were gone and for taking action to make sure NIPSCO was prompt in restoring our power after the storm on Friday knocked it out...

All of our spent grains and hops are eagerly consumed by our friend's chickens. So far, we haven't detected any malt or hop flavors in the eggs ;-)

Shaun, Kyle, and I drove down to Bloomington on Saturday in the F8 van for Upland's RadFest. We had a great time along with the other participating breweries and we got to taste a spectacular variety of wonderful brews. We brought Where Lizards Dare, Twist of F8, and Ro Shampo and all three were well received. Thanks much to Mike, Caleb, Roger, Bre, and all the fine folk at Upland for putting on this event.

We've been working hard on getting the bottling line up and running and hope to have bombers of Ro Shampo and Where Lizards Dare at both our current stores and a number of new locations this month - we'll keep you posted...

Hopefully everyone who visited us yesterday enjoyed the new brews, the wonderful brewing smells, and the added activity.

Both the new IPA (Where Lizards Dare) and the new Watermelon Wheat Ale (Twist Of F8) are on tap and available in growlers for your enjoyment. Come on down tonight and celebrate the end of the week with us...

Tomorrow (Saturday) we wash rinse and repeat when we brew our third batch of Ro Shampo and celebrate the brewing of our 10th batch of beer!!!

Where Lizards Dare is our first true west coast style IPA and the first beer which we have filtered, giving it a crystal clear golden color. Having a wonderful balance of malts topped with an overabundance of hops and weighing in at only 4 % ABV, it is a great session beer for this newly arrived warm weather - yum!

Twist of F8, our watermelon wheat ale will be out soon as well and will provide another session brew for warm weather days and evenings for those not looking for the over the top hop experience.

Many thanks to the great people at Graphic22 for finishing up the signage for our van in time for Illinana Mayfest this weekend. If you see our van while you are out driving, be sure to honk. They are also working on completing the Ro Shampo monkey t-shirts in time for this weekend's festivities - woot!

If you enjoy our Rye Knot, then you will be sad to know that it is nearly gone and will likely run out by the end of this weekend. We will be bottling about two cases in bombers so that we have something to compare with the bourbon barrel vanilla aged Rye Knot later this fall, but once this batch is gone, it will be a while before it is again available.

Be sure to celebrate Craft Beer Week by stopping in either tonight or during our NEW evening hours on Friday from 5-8p, have a pint, take home a growler, and pick up your tickets to Illiana Mayfest so that you can join us with all of the other local craft breweries this Saturday!

Illiana Mayfest is this weekend at the Lake County fair grounds in Crown Point. Sample craft brews from the local micros including FFF and Goose for four hours. You can still purchase tickets from us for $5 less than you will pay at the gate.

Weighing in at a light 4 % ABV, we are calling this wheat ale "Twist Of F8", a name which Shaun suggested a while back. It will be a great hot summer day session brew with just a hint of watermelon to help refresh and cool you as you sit back and enjoy life...

We had an unexpected visit from Sam Strupeck of Shoreline Brewing in Michigan City as we were waiting for the water to boil. I am always thrilled when other brewers drop in as I always enjoy talking shop. Be sure to stop by Shoreline to check out Sam's tasty lineup of brews!

The latest brew, a single IPA named Where Lizards Dare is now happily bubbling away as the yeast consumes the sugars and converts them to CO2 and alcohol. I believe that I've now produced a brew worthy of being called an IPA and one which will get the attention of hopheads. Where Lizards Dare is a trad climb in Red River Gorge rated 9+ and given five stars, meaning it is a classic. The route runs up an orange colored dihedral finger crack and was first climbed in 1977 when a '9' was very difficult and the '+' rating meant that it was probably a '10'. Like this route, the brew has a slight orange color and the hops are over the top. We'll see if it earns the classic rating in a few weeks when it is ready.

Our neighbor Melissa called Lynne earlier in the week, offering to come help on brew day. Arriving around 3p, she was a washing machine for the duration and ended the day with a well earned glass of Camp 4. Thank you very much!

Kyle and I made a recon trip to Revolution Brewing, noted brewmaster Jim Cibak's (of Goose Island and Three Floyds fame) latest venture. We enjoyed a flight of their current seven brews along with a spectacular pulled pork burger, all of which were over the top, just as we expected for something from Jim.

Be sure to stop by Triangle Liquors tonight from 5 to 7p for a tasting of our brews.

Also, Industrial Revolution Eatery & Grill opened yesterday and has our Camp 4 on tap.

We transferred 50 gallons of Rye Knot into the Buffalo Trace bourbon barrel and included a few vanilla beans to balance the smoked oak and whiskey and to make it more interesting. We're excited to see how this turns out come next fall.

Finally, when our tiny tasting room is full and there's no place to set a glass (or flight) of brew, there's now a counter along the hallway which should make life easier. Thanks to the wonderful suggestion of one of our patrons, there are even a set of hooks mounted underneath it on which to hang your jacket or purse.

