[Danielle Balocca]: Hey, Medford Bites listeners. On today's episode, I talked with Shannon Heaton, Medford resident, who is also a podcaster who plays Irish music. I also talked with Max Heinig, English teacher at Medford High School, who is also an artist and musician and one of the founders of Medford Brewing. There's a full version of this episode only available on Spotify that includes songs by each of today's guests. I hope you enjoy. All right, thanks so much for joining me today. If you could just introduce yourself with your name and pronouns. Sure, thanks for having me. I'm Shannon Heaton, she, her. Awesome. So we'll get to talking about kind of your work and what you do in your professional life and personal life. But the first question that I've been asking folks is what your favorite place to eat is in Medford and what you like to order there.
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: OK. I don't know. Do I have to pick just one? I love Tom Yum Goong right across from the post office. Great Thai food. They make, of course, great Tom Yum, which is like a spicy soup. But they also have lots of good renditions and variations of pad thai. Pad thai bummy, all sorts of fun pad thai.
[Danielle Balocca]: I've been there a couple times. I'm always in search of Thai food. They're pretty good. Awesome. So yeah, if you could just get us started, kind of describe what you do and how you kind of arrived at this for yourself.
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Long and winding road. Well, I play Irish music in a duo with my husband, Matt. I play Irish flute and I sing. And I've organized Irish music events that bring together a lot of different people. variety of ages, variety of levels, trying to make events and environments that are welcoming and accessible, especially to learners, to people who are new to the tradition. But really, I love Irish music. Yeah, so it's been really fun over the years to come up with ways to share that with a broader audience, but also to create opportunities for people within our community to really feel empowered to learn more, regardless of their level and their chosen way of participating, whether they want to be professional players or just learn a few tunes. And why Irish music? What led you to that? Well, it's a tradition that I came to after having music in my life and traveling around a great deal and having Irish music in my family a little bit, but also living in Thailand. Strangely enough, I got into this Thai music crew. And when I got back to the States, I really wanted to be part of this community music, this traditional music, where people would get together and teach each other tunes. And I really couldn't find that in Chicago where I was living at the time in a neighborhood close to me. And so I accidentally kind of lucked into Irish music and I found a lot of similarities in that just getting together and teaching each other and engaging as a social event above all. So that's the appeal for me. I mean also the music sounds great and it's really fun to play.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I've listened to your, I've seen some of the stuff you've put on Instagram, listened to some of your music. It's interesting, like, so Irish music by way of Thailand, and it sounds like the community aspect of the way that Irish music works in the community around it. Have you found that in Medford, or what's the community like in Medford for that?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Well, we're very lucky here in Medford regarding Irish music. We have some of the finest. players around and a lot of their kids have ended up playing as well, which is really exciting. Ellery Klein, George Keith, Noel Scott, Martin Langer, so many fine musicians right here in town. And you know, it's really exciting to get to play with fine musicians who are also just really kind, fun people. Yeah. Maura Shons-Ganlin, Connor Hearn, all living in Medford, all great musicians. So Ellery was on the podcast a couple weeks ago, too. Yeah. Great.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and you mentioned kind of like the child aspect, and we've had a couple episodes where we try to include like kids' voices and sort of think about like the benefit to children, and like we talked about Girls on the Run and how that, you know, what that kind of, the values that that sort of gives our kids, and I wonder if you can talk about like the the impact on kids that you've seen with the music?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Well, I think the exciting thing, like the girls on the run thing, I mean, Eve is bringing together all of these girls to run together. And of course, when you're doing one specific applied thing, you don't have to engage in conversation. You don't have to, if you're outgoing, or if you're the person who prefers to listen, you're all still engaged in the same thing. So it's kind of a nice equalizer in a way, takes a little bit of the social pressure off maybe, and it paves the way for maybe then some social connections. I think that's true with the Irish traditional music thing that for adults and for kids that it just is this it's something to do. It's a way to enjoy life and then it can or doesn't have to forge these deeper relationships. And it's cool, you can be best friends and play great Irish music together and you can not know each other or not even have a lot in common and still play very enjoyable music together. So I think that's important for kids, I think, to learn is that maybe a skill and a pastime can be a good thing to engage in, that it can open the door to other deeper connections that can sustain you in different ways.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure, yeah. I remember being in, I played some music in high school, I was in like a jazz band with kids I never would have met, like we never would have crossed paths otherwise, and I remember just sort of the the lesson in like, if you don't practice when you show up at band, it's like not going to go well. So like that's that sort of lesson and like a little bit of discipline and sort of wanting to like show up and be prepared and things like that. So that felt like an important lesson for me with music too. But yeah, no, that feels like a great just sort of life lesson there too with, you know, meeting different people and connecting in that way.
