Expect the Unexpected

"Wait, you want me to do what?"

When we teach our immersion course, the one thing I tell every student is to expect that somewhere along the way, some local, state, or federal government official is going to ask you to do something that makes absolutely no sense. Ask me how I know.

When I opened the Palisade Brewery (above), I was asked to add a manhole outside the building where the sewer line could be opened up and a government official could come sample the effluent coming through. When I explained that it would first have to exit the tank, onto the floor and then into the drain, it would be easier to just test it at that point, as the government official wouldn’t in fact know when I was going to drain a tank to be there lifting the heavy steel lid and ready to sample the said effluent. They said I still needed it. $5,000 later it was installed and almost twenty years has lapsed and no one has ever lifted that heavy lid to check.

The same thing happened when I opened Colorado Boy in Ridgway. Here, they wanted a “Y” put into the drain down in the basement with a ball valve so a sample could be taken before the effluent left the building through the drain. Again I said it would first have to drain from the tank before hitting the floor drain. They would have to be ready for it downstairs and I could yell to them “are you ready? Here it comes". Needless to say they have never checked it, however I have hit my head on that ball valve countless times.

Oh, I could go on. OK I will. One of our students was building his brewery and the building department wanted a UL listing on the kettle. He explained that the kettle wasn’t a pressure vessel, just a stainless steel pot, and that the burner for it was UL listed. To no avail. He had to pay thousands for an engineer to do a UL certification - the only one I have ever heard of for a direct fire kettle.

Or another friend who submitted plans, got them approved and started building. When the building was ready for its final inspection the same building department that approved the blueprints now said that he needed a firewall from floor to ceiling in between the brewhouse and the tasting room. This room had twenty foot ceilings so you can imagine the expense. They could have said this when they APPROVED THE PLANS - but No!

Just one more. When we wanted to add a wine room/dining area to our balcony at Scalo in Albuquerque (it already had tables up there with a wide staircase leading to it), the fire department said we needed a second exit, which is reasonable, but it had to go through the back stairway down through the kitchen then back up another set of stairs and out the back door. We had to change our architectural plans, reduce the size of the space and the whole thing was delayed by a couple months. We figured it cost us about $20,000. When we were done, the fire department came out to do their inspection. They saw the nice code required Exit sign leading to the back area and kitchen and said “You can’t have an exit through the kitchen. Take that sign down.” So we did.

There are plenty of exceptions to this and it’s not all a nightmare. Sometimes the requirements put on you are quite reasonable and actually make sense. Just squirrel this away in your brain, that as you are working to build your brewery, somebody in authority will throw a curved ball at you. Just be prepared. It’s all just a hoop you will have to jump through.

I would love to hear your horror stories. Please send ‘em along.

Next week: Trademarks!