A Taste of Van Houten

My big dreams of blogging about how profound the Craft Brewers Conference was for us and all the amazing conversations we had with our new and old friends... Let's just say for now that it was life affirming. The work of making whole beer and weaving community feels important, historical, and borders on the mystic.

The conference opening night was at the Academy of Sciences where we drank with the fishes and it was glorious. Someone got a nice photo of me (Creek) and Johnny with our friend, Brian from bayareacraftbeer.com


Well, that energy got diverted into planning our June 2011 West Coast Brewery tour (more later) and getting ready for our May 14th tasting event - our own homage to American Craft Beer Week. Space is limited, but anyone in the Bay Area can email us to see if there is space left at vanhoutenbrewing(at)gmail(dot)com

We'll have 5 of Johnny's homebrews on tap at the tasting: California Common, Northern English Brown, Belgian Golden, Belgian Dubbel and American Amber Ale. The garden is looking beautiful and it's time to celebrate spring.

But first things first -
I just finished the coaster design, and approved the proof for our first run.


See you May 14th!

Find us on twitter at vanhoutenbrewco
Find us on facebook at www.facebook.com/vanhoutenbrewing
Contact us at vanhoutenbrewing(at)gmail(dot)com

Van Houten Brewing Co., Inc.

So, while the brewing and recipe refining continues, we got a bit tangled up in finding a place to brew and filing the incorporation papers. We are of course trying to avoid renting full warehouse space and are interested in contract breweries and restaurants. We thought there might be a chance to do Phase 1 brewing in our garage workspace but the differing city and county regulations mean we are in search of the next option. We're pretty excited to pair up with a few local restaurants and brew for them, but we'll need to be a legal entity to approach anyone. So - we found ourselves a super cool lawyer to help move along the process and we are deciding to get registered!!!! After some research, we've decided to go with an "S" Corp formation - we get the tax and liability protection without the added complication. LLCs seem to make more sense with more parties involved, but both accomplish the same goals.

We're a one horse show with plans to stay that way - so we prefer to keep it simple and like the "S" Corp. Maybe we'll add some sideshows or paint the pony eventually, but we'll never offer it to shareholders. We'll keep our beer horse show close to our hearts.

Most of our colleagues are LLCs, but Kern River Brewing Company is an "S" Corp too, so it seems we are not alone :)

Van Houten Brewing Co., Inc. here we come.