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I do think the discipline aspect can feel very stark and very obvious with, say, a musical skill. And it has been an interesting thing to balance for me, welcoming people into this tradition and making people feel welcome and encouraged and inspired and empowered to learn. and to still not get hung up on performance aspects, not to feel too anxious about things being perfect. I care about this music a lot, and I love it when people put a lot of time into it. And maybe that's not all there is to it.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, that's important to hear, I think, like the balance of enjoyment with doing something well. Yeah, I think that that can put people off for sure, that pressure. Cool. So I know you also have your own podcast. So would you like to talk about that at all?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Sure. Irish Music Stories is a show that I started five years ago after I received a grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, part of the Artist Fellowship Program that really helped me launch Irish Music Stories, which is the show about traditional music and the bigger stories behind it. Really, in my show, I try to take one central topic like immigration, parenting, gender inclusivity, and I try to filter that through Irish music and dance lens. So I'll talk to three or four different people about that one central topic, and I try to weave it all together, and then I try to have some big central story, something fun to listen to, like the story of a kid's journey to Ireland to compete in a music competition, for example. Or when I talked about gender inclusivity and gender equality and balance, I took the story of the Benjamin Moore brothers, who are from County Monaghan. You know, they make paints. They made paints. And so imagine that, telling the story of the paint company. musing on gender politics through an Irish music lens and making it all accessible and really fun and poppy. It's a really fun puzzle for me to work on. So I've really enjoyed it. But really, the central mission is just to make this living tradition of Irish music, of getting together to play these tunes and sing these songs together and learning them from each other, to just show that there's a lot behind that. It isn't just a fun jig to tap your toe to. Sure. And what's been challenging about the podcast for you? It's a lot of work. And the deadline of publishing a podcast, as you know, weekly for yourself, for me monthly, can be relentless. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. The deadlines. Yeah. A lot of work, too. And that sounds like it's a big job to sort of synthesize all the ad information into one episode. What's been rewarding about it for you?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Well, when I get together to play Irish music with folks, generally we play tunes, maybe sing some songs, and we talk about life. We talk about our kids. We talk about our neighborhoods. We talk about where we've traveled recently. We don't sit around and talk about music and how it feels to engage in Irish music. We just do it. So having a little bit of a pause with some of my peers to hear their thoughts about this music, about playing it, and really what it means to them, it's been incredibly illuminating and inspiring for me.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sounds like a nice way to, or like a different way to connect with folks too.
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Yes. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: And so I guess I'm also, I'm always curious to sort of connect back to Medford and the community of Medford. So what hopes do you have for like an impact on the community from the work that you're doing?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. So I think anything, uh, any project that engages people, that empowers people, that brings people together. Why not, right? So Ellery Klein, with whom you spoke recently, she and I started this session in Somerville. But it actually started in her home in Medford Heights, where I live as well. And it was really, we called it the guided session. And it was an opportunity once a month for players who are learning Irish music, or maybe they're on a second instrument. to come together and play through some standard tunes, not too fast. And that was a really wonderful thing. You know, we did that for a couple of years until COVID suspended our activities. And still getting wind players together indoors is a little tenuous. And so we're not back in person yet, but we've continued it online. And so that has felt really rewarding to me. My friend Laura Cortese, who also lived in Medford for some time before she moved to Belgium, she and I started a festival called the Boston Celtic Music Festival. And it's going on, I think, 18 years now. It's coming up in January and that too was meant to bring players who have a great skill and brand new players together, give people an opportunity to learn from each other, to play together, to just engage in something bigger than themselves. and bigger than this one moment, right? A living tradition is centuries strong, and it involves lots more people than you. So no matter how great you play, or no matter how new you are, you're not that important in the continuum of Irish music, which can be really, kind of take the weight off, and it can give a little perspective, I think. So I think engaging in something that's bigger than you, something that's fun to do, something that benefits from working together, It doesn't matter what it is. In my case, it's Irish music.
