We got a sneak peek of our Christmas presents! These photos were taken of our tanks last week. They have been loaded on truck today and are headed to Iowa! The boiler installers and electricians are doing last minute work to get ready. We lined up a larger forklift and some man power for later in the week, now we are just hoping the truck can make it here with out any major snow storms.
We will be installing the tanks on Friday and Saturday and hopefully be ready for brewing by the end of the year!
Just a reminder that this Thursday we will be open but have a private party until 6pm so please visit us after 6!
The Cenosillicaphobia Homebrew Club was celebrating their 5 year anniversary tonight and we were honored to host them in our taproom. They took a tour of the brewery in it’s “before” status and we hope they will come back again soon to take a tour once the equipment is in place. They began meeting at the Swamp Fox 5 years ago so it was fitting that the anniversary meeting was in Knoxville and dinner at Swamp Fox.
If anyone in the Marion County area is looking to get into home brewing and would like to join talented bunch, let us know and we will get you connected to the CSP Home Brew Club.
Need some help with Christmas ideas? We have some great ideas for you!
T's
Peace Tree Note Cards and Coasters: Photo cards of the Peace Tree at Lake Red Rock or an 8 pack of coasters.
Peace Tree Root Beer: After December 15, we can fill you a growler (1/2 gallon jug) of root beer to give to your favorite or bring to a party! Bring it back for refills!
Peace Tree Gift Certificates: Can be redeemed in our tap room for pints, rootbeer or beer in a growler to go, or six packs at our brewery once we are packaging in January.
If you aren’t able to come on a Thursday night, just email Megan at megan@peacetreebrewing.com and we will help you out! Joe is at the brewery most days so we would be glad to have you stop by!
Merry Christmas everyone!!
Knoxville City Council approved an ordinance last night that will allow minors into establishments that also have a brewers license. We are very happy with this outcome and appreciate everyone’s support through this process. The new ordinance will go into effect after it is published in the paper on Friday. This is really great news since we plan to be open the day after Christmas to offer tours of our facility. Now, it can be a family event!
We ordered our growlers but they will not be here until the 14th so if you want a growler of rootbeer, you will have to wait until next week. If you would like to reserve a growler for Christmas pick up, please email megan@peacetreebrewing.com. We will one (or more) aside for you and schedule a time for pick up if not during our normal Thursday night opening.
In the brewery, we now have lights in the back and it makes a big difference. If anyone suffers from seasonal affective disorder, come on over and stand in our lights for a while–You will feel great and maybe get a tan! The brew equipment has been confirmed to ship on the 14th and arrive on the 18th. The drains have all been installed and I think we are ready to go!
New beers this week include Joe’s special 3 Way IPA. A truly international affair it is brewed with American malt and hops, English malt and hops and Belgian yeast and candy sugar. He has also made a Belgian Dark with candy sugar which is a variation on a stout but has belgian yeast which gives a little more fruit undertones and is a bit smoother with the addition of the candy sugar. We are updating these on the side of our website each Tuesday!
It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone. We were thankful for a quick break and to spend some much needed time with family and friends. Even more unbelievable is that Christmas is just around the corner. We must have been good because we are already receiving presents. On Monday, our bottling line from Meheen arrived. Unfortunately, we have to behave and leave it wrapped since there is still dust flying in the back due to concrete work. However, Joe was able to visit Meheen in Pasco, WA before Thanksgiving and get a preview of our equipment. He also got to run through a bottling at a local brewery there so he should be ready to get ours up and running when we are ready.
The construction work is wrapping up with concrete almost finished around all the drains. The electrical is still coming along but they need to pull wire for the brew house and lighting in the back. We did get the rest of our front lights in so they should be going up soon. In a little over two weeks we get our big tanks and equipment installed…..then it really is Christmas for us!
Today marked a special day since we sent in our first registration for the World Beer Cup competition. Joe has eight entries in seven different categories. We spent a bit of the afternoon coming up with names for all of our beers. We will start rolling these names out as we add beers to our tap room menu.
Speaking of the tap room, we will be open on Thursdays in December however, on the 17th we have a private party and will not open to the public until after 6:30. Also, we will not be open on Christmas Eve. If everything goes well, we will be open Saturday the 26th during the afternoon to offer tours and tastings. Hopefully it will allow those with extended families and friends in town another reason to stay in Knoxville! We will be posting our open times for Saturday’s as the time draws nearer.
I need to explain our stance on kids in the brewery because it is a bigger issue than just kids running around the taproom. We plan to be a customer oriented business and meet the needs of our customers in a way that makes financial sense so that we can be a viable business in the long term. What this means is that if we find that kids are a problem in the taproom and disrupt our other customers, then likely they won’t be allowed by us, as a business decision, during certain times. However, we are requesting the change in the city ordinance because since we will be an operating brewery, people will travel some distance to come and visit and take tours, sometimes they will do so with their families. We don’t want to turn anyone away from our business, or from Knoxville. The goal would be to welcome them for a tour and get them to stay in town for a while. Wineries and other breweries do this everyday. We have also had many locals say that they relish the opportunity to bring their family in for a root beer while they have a beer and socialize for a little bit right after work.
The second reason we need this flexibility is because we do rent out our taproom for special events, such as rehearsal dinners, family get togethers, business holiday parties, etc. This could also necessitate the option of allowing kids in the doors for certain clients.
