Dreams of Dumbtown began as a proof of concept baby step.
The 75 posts that follow began as nothing more than a list of potential beer names. I was simply trying to come up with 64 different beer styles and names that in some way conveyed a portion of my Evans School Dream.
I had a very modest objective. I wanted to come up with 64 beer names I could scribble onto a twelve month calendar so that I could begin to put the goal of one tapping every week, plus a major tapping event once a month (52+12=64) onto paper.
I was not far into my beer list before the exercise morphed into something else and I started jokingly referring to my beer list as my Epic beer poem. Well Dreams of Dumbtown isn’t the Beer List* anymore and it clearly isn’t an epic poem.
Dreams of Dumbtown is just a mash up of:
- My Evans School Notions;
- A brewery-restaurant concept and business plan;
- An homage to some of my favorite brewers, beers, movies, etc.;
- A litany of puns and overworked religious, academic and war metaphors;
- A civic rant;
- And, something I probably shouldn’t have put online because…
Why Dumbtown Brewing Company?
The question obtrudes, why Dumbtown?
The answer is myriad reasons and here are a few:
- First, the Dumbtown name is self-deprecating.
- Second, the brewery will be in a school and the name is intended to be ironic because I envision that brewery making the dissemination of knowledge one of its particular civic missions.
- Third, Dumbtown’s labor economics are stupid. The idiotic brew house is a third the size it should be and it has three times as many fermenters as it should. I did not intend for that to read like a Bilbo farewell but it does.
- Fourth, the concept is excessively complicated. It’s like I’ve sought to maximize the opportunities for failure.
- Fifth, I’m just getting starting with the dumb reasons.
A few bits of background
- The Evans School is named after John Evans. John Evans was the 2nd Governor of the Colorado Territory, he help found Northwestern University and also helped found Denver Seminary which became the University of Denver. John Evans was without doubt a great man but like all of us he had flaws and he made mistakes.
- I’m not a brewer but I do work in the beer industry. Consequently, I get to attend industry events where I can interrupt Jim Koch with stupid questions and watch Tony McGee drop a beat poem on unsuspecting business seminar attendees or quote Quentin Tarantino while sitting next to MillerCoors’ CEO Tom Long.
Please Use the Comments Section to
- Ask Il Dorke questions
- Give Il Dorke free ignorance reductions
- Tell Il Dorke you’d like to apply to brew a Dumbtown beer. If so please:
1) Describe the beer
2) Provide some details of your brewing experience
3) estimate the grain bill for 5 bbls
4) Approximate fermentation & conditioning time
5) Suggest a tapping date
6) Suggest food pairings
7) If isn’t inherent in the beer name, or if you’ve got a killer show, suggest a tapping night theme.
8) And to talk amongst yourselves.
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