515 Brewing - Des Moines, IA

I understand people will have different opinions about this based on whether they have kids or not or other factors but I think being family-friendly is in the spirit of local breweries and feels natural. It does not at a bar, nor does it at night when kids should be asleep, but on the weekend and in the afternoon I think kids at local breweries like 515, Firetrucker and Confluence are welcome and natural sights.

 

The important thing is that it is the business's decision. NOT the government's. For those of you familiar with the City of Clive, you aren't surprised by this.

 

Still only available on tap?

 

Expanded hours would be nice, too. Have family in from DC that arrived Sunday night and leaving New Year's Day, leaving me no opportunity to be able to share my favorite local brewery with them. Definitely have had this experience more than a few times when wanting to share 515 with visiting friends and family.

 

I know they're not things they can address quickly. I'm looking forward to them expanding. They're people making great beer.

 

That's the phrase I typed and I accidentally removed the key word while editing. Agreed, they are great people.

 

Hey all! Again, thanks for kind words. We're in the process of increasing production. We closed out the year more than doubling our output from last year, with the goal of consistently keeping 6 or so lines of ours on (and hopefully more), and we've been able to maintain that (and then some).

Without killing ourselves brewing, though - and we've basically had every vessel full since probably June, so it's not like we're slacking - we decided that to make much more than that, we would need to graduate from a nano to a micro and order a new brewhouse and some additional cellar space, so we are in the final stages of ordering that. The goal is to have enough production to be open 6 days a week (with reasonable hours), AND do growlers. Reasonably expect that in the late spring/early summer if all goes as planned. We honestly didn't really know entirely what we were doing when we first set up the place (3 years ago, it was a little harder to find info on exactly what we needed because nanos were a fairly new thing), so we've had to go back and re-do a fair few infrastructure things and add some missing pieces over the last year or so. While it doesn't look like much has changed, a new glycol chiller is in place, we upgraded our brite tank, and we've gotten additional cold storage on-line for expected growth.

We've got plans to keep it all in the same space for now. We will have to change a few things up, but Visio/AutoCAD says it'll fit. Just a lot of moving pieces that have to come together, but it's all pretty exciting!

On the personnel front, we welcomed our first paid assistant brewer to the team a couple of months ago, in Barb Becker, who some of you may know. She's been invaluable so far and has allowed us to focus on some of these other things (and take a much needed breather from constant brewery babysitting...).

In the short term, expect additional hours after the first of the year. Keep an eye on our twitter/FB for details, but hopefully Jason's concerns will be somewhat mitigated

I, on behalf of 515, would like to wish you a Happy New Year, and let's hope that we can all lift a glass of 515 to ring in next year from the comfort of your home (if you so choose!).

Cheers,

Dave

 

Cheers indeed. Glad to see you guys continue to do well.

 

Great update Dave! You and the crew keep up the great work!

 

That place is fantastic. Every single employee treated my wife and I like gold. AWSOME beers to boot.

 

The "DeathBall" gang wishes a Happy New Year to you and the rest of the 515 staff! Looking forward to what you will be brewing up here in 2015! We'll be back to our weekly post game Saturday afternoon beers this spring! Cheers!

 

Hah! Murder ball!!! You guys are great! Spring sounds so awesome right now, when it's cold and snowy out. Love that Iowa has all these seasons to enjoy. On my "to do" list is to come up with some more seasonal beers that really describe in liquid form how I feel about Iowa seasons. I love all of our stuff, but I don't think we've found just the right beer for every Iowa season just yet.

We did just do a new imperial beer yesterday though...will have to see how that turns out!

Cheers,

Dave

 

Thanks for the update, Dave. Keep up the GREAT work!

 

There was also talk of a crowler station being added maybe by the end of this year. I'm heavily in favor of that idea.

 

#515Crowlersplease is currently trending* on twitter.

*trending in my household