Our Story . . .

706 E 23rd St, Lawrence, KS

We purchased the building based on its location, which is awesome, on E23rd St.  Besides being on a main artery into Lawrence the property featured 10,000 square feet of basically wide-open interior space and about an acre of green space.  Wide-open interior, we figured, was perfect for the brewery and green space translated to “beer garden!”
The building has previously been used as a lumber yard and hardware store, a wrought iron manufacturer, a granite countertop store and a car rental agency.  The City of Lawrence has started to spruce up E 23rd St and, we think, they were pretty happy when we bought it with the intention of a full remodel into Fields & Ivy Brewery.

The Concept

Tulips & Vines

Here we have some original wrought iron artwork from our building’s past tenants.  We are going to repurpose it into a green wall in the Fields & Ivy beer garden.  Also, some of the granite on display: apparently, sort of a drive-by countertop shopping thing they had going on.  You can see Veronica taking the picture and that’s me on the right holding my head like, “what the hell have we done?”

The Beer Garden

We have the lumber awnings from back in the day.  It’s not air conditioned but, if you’re in Kansas and can get shade and wind blockage, it’s a really comfortable space for drinking beer.  We envision outdoor games, live music, lots of greenery and cool lighting to make this space magic.

More Conceptual Drawings

Moving from left to right you have the brewery, taproom, and beer garden.

Redevelopment on E 23rd St

The City of Lawrence has done a great job putting in new sidewalks and lighting on E 23rd .  We’re here to provide the craft beer and pizza!  The Lawrence Loop, bicycle and walking path, is about 200 yards west of our location. Unfortunately, we had to lose the chain link fence and grape vines.  Those things look epic.

Taproom Demo

We knocked down the north, west and interior walls so that this space will seat 130 craft beer lovers with room left over for our pizza kitchen.

Taproom Floorplan

The above space is going to turn into this!!

Brewery Demo

More smashing of interior walls in our future production area.  At the end of the day we have a clean sweep of 5,000 square feet.  Next to go will be the rotten insulation and the rusted-out metal roof.  See below: our plans for this space.

Production Brewery

This is what we’re talking about!!  Fields & Ivy’s steam powered production brewery capable of producing 15,000 barrels of delicious craft beer every year.

Beer Garden

We are beyond excited to transform this space into Fields & Ivy’s outdoor beer garden.  Won’t you join us for a cold craft beer?  Right here, Spring 2019!!

Trench Drains

Brewers love a good trench drain.  As a means of quickly cleaning up spills and keeping the brewery clean trench drains are indispensable.  We had to cut our existing concrete, install the trench drains, tie the concrete slabs together with re-bar and pour new concrete.  The entire brewery got a new layer of fiber reinforced concrete that allowed us to put in drain slopes and thermal barriers for our cold storage areas.

Set

Plumbing is done and backfilled with gravel.  Wood blocks position the height of the drain above the existing floor so that we can pour new concrete up to the lip of the new drain.  Re-bar pins every couple of feet tie the slab back together.

Get it.

We have multiple drains installed and ready to pour concrete.  Also, had to pour a new transformer pad and underground electrical conduit.

Got it

We poured new concrete in sections so we could shape the drain slopes.  This was one of the bigger sections where our 20-barrel brewhouse is going to be located.

Good

There it is.  5,000 square feet of brewery-ready concrete with in-ground utilities complete.  So, we popped the roof off to celebrate!  We are getting ready to paint our brewery trusses white in preparation for a new ceiling and roof.

One Door Opens: Before Pictures
 
Welcome to Fields & Ivy!  We’re taking you on a tour of our brewery and taproom from the perspective of the various doorways that will eventually be installed here.  We’re standing at the main entrance to our taproom, looking in and the rolling blueprint table is exactly where our backbar and  tap handles are going.

Looking out

Front door looking south to E 23rd St.

Looking out again.
 
Front door looking north to E 22nd St.

Looking in.

Our beer hall!  Looking in from the north.  We are going to have to eventually put a roof on but we’re going to use lots of natural light from windows.

Did ya see the video of that guy getting pulled over on a SkyJack?
 
From the perspective of the doorway between the taproom and the production craft brewery.  The taproom sits 4 feet above the production area and we will have windows so you can drink beer while you watch us make beer.

It’s getting cold in here.
 
A picture from the doorway of our production cooler looking back into the brewery.

Street view
 
Basically, what you’d see from your car door if you were driving the wrong way down the sidewalk in front of our building.  Do not attempt!

Taproom Demo

We knocked down the north, west and interior walls so that this space will seat 130 craft beer lovers with room left over for our pizza kitchen.