Giving Tanks

The last few days of long drives and "mildly" overeating at every meal have provided a bit of time to reflect and appreciate how far DEEP Brewing Company has come over the past year and enforce the revelation of how much we truly have to be thankful for.

 ~Begin Flashback~

This time a year ago we had just taken delivery of our brewing equipment and we're working feverishly to get our plans submitted to the City of Tallahassee before everyone downtown began taking time off for the holidays... 

After 3 months of permitting woes, 4 months of construction... with all requisite delays and cost overruns... and a bit of brewing on my trusty 10 gallon steed (homebrew system), we held a "below the radar" opening to a fervent crowd of over 200 people during what felt like the hottest day of 2016... Thankfully the 80 gallons we had on hand was just barely enough beer to get through the day and keep everyone "hydrated!"

A few more "soft" Saturday's over the course of the summer and finally getting our main BrewHouse up and running, we officially opened the doors to the tasting room on the last weekend in August not knowing that the following weekend would have us scrambling to save our precious golden suds from the ravages of Hurricane Hermine and the subsequent loss of power.

During the past two months we've been joined by our fans while we explored and experimented with a number of new recipes, expanded the tasting room by adding a dock and some outdoor seating, and most importantly... invited two awesome and talented people to join this small family-run venture!

The bulk of our thanks for this year go to our loyal fans, customers new and old, and DBC's beer-vangelists that help drive a constant flow of new faces into the brewery every weekend. Also, due to the help, support, and sacrifices made by our family over the past year... DEEP carries no debt and answers to no investor... For that we are forever grateful and can truthfully say we answer only to those who walk through our front door and order a beer.

Thank you for coming along for the journey thus far, and helping to sow the seeds for what is to come!

Brewing Greater Depths,

Facilitator of Fermentation and Scrubber of Floors

Ryan S LaPete

A Beer about Blogs (Repost From Tallahassee Beer Blog)

I hope you all will bear with me as I do a bit of reorganizing and optimizing of some of our content. I am currently working on shifting some things over from another beer project that never quite took off. Much of the content is relevant to Deep Brewing Company as well so I figured it would be a good addition and also fill in some of the back story of where the idea for DEEP was originated... If you haven't read it before, ENJOY!

Thanks for understanding!

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, this blog is about great beer and the advancement of craft beer culture in the city of Tallahassee, Florida. In this inaugural post, I'd like to spend a bit of time reflecting on who I am, where I came from, and why we are here today to opine on the subject of BEER.

I've often thought of starting a blog, becoming a writer, or at least posting my thoughts more than superficially on Facebook or more than 140 characters on twitter. The battle has always been two fold... A lack of true passion for many of the topics I've ever thought of writing about, and a lack of interest in people I didn't know being critical of the words I chose to put on paper.

Well, those days are a thing of the past! In the journey through my 31 years of life I've made mistakes, done stupid stuff, and ran into some shitty people... Reflecting on those negative events when combined with the perspective of time reveals the serendipitous nature of life and the gifts it bestows upon those of us who chose to learn from our missteps and continue to push forward.

Along the way I've had one of the coolest jobs anyone could dream of, Done some crazy things, met some of the most interesting people in the world, married the woman of my dreams, and fathered two of the worlds most perfect beings... None of these miraculous things could have happened without the circumstances that precipitated from the poor choices that came with youth and inexperience. Don't worry, we'll get to the beer in a moment!

I've wanted to start my own business for several years and even tried a few times. I've owned a scuba diving charter, a website that sold pool safety equipment, and a few other poorly conceived and half-assed excuses for businesses in which I never put the time to get the ideas off the ground. The only promising endeavor I ever started was shut down by the man when the administration at the middle-school I attended in Tallahassee arbitrarily decided they didn't like the idea of a 12 year old saving for college by selling blue raspberry blow-pops out of a backpack. Huge margins, low overhead, insatiable demand... Dreams squashed by onerous regulation and protectionist mentality! At this point you are probably wondering when we are going to talk about beer... Soon!

About two years ago my wife and I decided that the time had come for a change of career paths. The idea was to find something that met the goals of both reducing my physical risk and gaining some time to spend with the family. Enter beer here!

When reflecting back on life and searching for the common thread that could tie together the fabric of my personal evolution, I noticed that beer has been present since my coming of age. Beer has been there for the worst of times and good beer has been part of the best of times. I also noticed that the better the beer I chose, the better my life choices. Now you may attribute that to age, experience, and maybe the elevation of income... But this is a blog about good beer! I'm trying to connect the dots!

Taking into account this massive revelation, the obvious business choice was to open a brewery! I know what you're thinking... "Starting your own brewery is quite time consuming, how does that fit into the plan for more family time?" My previous work as a commercial/research diver demanded huge time commitments and entailed high amounts of person risk. Relatively speaking, owning my own brewery would be fairly tame on both accounts.

Man this thing has gotten out of control! We'll have to stop there for now and have a beer! Tune in next time when I might wrap this damn thing up... Might.

If you find this the least bit interesting, like us on Facebook and maybe follow us on Twitter for more updates! If not, do it anyway... I might catch your attention in the next installment!