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Thanks to Jon Walley for this great video profile of JAB!
Meet The Hendler Brothers from Jon Walley on Vimeo.
Jack’s Abby Brewing is a craft brewer based in Framingham, Massachusetts founded by three brothers, Jack, Eric, and Sam Hendler.
The company’s mission is to create truly distinctive lagers featuring locally grown hops, traditional German brewing standards, and American innovation.
Originally Posted at The Beer Nut.
We have a lot going on this week at Jack’s Abby Brewing as we are getting closer and closer to the first brew day. We recently received our fermentation vessels along with our hot and cold liquor tanks.
The tank delivery was an exciting day. Three trucks arrived early in the morning with the tanks strapped in to the trailers. The tanks were lying down on their sides in a cradle with wheels on the bottom. With a strong push, they rolled right off the trucks and into the brewery. We attached a large sling from our fork lift to the top of the tanks. We then used the forklift to slowly stand them upright. We documented the whole process in our photo album.
At this point, the tanks were ready to install. We carefully moved them across the brewery with a pallet jack. Getting them in place was only half the job though; there is a lot of plumbing and electrical work that needs to be done to finish the install.
We will be opening with five 40 barrel fermentation vessels. In the case of beer, a barrel is equal to 31 gallons. This means that at our peak capacity we can have 6,200 gallons of beer in the fermentation vessels. Anyone starting to get thirsty? The five fermenters give us the flexibility we need to make all of our different beers while also leaving us with enough room to make multiple batches of certain brews.
Fueling the process is a beast of a boiler. Clocking in at 850,000 BTU’s, it will provide the low pressure steam necessary to create a nice rolling boil in the kettle, and to keep the hot liquor tank hot. Liquor, in brewing terms, simply refers to brewer’s water, not alcohol. The cold and hot liquor tanks are holding vessels for our brewery’s water needs. During fermentation it will be important to keep the fermenters cold. We will have a 14 horsepower chiller keeping our fermenters cold to maintain optimal temperatures for our lagers.
After the brewing process, we will be kegging into our recently acquired, refurbished kegs (who said Budweiser is good for nothing?). The kegs will be stored in our new 418 square foot refrigerator to keep the beer fresh right up until it hits the taps.
[Originally published at The Beer Nut]
We are really excited that Norman has given us at Jack’s Abby Brewing the chance to guest write each week on his blog. Going forwards we will use this 
opportunity to take you inside the process of starting a brewery from construction to the brewing process. First though we thought it would be a great idea to introduce ourselves and share our philosophy.
As you may have already read Jack’s Abby is a collaboration between my two brothers and myself. My name is Eric and I will be writing these blog posts. My older brother Jack is the Head Brewer whose flair for experimentation is our driving force. Our youngest brother, Sam, will be the irresistible(we hope) salesman.
The three of us grew up working in our family business. We watched it thrive under the committed leadership of family members. While that business is no longer in our family the lessons we learned still guide us in our actions. We think that our dedication to operating as a small family business will be a great asset. The craft brewing world is already afire with innovation and we are looking to expand on this tradition.
It is down this line of thought that lead us to our name. Many people’s first reaction is to ask us if we spelt ‘abbey’ wrong. The name in fact comes from Jack’s wife, Abby. Jack’s Abby Brewing is meant to evoke the tradition of monastic groups in Europe who create handcrafted beers in their abbeys. While we draw inspiration from these groups we are also adding the distinctly American craft beer flair for innovation. We believe that is blending of old and new will make for something great.