[Danielle Balocca]: When I hear the word tradition, it evokes something a little scary. But to hear the way that you've infused some important today topics, like immigration and gender equity, that feels really cool. That feels less intimidating.
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, tradition can be a loaded word and a living tradition, I think, can just mean something that is older and more well-worn than any one generation. And so it really is wide open to a nine-year-old playing with a 49-year-old and really having a deep musical connection and a lot of respect for each other and a lot of love for this music that has brought us together. And then sometimes you do, you know, you'll be playing with somebody and just, you both go into another tune together. You didn't plan it. You don't know how it happened. I mean, that's like the bright side of tradition sparkling, I think. The fact that this has been done before many times. I think it doesn't mean that there isn't room for lots of innovation. And lots of welcome for lots of new players and new approaches. But it's existing material that then you can kind of find your own way. Yeah, very cool.
[Danielle Balocca]: Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about in your own work here?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: You know, I love being able to play Irish music and being here in Medford with all these great fellow musicians and also being right next to the Fells. I spend a lot of time in there and I have to say my podcasts have really come, and my music, my compositions, sometimes just to the energy that I have to perform and to teach. has been fueled by my hikes and runs in the fells. So I really am grateful to this area, this part of the world. I'm grateful to my neighbors who have been highly supportive. And wow, we now have a beautiful sidewalk going up to Wright's Pond. Yes. Thanks in no small part to Paul Donato for helping to move that along. So yeah, I'm really happy to be doing what I'm doing in Medford. It's a good home for
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure, yeah, that was a scary section of road before the bond, yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's like something that I've definitely taken away from doing this podcast is sort of the impact that the residents can have in a city like Medford. And so I'm wondering, where can we find you? Where can we find your music, your podcast?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, you can find all of it at Shannon Heaton Music. And the podcast is on Spotify? It's on all the things. Yeah, just look for it. Irish Music Stories and all the podcast catchers.
[Danielle Balocca]: And you said the podcast comes out monthly. Is there like a time of month to look out for it?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, it's the second Tuesday of every month. Great. Unlike your good podcast that's coming out weekly. And how has that gone for you, putting the podcast together?
[Danielle Balocca]: It's been great. I mean, I think there's been a lot of benefits for me, I think, in just learning about the city in a different way and meeting so many people. that I never would have otherwise met, but also hearing every time I talk to someone, they say like, oh, you should also talk to this person. And so I just feel like the web of people that I've been able to connect with has been growing and it's really cool. I mean, it definitely helps my sense of community and I hope others as well, but. Yeah. Indeed. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_12]: Thanks.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks for doing this. Yeah. Hopefully we'll connect again soon. Yeah. Thanks so much to Shannon. You can hear more of her music and her podcast by going to her website, shannonheatonmusic.com. Now on to our next interview. All right, thanks so much for joining me today. If you could just start by introducing yourself with your name and pronouns.
[Heinegg]: You bet. I'm Max Heinegg. He, him. He, him, is.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. So the first question I always ask people is what their favorite place to eat is in Medford and what they like to eat there.
[Heinegg]: So I'm going to say that it's actually something that I've been needing in Medford since I started teaching here around 1998, which is I like to go to Amici's. When I was in my early 20s, I used to go there at lunch and just basically get their pizza. But now that I have kids who are 17 and 15, we continue to patronize them. And they've always been really nice to me. So I have a soft spot in my heart for their pizza. for their kindness, but also for their pizza.
[Danielle Balocca]: Nice. Delicious. Awesome. So could you tell us a little bit about yourself? And you're here to talk about your work with Medford Brewing.