Pikk's Tavern has run through their first two kegs of First Ascent and moved on to Ro Shampo. We stopped in for dinner there last Saturday evening with my brother Jon and his wife Brenda (both fabulous artists - see Jon's works here) and had a wonderful dinner accompanied by the monkeys in a glass :)

The latest excitement in Valpo's food/pub scene is Industrial Revolution Eatery & Grill which is scheduled to open on May 6th. They have 16 tap handles featuring primarily american beer, half of which are dedicated to the small craft breweries including F8, initially with Camp 4, our nut brown ale. Be sure to drive by and check out the impressive renovations that have taken place there.

Joel and I had dinner at Pikk's last Wednesday and I enjoyed a couple of First Ascent on draft, which I have to say was a great experience, pairing exceptionally well with their fine tavern burger...

This past weekend, we began servng our Offwidth Double Pale Ale in earnest and it is now available in growlers. With it's balance of hop bitterness and malts, the response has been excellent!

We are expanding our hours to include Thursday evenings from 5 to 8pm beginning tomorrow night. Hopefully this will give those who cannot make it out to see us on the weekends a chance to stop in.

Our tasting at Trail Inn Liquors last Friday went very well, with at least two patrons exchanging a six pack of some non-descript domestic for a growler of our brew :) Lynne, Annebelle, and I had a great time meeting and serving people tastes of our wares, along with our good friend Kyle, from across the street at Uptown Cafe, who stopped to help for a while too. He has a vast knowlege and background with craft brews and is always a delight to see in action when he is describing a beer - he has so much energy!

Last weekend, as we were madly waiting on the long line of people visiting F8, one of our fine patrons asked if this was what having a newspaper article did for us. While we had a copy of The Times April 3rd edition sitting on our kitchen counter, neither of us had gotten to the Lifestyles section of the paper to discover this article. We aren't sure if it was the article or just the fabulous weather, but turnout was great!

As the sign says, we will be having a tasting to launch the sales of our growlers at Trail Inn Liquors here in Valparaiso. Technically, I'm only a brewer, not a brew master, but we are excited about adding a new, local, sales location to give people an option when we are not open for business.

On our way down past Lexington, we side tracked to Buffalo Trace distillery and picked up a Bourbon barrel in which I intend to age some of our Rye Knot - it should be quite tasty!

Our Offwidth Imperial Pale Ale is now in the conditioning tank and should be ready for consumption in another week or so...

Our weekend hours continue to be full of happy people, sometimes making our small tasting space a standing room only area. Our shipment of empty growler cases runs down the back hallway and people have found that they are a good substitute for a counter. I think we will be adding a narrow counter along that wall to provide a place to set glasses after the boxes are moved.

We are excited to be attending our first craft brewing event, Illiana Mayfest, this coming May 22nd. It runs from 4 to 8 pm at the Lake County Fairgrounds and is being organized by one of the other five local micro breweries in our area, Crown Brewing. From talking with Steve at Crown, it sounds like there will be a large turnout of microbreweries at the event, so it should be a great day! We have tickets available for sale ($25) and they will also be available at the door for $30.

We had hoped to brew our Offwidth IPA, an Imperial, on Sunday, but the hops did not arrive in time and so we are brewing tomorrow instead.

Growlers are a brilliantly green invention. We have been refilling the numerous empties which people are bringing in, and for those who don't have one (or more), our order is due to arrive tomorrow.

Finally, here is a sneek peak at our prototype tap handle. Look for it (or something similar) at a local destination soon...

We've been recuperating from the opening week events and adjusting to our open for business status. This included a private birthday party Monday evening (happy 44th Chris :) as well as the filling of growlers for sale at Pat's Liquors in Porter.

If you did not see it, the Sunday edition of the Post Tribune had a nice article about us by correspondent James D. Wolf Jr. Also, Scott M. Bort, staff photographer and beer columnist for the Post Tribue, wrote us up in "The Post-Trib on the street" blog. Scott is also planning on reviewing Ro Shampo in his weekly beer review column in Friday's Post Lifestyles section.

We deduced that it was our most excellent neighbor Mike who was responsible for leaving us the bottle of Utopias. Thanks Mike! We will be sure to include him when we open it for a taste...

I ordered ingredients this week for our next brew which will be named Offwidth IPA - we're excited about it and hope you will be too...

As I mentioned in the previous entry, the weather is definitely turning for the better these days as Spring is most certainly here, and this picture of Lynne's blooming Snow Drops proves it!

We couldn't have pulled this off without a lot of help (again) from our very special friends. Anne who has been a continual help, Shaun for stepping in to help fill growlers just when I needed him, Melissa and Wendi for keeping the glassware clean and ready, Justin for carting and rinsing empty growlers, Cameron and Matt for running to get more labels and rubber bands, the list goes on and on... THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH, I have no idea how to repay you for your kindness and generosity...

For those who were not able to attend on Saturday, our current plan for hours open to the public are Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 5p. Hope to see you soon - CHEERS!

In preparation for the friends and family night, as well as our VIP event on Thursday, Anne and Lynne worked tirelessly cleaning, preparing, organizing, setting up, and generally taking care of all of the details which I have no clue about. Thank you both very much!

