And also, at long last, we're finally putting Extra Naked into cans! Also on Friday! And to celebrate(?) this monumentous occasion, we're takin' the opportunity to do something that we've been "batting around" for a while now and we're givin' this beer a wee little "rebrand." Long story short, we never really felt that the style name "cream ale" suited this beer all that well, but that's the horse we stuck ourselves with, so it was the hill we expected to die under. Anyway, we did a lot of soul-searching and a little polling and came to the conclusion that "table beer" as a style name was at least not worse and also maybe better? Anyway, we'll walk y'all through it in handy-dandy Q 'n A style:

What's wrong with "Cream Ale?"
Well, for starters, it turns out that nobody knows what the hell a cream ale is. People tend to assume that it's a descriptive term (it isn't) or that the beer will have vanilla (it doesn't) or lactose (it doesn't) or that it will just somehow be "creamy" (ew). And the people who are familiar with the style tend to associate it with some less-than-desirable examples. 

So... people are more familiar with "Table Beer?"
...no? Not as such, since it's not a "real style."**** 

I thought you said you thought this through.
We did! Long story short, we felt that "table beer" was pretty descriptive (people are generally pretty familiar with the concept of "table wine," and it's not that big of a logical jump to beer), and it at least sounds like it should be a real beer style, and also there was a notable local example that a number of people were familiar with, and... what the hell else can we call this beer? Truth be told, it's the recipe for a Classic American Pilsner (a style which has been defunct for decades), brewed with a Belgian yeast (which is... not to style for a Pilsner, to say the least). What would you call it?

Was there anything else you considered?
Oh god yes. It's close-ish to a saison, but that's a style with some... baggage, and really it's more like a session-strength saison, which around here usually gets labeled as "grisette," only even fewer people know what a grisette is and that's the whole problem we were trying to avoid in the first place, and "everyday ale" is too broad and "dry hopped light ale" is weirdly clinical sounding and why don't we just stick with "cream ale?" Oh, right, because everybody thinks it's got milk in it (or, arguably worse, they think it's like Genny), so how about we use a different vague, obscure (yet slightly more descriptive) style name? Anyway, we went in circles on that for, oh, about three years, and now here we are! Table beer! At least until we use all the labels that say so!

* We can sympathize with that last one, which is why we've been doing most of our personal shopping at Restaurant Depot. Two-gallon bucket of pickles, anyone?
** As in, the first week has been sold out for a couple days and next week is starting to fill up already.
*** We, uh, kinda forgot to order the local version of a key (yet relatively minor in scale) ingredient.
**** We have strong opinions on the "that's not a real style" argument, but we're aware that said opinions are not interesting, so we'll leave it at that. ​​

So anyway, we've got a whole buncha cool shit queued up and waitin' in the wings, we just gotta, y'know, do all that stuff I just said. But that's the easy part, right?


*Skeleton Key, anyone?

Well hey there! It just so happens that we been keepin' on and keepin' as busy as we can what with the whole situation these days and this time around it means we've got a whole dang bunch of new stuff and/or the triumphant return of some old favorites and/or I should stop telling you about what I'm gonna tell you and just dang tell you about it, so here we go!

Oh! And! We sifted through the entries (both physical and electronic) for this month's coloring contest and we have a winner! Congrats to Brittany D. for this hot pink masterpiece, and @mermaidtailz and @wishuponawine for taking home honorable mentions! Adequate work, everyone!


* The company we bought our Crowler machine from made us sign paperwork stating that we would never refer to them as "crowlers," but only as "crowler-style cans." We feel extremely silly doing that, because it's a silly thing to do, so we don't do that. 
** Thought exercise: if we, as a business, actually had a seldom-used middle name, where would it go? Between "Bone" and "Up" or between "Bone Up" and "Brewing Company"? Talk amongst yourselves. ​