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Friday, January 28, 2011

Pardon our dust

Steve "The Boss" Siciliano shares a few words regarding our impending expansion.

Dear craft beer and do-it-yourself enthusiasts:

If you come into our store during the coming weeks you may have to pardon our dust. No, not the stuff that is constantly being pumped out from the grain grinders. I'm talking real dust here—the dust that comes from tearing down ceilings and walls as well as other activities associated with deconstruction and construction. In other words, we're getting bigger!  

We are very excited to be expanding into the space currently occupied by Marinades Pizza. Aaron has decided to focus his attention on his Rockford location and, as many of you know, we desperately need more room. We will be blasting a hole through the wall and we'll be using the additional space to make the store cleaner (by moving the grinding operations), neater and more organized.

With the added space will come more merchandise. We have been looking into some new, fun equipment for brewing and wine making. We also have plans to expand our book selection and we are thinking very seriously about selling green, unroasted coffee beans, home coffee roasters, and bread-baking ingredients and supplies.

We are also in the process of redoing our website and will soon be offering e-commerce (more on this to come).

So, we have a lot of work ahead of us but Barb and I and the staff are looking forward to these exciting changes that will definitely make our store--or should I say your store--even better.

The expansion should be complete by the middle of March, give or take a week. In the meantime, we invite your feedback in the comment section below. Please tell us what kinds of new merchandise you would like to see us carry.

Thanks for your continued support,

Steve

18 comments:

  1. Excellent! I've been waiting for this news for years!

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  2. 1-up to Mitch's comment. This is awesome!!

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  3. Would love to see an expansion of the liquor selection as well - not more generic party-store booze, but classy and less-available whiskey, vodka, etc. Basically an application of your beer selection to liquor.

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  4. May I suggest a cask-drawn house ale on tap at all times? For observation and education purposes only....

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  5. Have you ever done brewing workshops? It would be cool to have a small kitchen area in your new space where you could offer hands-on, Q&A workshops! Would be much better than watching any old how-to video online...

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  6. I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it!

    1. Yeast equipment.
    2. More herbs/spices.
    3. More Grain: Spelt, Buckwheat, & other hard to find grain.
    4. Bulk Molasses & Maple Syrup to accompany the honey.
    5. More wood chips.

    Oh the ales I could make!

    -Chris of Vivant

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  7. cheese cheese cheese. Oh, and how about cheese, both local cheeses and supplies to make cheeses.

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  8. Maybe some more psuedo-advanced brewing equipment like burners, counterflow chillers, blichman type equipment or the like. For example I love my blichman beer gun but had to get it on-line from someone else.

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  9. I was just thinking that you guys should sell green coffee, I've got a whirley-pop and I want to do some roasting!

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  10. Cool biz, can't wait for all the new items and extra space. Great acquisition!

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  11. Great to hear, can't wait to see!!
    Bob Schneider

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  12. More room? Man, it's been needed! More stuff? Wonderful, can't have too much stuff. Bread making supplies? This town desperately needs that! Beer making & bread making; The Stuff of Life, indeed.

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  13. While I'm sad to see Marinades go, I'm super excited that my favorite store is expanding!

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  14. Bread making supplies, too. Cool! Do you know what I went through a month ago just to find some rye flour in town?

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  15. Definitely would love to see some bread-making supplies (I've been known to filch wort from my husband's primary to make bread with before). A selection of Gluten-free flours to go with it would also be nice.

    Expansion of the cheese-making supplies.

    I'd second the bulk molasses suggestion.

    And yeast supplies, as well. (Pre-poured agar slants, nichrome loops, etc. for maintenance of "house" cultures)

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  16. I'm all in favor of more bread and cheese-making supplies. Here's something I would love to get locally. Antico Molino Caputo Tipo 00 is a finely ground flour that is great for breads and pastas but is a really great pizza flour. It comes from Naples, Italy.

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