Is that a new baby that proud papa Shaun is holding or just the first keg of beer that we filled?

We delivered our first batch of growlers to Pat's Liquors in Porter today (where they carry an outstanding collection of craft beers) so someone will undoubtedly be having some F8 brew(s) before our public opening - CHEERS!

Over these last couple of weeks, our oldest cat Nyssa had not been doing well and as her tired body failed her, her will continued to be strong and she remained our constant companion as best as she could. This morning, she was only able to do little more than move her head and yet her mind was clearly longing to do more. Choosing to release her from her broken body and to allow her to run free with her peers, we had her released from her bonds...

While her spirit will remain in our hearts forever, we will dearly miss her presence...

Also, for those who are curious about how Joel did at his state ISSMA saxophone contest, he played brilliantly and came away with a silver medal. Needless to say, we are quite proud of him :)

As the banner on our home page indicates, our grand opening event is set for Saturday March 6th and we hope that everyone can squeeze in some time to come visit us and enjoy our brews. The start time is not quite locked down yet, but we are thinking sometime around 1 to 2pm and will probably run well into the evening. We'll post the official opening time just as soon as we know.

Figuring that the brewing of Nut Brown went well (on Sunday) and because Lynne and Annabelle (who spent a great part of the day helping at F8 with Lynne and me) prepared the huge grain bill for Rye Knot while I was busy brewing and such, we decided to try brewing two batches in a row. This allows us to save the energy needed to heat cold water to near boiling, instead heating the already hot water saved from cooling the previous batch. Two in a row also avoids some of the cleaning. It does however commit us to the added time to brew, possibly leaving cleanup until the next day.

Rye Knot is the biggest brew I've ever attempted, only made possibly by the size of our mash tun. With over 700 lbs. of grains and adjuncts, it is massive. All was going pretty well until the mash got stuck. This means that the liquid held in the grains refuses to drain at a reasonable rate. Fortunately the open top mash tun allowed me to work the grain bed to help it drain, and after a long, tense, and hard job, we managed to extract most of the goodness from the mash and proceed with brewing. After beginning the day at about 10a, we were done with the brewing by 1a, and then a miracle happened! A bunch of our wonderful friends began arriving and helping us with various cleanup tasks and it generally turned into a festive event!

In the fermenters, all nicely percolating are:

Just for fun, I've put up a teaser of the Ro Shampo poster which our artist Greg has put together. This is a composit of images which will be on the 22oz labels once we start bottling. The monkeys will also adorn our F8 coasters. In case you are wondering, being an Imperial Red, Ro Shampo is named after a fun climb in Kentucky's Red River Gorge, one of our favorite places to climb...

Tomorrow, we will be brewing our yet to be named Nut Brown Ale. I originally wanted to name it Hexnut Brown Ale, but the fine folks at Goose Island have already used that one. Perhaps inspiration will come while downing a pint - CHEERS!

The grain system operated perfectly, depositing the rolled grain into the mash tun where it cooked for a while before sparging and transferring to the brew kettle.

The sugary goodness was brought to a boil and further sweetened with locally produced light clover honey in the brew kettle. Then the addition of some fragrant cascade hops complemented the pleasant aroma in the facility.

The brewery girls provided essential afternoon help and wonderful company as the brew process wound down and we proceeded to cleanup. Before completing the kettle wash, I had to climb in to remove the hops bags.

With this first batch brewed, I can now relax with a day of work at my day job after which I will visit F8 to check on the status of the fermenation.

The Castle Pale Malt, imported from Belgium, is the basis for First Ascent, which is the first brew.

After deciding that the original grain chute design using 4 inch PVC was not going to work properly, I located a source for a 4 inch utility auger and Lynne's brother Mark was kind enough to take the time to drive to New Paris Indiana to pick it up for me. I spent the afternoon and evening installing the auger, having to also requisition Shaun's help to modify the motor mount and so now the system is ready.

After a long day of work at the school bookfair, Lynne spent the evening at F8 doing some cleanup work in preparation for...

BREW DAY !!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I asked my dad to build table tops for the retail space and as he has been completing them, Lynne has been sanding and finishing them. This bistro height table was the first to be installed and it sits in the front window. Two more conventional height movable tables will fill out the remaining tiny retail space.

Assuming everything is done in time to brew this weekend and the brewing process goes smoothly (Tom crosses his fingers), we are still set for a grand opening either February 27th or March 6th. The later date will be chosen in the likely event that my son Joel earns a gold on his ISSMA alto saxophone solo this coming weekend, in which case we will be heading to Indianapolis to hear him perform there. We are all quite proud of his prodigus skills and hard work and don't want to miss this opportunity. Once the results are in, we will lock down the opening day and announce it here and on our home page...

And now a hint at our first four brews:

With the production floors all nicely painted and the equipment mostly all in place and cleaned, we've been tying up a number of loose ends to make sure that we can brew when the ingredients arrive.

Thanks for keeping tabs on us and hang in there for just a few more short weeks, then let the freshly hand crafted hops infused brews flow...