Working Man

It's official. I have just completed my first shift as a brewer.

I am the assistant brewer at the Denver chophouse and brewery. It's a very nice restaraunt right smack towndown Denver; 1 block from Coors field. The brewery is located in the middle of the restaraunt and is glassed in on 3 sides. The brewers are visible to all.

The brewmaster is Kevin Marley. He brews 8 beers on site. 2 stouts, a red, a wheat, a pale ale and 3 lagers. That's right- 3 lagers. I was blown away by that. The fermenting tanks have centrally cooled glycol running around the lining, so temperature control is not a problem. The brewery is bigger than I thought it would be. There is a lot of capacity there. There is also a lot to be maintained.

Today I disassembled, cleaned and reassembled tap faucets for 2 hours. I did manage to gouge my hand with a screwdriver while trying to poke out a stubborn faucet part. Luckily the boss wasn't around, so I tracked down a first aid kit and bandaged myself up. It is a pretty nasty cut. I got a system down after the wounding and hauled ass through the last 8 taps. The brewery supplies 2 sepearate onsite bars with a total of 48 taps. The second place is a dueling piano bar called sing sing.

I spent the morning getting a very long and detailed tour of all parts of the brewery and beer system. I always figured that some outside company maintained the CO2 lines and beer line runs. Not so much. That shit is complicated- and will soon be my responsibility.

Kevin has never had a well trained assistant, so I agreed to get paid very little money in order to work with him full time for one month and get trained. After one month or so, my hours will go down, but my hourly wage will go way up. Hopefully I can pick up some shifts at other breweries at that point. This plan will allow Kevin to finally have an assistant that can handle any facet of the operation. It will free him of much responsibility, and I will hopefully get more responsibility than the average assistant. I am totally fired up about it.

It's actually nice to be working again, even if I am taking a large paycut from being unemployed. I don't like being unemployed. I was always feeling guilty about not being productive enough. I would rather go to work and be forced to be productive: then I can come home and be lazy with a clear conscious. Hell, I haven't updated this thing in 4 weeks while being unemployed, now I make an entry the first day after work. See!

I gotta go walk the dog. Heather will be home soon, and our landlord will be visiting us this afternoon. She is in town from Chicago and wants to drop by to meet us and check on her house. I can't wait to show her the stuff that she is too cheap to get fixed.