Finally, we also make root beer and will be marketing this as strongly as our beer. Wouldn’t it be great to have a root beer float social some Saturday afternoon?
The main point to understand is that it is not fair to categorize us a bar because we are so much more! Because we don’t yet have our equipment in place, we realize it is hard to see past the current appearance. But I think if you look at our issues through the lense of tourism and economic development, you can see that it is important that we have some flexibility to manage our business as needed.
If any one has comments or concerns please let us know so we can address them. If you support our position, please let your City council members know. You can find their contact info at http://www.discoverknoxville.com/index.php?page&id=11&dir1=cityofknoxville.
Today they poured the concrete around the perimeter of the brew house where our tanks will stand. This ended up being a more comprehensive process than just taking out chunks for the drains since the concrete was very old and in poor shape. The past couple of weeks they removed all the old concrete and dug out where the large trough drains will go. Once this cures they will add the drains and we are ready for tanks! This should also help reduce the amount of dust that has been floating around.
We also received a new shipment of t-shirts. The new shirts now say Knoxville, Iowa so people will know where we are. We have some long sleeve, men’s with complimentary color ringers at the neck and sleeve and some additional women’s in chocolate brown. Most exciting are the kids and toddlers! They feature our logo with Hand Crafted Sodas underneath, making them age appropriate!
Also this week Joe is featuring a couple of new beers. First a Hefeweizen which is a Germans style unfiltered wheat. Second, he has been experimenting with his Belgian Red with the addition of candy sugar to add some interesting fruity esters and even a little hint of bubble gum.
And in case you are wondering, City Council has recommended that an ordinance be brought forth that would change City code to allow minors into a brewery. They will be voting on the 30th so be sure to let them know your support if you see any council members around town. Thanks again to all of you who signed on in favor of this change and forwarded your well wishes! We are so glad to be a part of such a warm community!
Finally, we had a great time delivering Root Beer to the local 3M plant this week for their root beer social to cover all four shifts. Hopefully they enjoyed it as much as we did!
Thank you and look forward to seeing you in the tap room this week. Don’t forget it is Living Window’s in downtown Knoxville so take extra care watching for all the pedestrians as they peruse the wonderful displays in each storefront!
Peace Tree Brewing Company had opened with the idea that we would make great beer and provide an economic spark for Knoxville. Our primary goals is to package our products for sale off site but we also have taproom to showcase our specialty beers and help people have the full experience. We have had many comments from our patrons that our taproom supplies an environment that has been needed in Knoxville: A place where you can get out with friends and feel comfortable bringing your family. Kids need to learn from an early age how to enjoy responsibly and our place is a great place to model good behavior. Our brewery supports responsible consumption and appreciation of fine craft beers and rootbeer.
The problem is that Knoxville city code differs from Iowa state code and many other city codes by prohibiting minors in establishments that derive 50% or more of their income from alchoholic beverages if they have a Class C or Class B beer permit. Since we doubt our rootbeer sales are going to outpace beer sales, we want to change this and are presenting our case at City Council on Monday night. We are asking that this code be changed to one of the following:
Allow minors in until 10pm
Allow minors in with a parent or guardian
Allow minors in establishments that have only a Class B beer permit or a native brewer’s license (a manufacturing brewery)
So how can you help? Participate in the democratic process on which our great nation was founded! Either stop by the brewery this Thursday night and sign our letter of support or send me an email with your support of one of these changes. We would like to send this support to City Council members on Friday as they prepare for the Monday meeting. How great would it be to be able to come to our taproom, enjoy a beer, get the kids a rootbeer and contemplate the day or maybe play a heated match of Scrabble. We look forward to hearing from you!
Best regards,
Megan
megan@peacetreebrewing.com
We made it past our third open week and are still having fun! Last week was a little hiccup when we realized that because of the way that Knoxville City Code is written we can’t allow minors in the taproom. We are working with the City to make changes to this code since we feel we offer something different than a regular tavern. Hopefully, we will be serving the kids rootbeer right alongside their parents again soon. It just wasn’t the same without all the youthful energy last week.
Joe has been brewing like mad to keep up with demand. He has made so many wonderful different kinds of beer it is hard to get a handle on the house favorites. One early contender is the red ale since we can’t ever seem to keep enough of it around. The Edelweiss wit went very fast last week and I learned that if I want to taste the new beers I better do it before customers start showing up or I may miss out. This week we will be tapping the Iowa Corn Beer again for a very limited run. So, if you enjoyed it before or have heard about it but missed it, come in this week for the last chance this year. Also new last week was the brown ale. We do have some more of this for the coming Thursday. We are also rolling out a new pilsner. For those who like the darker beers, we will be replacing the coffee stout with a maple stout.
We have been busy doing lots of behind the scenes organization this week. Two new file cabinets and a countertop make a pretty fancy desk in the loft office. Behind the bar has been reorganized now that we have a feel for what we need. And lots of computer work to make sure we are keeping track of everything.
Scott and Joe have been playing around with different tap handles the last two weeks. Interesting concepts from disturbing doll arms and legs to a piece of red rock driftwood. Joe stepped it up a little last week and displayed his custom made stained glass, three color, glowing tap handle this past week. The guy has some talent beyond beer! Hopefully his cool creations will keep the suggested turkey leg tap handle from appearing…..
Peace Tree (in t-shirt form) also made it to Germany last week thanks to Scott’s cousin Jim. It feels great to be international! Look forward to sharing a beer with you soon!
