Brewing beer at Bank Street Brewhouse: "We have liftoff."

I'd been soft-pedaling coverage because of the daily, niggling problems that prevented the debut of brewing, but today it happened. Dave and Jesse put the brewing equipment through the paces to make a yeast feeder batch, and here are a few of the day's dispatches from the front line to command central:

12:02 p.m.
Mashing in now. Ooh-ooh that smell…

1:58 p.m.
Sparging now. First hops in ten minutes.

Later (by Twitter)
The yeast feeder batch is on it's way to the fermenters. Pretty seamless first batch. For real batch of Beak's Best tomorrow.

9:00 p.m.
Went very well. All systems performed and our efficiencies exceeded what I’ve ever seen on a start-up. All four Unitanks contain actively fermenting yeast. Tomorrow we are brewing Beak’s Best. The surprising tid-bit of the day was the lack of brewing aroma in the front of the house. The parking lot smelled great though, and no complaints from the neighbors. Thanks to all that came over to check out the trial run and for the words of encouragement. It means a lot. Jesse got to see his 18 months of hard work pay off. Stop in tomorrow for a big whiff of hops!