[Heinegg]: Yep. So I'm 48. I started out as a sixth grade teacher for five years at the middle schools, for five years. And then I've been to high school for 19 years. I do lots of different things. I'm a recording artist. I'm making records. Almost 30 years. I have a new record coming out in a couple of weeks, maxheinig.com. New record is a series of adaptations of poems from the public domain that have turned into music and song, although traditionally I'm an original singer-songwriter. I was in the Boston rock scene for quite a long time. I'm a published poet. My first book just won a prize and is coming out. in March of 2022. So I've been, you know, published in a bunch of different countries and published somewhere around 250 poems at this point. I'm a music critic. I'm a poetry critic. I'm a restaurant critic. I've published a lot of different reviews of poetry books and basically I'm a writer, I'm a singer, I'm a guitar player, I'm a cook, and around like 15 years ago I discovered that I had a really big interest in making alcohol. And then I read every book on the subject. And I started to get competitive. And I started entering beer competitions. And then I started winning. And then I decided I was getting really chubby from beer. So I decided to take six years off of drinking and just brew and just pursue it from a perspective of giving it to people. And around that time, maybe I'm jumping into the next topic, but My daughter and a friend's daughter were hanging out. We had a Halloween party where I provided the beer. And he said, this is pretty good. Have you ever thought about doing a company? And I said, no. And he said, well, we should. And he was persistent. And then we ended up around. I guess at this point it was like five or six years ago starting Medford Brewing Company. So I'm sort of, I dabble in a lot of different things, but my background is basically in language and in cooking and in music. And my goal is to sort of bring everything together in one place where people can gather to enjoy the beers we make, to hear some music from local artists and to hear readings.
[Danielle Balocca]: So that sounds like that's kind of what you're imagining for the space that's going to be opening in a few months?
[Heinegg]: Yeah. It's a community-centered spot that's not open too late, that serves quality more than quantity, that's basically handmade stuff. It's going to be on a seven-barrel system, so it's basically not that big, if you really think about it. It's only about 10 times bigger than the pot that I have in my basement, where I've done all the prototypes for all the beers over the years. And just, you know, I'd already created a poetry reading series at the Medford Historical Society that my company had sponsored. then COVID hit and we are sort of, you know, it's on hiatus, but trying to bring it all together in one place where people can still hear their conversations like a toad or, you know, I love the lizard lounge, but quieter than the lizard lounge and just a comfortable place where people can gather to talk to their neighbors and their friends. And, you know, selfishly, it's about a mile from my house.
[Danielle Balocca]: So where were you brewing before you started this space?
[Heinegg]: So the first 10 years of brewing was all home brewing and in conjunction with like the Boston Homebrew Club, the Worts, W-O-R-T-S, W-O-R-T dot org, which is the liquid that you make when you combine grains and water and steep it and then you have to ferment it for it to be beer. So I was brewing in my basement and then we started doing, we tried to get someone to distribute our beer so I was making homemade batches and going into meetings and saying try my homebrew and eventually Atlantic Distribution liked it and once they okayed the homebrew stuff We moved into contract brewing, which is distinct from gypsy brewing. So gypsy brewing, you go in and you take over the space and you run the infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera. Contract brewing is you write a recipe and then you go in and you talk to them and then you go in on brew day and then you go in and you taste it before they can it and you make sure that everything's been done correctly. So we've done that. A series of different locations. We started out in Nashville, New Hampshire at Great North Aleworks. We then moved to Dorchester Brewing. Then we were at Down the Road Brewing in Everett. Then we were at Newburyport. I think they're in Newburyport, but I just... I'm having a mental moment where I'm forgetting the name of them, and it's not out of spite because I do love them. And now we're at Ipswich. So there's the one missing piece of that equation. So we've been to five different locations, all with varying results, all with, as you might imagine, if you had like a chocolate chip cookie recipe and you gave it to five friends, even if they were skillful bakers or on the British Bake Off, you'd end up with, you know, after they said bake, you'd end up with five different like, you know, things. And it's all been, it's all been interesting to see the permutations and the various ways in which my beers have been made. But we've done, I think at this point, eight commercial products and we're about to do our ninth this week. So. contract brewing It's an interesting process and involves talking to brewers and trying to get them to do what you want When everyone is very set in their ways Because everyone has their own ways of dealing with stuff, especially when they own the stuff like this is my million-dollar brewery and you're coming in here and you're like a home brewer and you don't really know what I'm doing in terms of say, you know pH management or stuff and I've been out of my element a little bit initially, and I had to learn maybe more chemistry than I thought I would have to learn or more of the technical aspects of brewing than I would have thought. Because my background, you know, as an English teacher and a hobbyist and a home cook, brewing is sort of akin to both baking and cooking. So baking, as like we all know, is like if you mess up the temperature or the, tablespoons of baking soda or powder you're gonna have a terrible situation. But cooking there's more like latitude. So with brewing it's like you can go with bigger flavors or more ingredients or more alcohol or more, you know, I don't know, more more cacao nibs or something or more raspberries. You can cover a multitude of sins. But at the end of the day, there's also sort of a technical component that can't be overlooked. You have to add the right amount of salt. You have to add the right amount of gypsum or calcium chloride. And if you don't, your beer can end up tasting like baking soda.
