Start-Up

Here’s some seriously huge, immensely consequential news: we’ve signed a distribution agreement with Stone Distributing. Together, we’re launching Modern Times Beer throughout San Diego in the coming weeks.

Here’s the plan: our beer will be available to retailers through Stone starting June 24th. The week of July 8th will be our official launch week, for which we’re planning a slew of spectacular, invigorating events featuring our crew of marvelously entertaining brewers.

So all of you who have been emailing me about carrying our beer at your bar/restaurant/liquor store? Talk to your Stone sales rep ASAP. If you don’t know who your rep is, you can find them here.

Well, it’s been over 17 months since I left my job at Stone to begin work on Modern Times, and we (this has officially gone from an “I” to a “we” project) are finally making beer. Fuck yeah.

17 months sounds (and feels) like an enormous amount of time, but the construction phase of this project has actually been relatively short: just ~6 months from the time I took possession of the building until now. By almost any measure, that’s pretty speedy for turning a giant vacant warehouse into a functioning 30bbl brewery.

Whoa has a lot happened since my last update. As shameful as it is to have fallen behind on updating you, it’s made less shameful by the fact that we’ve made a ton of progress on getting this motherfucker open.

Since there’s so much to cover, I’m just going to run through it:

Who: Modern Times Beer

What: A Kickstarter campaign

When: RIGHT NOW, ending April 30th

Where: http://kck.st/ZqKU2l

Why: Six months of determined fundraising got me enough capital to get Modern Times off the ground. But by working together on this crowdfunding campaign, we can make Modern Times so much more than just the bare minimum. We can make it a truly spectacular space, a producer of devastatingly tasty sours, and a metronomically consistent producer of high quality beer.

The process of opening Modern Times has gone from “constant high level of work” to “feverish attempt to finish everything as quickly as possible.” The reason: we finally received our building permits.

Up until that point, we’d done virtually everything we could without permits and were struggling a bit to stay busy on the construction side (admin & brewing remained insanely busy). With permits in hand, it’s now a race to the finish.

I’m so excited I might pee a little. Why? Because I still can’t quite believe I managed to land these three guys.

Were you a journalist for a major publication wanting to write about us, you might say Modern Times is “positively stocked with an almost unbelievable combination of creativity & experience.” But, ya know, go with whatever works.

Here’s a cool thing: as far as I can tell, we’ll be the second brewery in the country to roast our own coffee (the first appears to be Two Brothers in Chicago).

That little fire engine red machine is an Ambex YM-2, an introductory-level roaster than can handle a beastly 5 lbs of green coffee at a time. It’s far from the fanciest roaster you can buy, but I found it on Craigslist and the price was right.

An interested observer recently emailed me with a few questions about what I have planned for Modern Times in the short and medium term after we open. With his permission, I’ve chosen to answer here on the blog since others might be interested in the answers too.

Our inquisitor starts off by saying, “I’m rather curious where you foresee Modern Times after the honeymoon period,” which immediately made me think, “We should be so lucky!”

Our stunning can designs.

Press Release

Modern Times Beer and Helms Workshop are proud to unveil the stunningly gorgeous can designs that will represent the brewery on retail shelves in 2013.

“Classic, vibrant, and oozing panache, these are the cans to drink while installing an Eames chair in your vintage Alfa Romeo lowrider. This packaging will upstage your favorite tiki mug. They are so devastatingly tasteful, a koozie would be a crime,” says Jacob McKean, founder of Modern Times.

The result of a painstaking collaborative process, the cans will house Modern Times’ four year-round beers: Fortunate Islands, a hoppy wheat beer; Black House, an oatmeal coffee stout; Blazing World, an amber IPA; and Lomaland, a food-friendly saison.

2012 was a big year for Modern Times because it started to exist. On January 13^th, 2012 I left my job at Stone Brewing Co. to wade full-time into the messy slog of building a beer factory from the ground up.

The ensuing 12 months consisted mostly of long stretches of hyper-anxiety dotted by brief moments of elation. I haven’t been shy about this, and a few people have pointedly questioned why I’m not constantly stoked out of my freakin’ gourd to be following my dream. In almost every case, these are people who have either never started a business or have profoundly delusional financial instincts.