It’s been a while since we’ve checked up on what is inarguably the most important part of this whole project: the beer. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t get to spend much time working on the beer—it actually functions as something like a mini-vacation within the endless hurricane of bureaucratic & construction crap—but recently we’ve had some developments worth noting.
Cars and I have never gotten along.
For one, we got off on the wrong foot. Until I got a car when I was 17, my urban Los Angeles childhood was functionally suburban. Although I grew up in the beating heart of a huge city, there was no way to experience it since I was more or less confined to the quiet residential streets where I lived.
The joy of finally having a car was tempered by my great nemesis: traffic, which still inspires me to poetic heights of profanity. Sitting miserably in traffic, I can feel the precious moments of my one & only lifetime slipping away in the most banal manner possible.
People seem excited about Modern Times. I get lots of emails from eager strangers, and we’ve amassed an impressive number of Likes, Twitter followers, & email newsletter subscribers. Embarrassingly, I even get recognized at some local beer bars now. All without having beer to sell!
During tours of the Lomaland Fermentorium and at our pilot tastings, folks have told me that they like the transparency, honesty, and self-deprecating humor with which I’ve talked about the ups-and-downs of starting the brewery. So I’m going to keep doing it.
Starting a brewery has mostly been about managing my stress while floating on a vast sea of annoying bureaucracy. Occasionally though, I get to do something spectacularly awesome that doesn’t seem like it should be work, even when it’s extremely important. It’s like getting to frolic at the end of the tunnel before getting pulled back into the abyss.
