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!