From UMassWiki

(Redirected from Class:Class:COM352 - Group Dynamics - Spring 2008/Paper City Brewery)

This page was contributed by COM352 students in Spring 2008 as part of their class. Thanks!

[edit] Paper City Brewery

[edit] Volunteer Night

On Wednesday we all took a trip to Paper City Brewery, located in Holyoke, Mass, only a twenty minute drive from campus. Its located right off 116, but we still struggled to find it. Parking was tough too, but we eventually found a spot along side of the brick warehouse where the brewery is located.

To say this place is a "hole in the wall" spot is no exaggeration. The entrance is a hardly marked steel door on the side of the warehouse. After walking up multiple stories of steps, we found it. It is surprisingly nice inside, with fancy woodwork and antique Harleys for decoration. We were directed in the back, where stacks upon stacks of cases and kegs sat.

Also in the back where huge vats of brews, which lead to a conveyor belt system where the bottles were filled. This is where Justin was stationed for the entire five hours we spent working there. There, he loaded probably thousands of empty bottles on to the belt to be filled.

He did this at first alongside a Papercity Brewery volunteer veteran, who had spent his Wednesdays there for the past five years. Brian spent some time fixing the labels on the bottles, and then boxing cases.

After some time he joined Justin loading empty bottles on the belt. Francisco and Szewa were put on packaging. There they assembled six pack cartons and filled them up with beers.

They then loaded them up into a conveyor belt to seal the packages before stacking the boxes up. Later they were put on labeling for the rest of the night where they probably labeled at least 400 bottles.

[edit] Compensation

Wednesday nights are the only time the Paper City Brewery bottles, all year round. They depend entirely on volunteers for this, and have some established volunteer regulars. In exchange for time and labor of the volunteers, the management allows the volunteers to have some of their product while they are there. At the end of the night, plenty of pizza is provided for the volunteers and each may take a case of the product of his or her choosing.