[Danielle Balocca]: Have you had any big failures in that way or any beers that didn't work out well? Yes.
[Heinegg]: We won't say which place they came from. But yes, there have been a couple times where things were done at really, you know, oddball temperatures. And beer is, at lower alcohol levels, beer is sensitive. And at higher alcohols, it's sensitive in different ways. We generally make ales. So the grape families of beers are divided into room temperature fermented beers, which are ales, and cold fermented temperature beers, which are lagers. And the idea is that basically most small time breweries like ours, we can't make lagers because it takes too much time in the brewery. It occupies three to four weeks of a brewery, whereas a lager, a lager three, four weeks, and an ale can be done in five days. If you dry hop it, it might be like 10, 12 days. So when you're renting out your space to somebody, you don't mind Medford Brewing coming in because we're out of your hair in 10 days. But if we came in and tried to make a clone of Budweiser or something, we would have to pay triple because we'd be occupying their tanks for like three to four weeks. So the mistakes we've made were probably, you know, a good portion were my fault, like trying to figure out, you know, I would say something like, all right, use this hop. But I would know how much to add, but I might have neglected to look at how bitter that hop was. So within hops, every hop has a number that's attached to it that tells you basically how bitter it is. And they vary wildly. to give you an idea like one could have a bitterness level of three and another one could have a bitterness level of like 18. And so what you're doing when you're throwing it in by the pound is you could very quickly end up with making something that's just so bitter that it's undrinkable or the opposite where you haven't counterbalanced the malt sweetness and then you've got something that's cloyingly sweet. So that's really like the balancing act that we do in recipe creation.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sounds like chemistry.
[Heinegg]: It gets pretty boring.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I know. And has there been a favorite part of this for you?
[Heinegg]: Like last night, we were at the tree lighting, bumping into parents of kids that I taught 24 years ago. And they were saying that they're happy for our success. And to be honest, at this point, this has been an investment. We're driving. I'm driving a car that has 130,000 miles on it. I'm not complaining because I have a car, but my point is like, you know, it's all invested at this point, and the building is about to happen, and the construction, and the renovation, and the proof has got to be in the pudding, and I have to learn how to do this on a larger scale. But the exciting part is that we're doing something that's essentially very community oriented for the purposes of, having more fun while we live here, like while we live. Like I said, you know, I'm going to be 50 in a year. I don't expect to live forever. And I want to do something that impacts the town directly, that is fun, but is also, you know, a little more cultural. So I'm not trying to open up bar we know we're not trying to open up a place that's you know for its alcohol is complicated you know the Buddha the Buddha says brewers don't get into heaven so so I think about that you know I think okay Buddha want to do something good with it and I want to make sure that people feel welcome at it and that's what's been fun is just connecting with the community and also just on a selfish level like it's it's really exciting to think of something in your car like I'm going to think of a beer that's this color and that's this taste and that's this sweet or this this. And then you you make it. And that alchemy, you know, that real alchemy is really what I think every home cook and every home baker delights in. It's the same pleasure we all experience if we make something for people we love and care about and they eat it and they go, this is really good. And then they want to know how you did it. And you get to lord it over them and say, well, you know, I started out this morning and I milked the cow myself. And it's like, no, you didn't. But yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, I hear like an overlap in that sort of like creating something when you're talking about beer and also the space, right, like that people have created something, music or poetry or art that they're going to be able to bring into that space and share with the community. I think that's something that Medford will really benefit from. I'm excited to check it out. Is there anything that you hope on a community level sort of like an impact for the community that will come out of it?
[Heinegg]: I'm hoping not only to see people's faces and to talk to them and share their stories and our stories, but to share the future of what the company is going to do together. And I can't help but notice there's an anchor on the carpet here, which is on the front of all of our beers. So I think that's insofar as things can be auspicious. I think that that's going to be really great because, you know, I have parent night tonight. And I've taught over 3,000 kids in the community. I've met a lot of parents. I've met thousands of parents. And ultimately, it's about feeling like you have some sort of connection to the place you live. And this is a time in America where connections need to be made. People need to be accepting and to have more conversations rather than fewer. And I think a gathering spot will do that. And also just the contemplation of art, which takes us out of our own solipsisms, our own just egocentrism, our own sense of just, it's just me, me, me, my own problems, et cetera. Like, we all have problems. Was it that Rob Williams saying, like, everybody's fighting a battle you know nothing about. Find an opportunity to listen to a good song together. find an opportunity to hear someone read something that they wrote. The poet laureate of Medford, Terry Carter, has done a really good job. having all these events and being generous enough to invite me and some of the other poets to just get out and read for the kids. And even if, you know, it's like 15, 20, 30 people, I'm not expecting that if we have a poetry reading at the brewery that, you know, there'll be lines out the door for the poetry reading. They might just be there, you know, for the beer. But, you know, people can sometimes be more receptive to, you know, a singer-songwriter they've never heard or a cellist or, you know, you know, something like that, or a chess club if there's a pint involved.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. I remember going to, what's it, is it Veggie Plant? What's the one in Harvard Square that's Club Passime is also there? Yep. I remember going to see, like several times, an act that I was really excited about, and the opener was like amazing, right? Right. Like being there for one thing doesn't mean you're not going to really enjoy the exposure to something else.
[Heinegg]: Exactly, that's the whole the whole beauty of like a well curated opening act if you pick somebody You know the artist isn't doing it because I know I'm like larger tours It's like well this person is a single or something but someone who you think that you know if they like you then they might like that and so I'm excited for the bully pulpit or the the curator aspect to say I You know and I've participated in the West Medford open studios in the past and I brought my students to go do that I just think there's a real opportunity to have All the different pockets of people who are doing good things enter into not a more formalized dialogue But just a sense that we can we can talk to each other and do these things and you know by the time we get the the beer garden Operational, you know you can go out in the back and have a saison, have a lager, and talk to somebody who's doing the open studios. And then that afternoon, you can go over and you can buy their photographs. And these are the things that eventually make this a better place to live. One of the things that we're always brushing back against with our students is they say, well, to do something exciting, I have to go to Arlington, or I have to go to Winchester, or I have to go to Cambridge. And I think it's on all of us to you know unless we're all just happy. you know, having to go to those places, I think that there's an opportunity to have more things to do, and I'm starting to see them pop up more, especially as the, there is a sort of, I don't want to say demographic change, but there are a lot of young people moving into Medford, and with them, they bring energy, enthusiasm, and young children, and the children need to be entertained. So they're out, like last night, there are all these people out with their kids, and the kids are dancing, and the parents are talking. So I think that's a positive, thing and we can all be a part of that positive change. It's not going from negative to positive, it's going from having a little less to do to having a little bit more to do. And from a musical venue standpoint, when booksellers closed. Not only did we lose a bookstore, but we also lost a place where you could go and bring your acoustic guitar and sing a song. And there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to have acoustic music in Medford. We're not trying to have a death metal club where you can't hear yourself breathe. We want to be respectful of volume and people's space, but I think music is integral. Who doesn't love it?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, well, and you said we're not going from negative to positive. But what I imagine this to be is a little more of going from kind of a state of being pretty disconnected from each other to sort of moving towards more connectedness. So what can we expect in terms of a timeline if you have one for the opening?
[Heinegg]: So two months ago, we bought the place. This week, we have applied for our permitting. Last month was spent. getting the contractors and getting all the different moving pieces from plumbing to electrical to filling in holes in the concrete to planning the movement of our beer equipment, which we bought two years ago because we were ready to do this before COVID. People have been very patient with us, especially our investors. We've been storing the stuff at the Fifth Brewery. The name that I just remembered is Newbury, is not Newburyport, it's Riverwalk in Newburyport. And they have our gear there. So we have to coordinate moving it in, installing it, the drains. So the long and short of it is we're hoping to be open by the spring. We need to be open within four to six months or else we're going to be losing money. So we need to get going. And we're certainly not. trying to wait because you know we we want to wait for anything other than what needs to be done so the beginning things may not we might not have every bell and whistle initially it may be a little bit more spartan or i don't want to say industrial but it might be a little bit more bare bones But we're hoping to do renovations in sort of two phases. One is to get open and get going and serving the public. And then two, to refine things and paint, you know, the unpainted areas and, you know, to finish the renovations. So let's just say spring.
[Danielle Balocca]: Something to be really excited about. Awesome. Is there anything else? Is there any way we can track the progress or anywhere to follow Medford Brewing?
[Heinegg]: So Medford Brewing is in a couple places. So our Instagram tends to be not very posh. And it doesn't feature any shots of my bare midriff. Mercifully, but there will be pictures of you know, like stuff there. We're on Facebook Because we're older than dirt and we're we have a website Although at this point I think that is more sort of telling you where the beer can be located And we also send direct emails to the 300 or so people from Medford who've invested in us but essentially Facebook tends to be where we do a lot of our communication both and through Nick and myself individually into saying, hey, this is our new beer. I went down to Ipswich and here's our new beer. We're making a pastry stout that's going to be out before Christmas that's going to be around 8.5% alcohol made with vanilla beans and cacao nibs. And it's going to be sweet and creamy and fireplace zipper. But yeah, the announcements will be there. We won't be shy about it. We'll be doing some publicity and some interviews with the transcript and stuff like that to keep everyone aware. And if you go by 30-34 Harvard Ave, which is where we're located, there's a big sign on the front that says, coming soon. And once we have something to report in terms of the changes, the sign will say, You know, coming in a month or coming in, you know, it's conditional on on getting the permits and getting the work done, the floors and the ceilings and making sure the bathrooms are clean and, you know, that there's everything you would expect in a twenty five hundred and sixty foot square foot little microbrewery doubling as a taproom.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, it sounds really exciting. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming in today. Is there anything else that you'd like to share before you go?
[Heinegg]: All I'd like to say is that there are going to be a variety of different beers, because I started out as a Belgian beer brewer. And I then became a bit of a German beer brewer. And then the last thing I learned how to make, because the market demanded it, was hoppy beer. So I spent the last five, six years working on hoppy, hoppy, hoppy, hoppy, hoppy. And I just want everybody to know that I also make cider. We'll be making more than it won't just be an IPA place that it's going to have 8 to 10 taps and that there will always be stuff that varies in terms of strength. in terms of sweetness, bitterness, and hoppiness. So the IPA drinker will be happy, because we'll have your New England IPA. But we'll also have lager. We'll also have stuff that you can just have a beer and go back to what you're doing. Everything won't be super strong. There have been a lot of trends towards very hoppy, very bitter, and very boozy. And we want everyone to know that there's going to be something for everyone. yeah and cider it sounds like for the gluten-free people which is important any alcohol free option I think they were going to be looking into making a sarsaparilla like a root beer beer there's a bunch of sarsaparilla essentially like in the fells so I'm going to be looking at trying to do I feel a little bit complicated about soda, just because everything is caloric, and if you have a soda every now and then, it's no big deal. But I do need to think of a non-alcoholic beer. We can also make an NA beer. You just make a hoppy beer, and then you heat it up. Once it's hot enough, the alcohol evaporates, and then you've got an NA beer. So we'll be probably designing one of those, too. But it's going to be a variety of stuff. It's going to move seasonally, and it's going to be connected to local business. So if there's, say, you know, Wink Wink, a local coffee roaster, then there'll be a coffee beer, you know, in the fall and the winter, and so on and so forth. We're going to do things artisanally, seasonally, and if there's a popular staple, there'll be a popular staple. And we're also looking at having a beer that'll be a little bit more affordable. It'll just sort of be like just a standard regular beer for the person who's not the craft beer enthusiast who's just like, I just want a beer, man. Can I get a beer? And be like, well, this is a beer. Just a yellow, fizzy, tastes like bread, middle-of-the-road type thing. And we're going to be designing that over the winter break.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's very exciting. Well, Max, thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much. Yeah, and we're excited to see how things turn out.
[Heinegg]: Awesome. Hope to see everybody.
[Danielle Balocca]: Max. You can find links in the show notes for more information about today's episode. If you have any feedback about this episode or ideas for future episodes, you can email medfordpod at gmail.com. You can also subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Medford Bites!