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In Which We Celebrate Four Years of Good Times!

8/26/2020

Howdy-do kiddos and squiddos! We turn four this week! FOUR! Can you believe it? It's only been four years already!

Four years ago as of this week, we opened up our fairly tiny taproom with modest expectations and no idea of what we were doing (and, more importantly, no dishwasher) and just five beers on tap (because we didn't exactly have a lot of notice that we'd be allowed to open) and it's a downright massive understatement to say that we were completely floored by the response we got from people right out the gate.

Sure, we were understaffed and most of the furniture was secondhand and we didn't have any outdoor seating and we might have forgotten to take down that Chuck Tingle shrine in the corner, but that was all part of the charm or whatever!

We (re)redoubled our efforts over the course of that year and once we were finally able to celebrate One Glorious Year Open, we threw the biggest party we could cobble together - there was cake and hot sauce (he made a hot sauce just for us! How cool is that?) and another cake and holy shit we had a band (The Weisstronauts! We could not believe that one of our favorite bands agreed to play a show on our loading dock) and yet another cake and roasted pig and lots of beer and food and friendship and good times and also a couch on the patio for good measure and in other words it was - to us, anyway - the best possible celebration of all the cool stuff we've been able to do at our weird little brewery and (more importantly) all the friends we made along the way. Oh, and also there might have been a cake (I've lost track at this point).

Anyway. I'll spare you the rest of the reminiscing. The point is that this is a day that means a lot to us. It's something we look forward to (and obsessively plan) for months in advance, and it straight-up delights us to think up new fun things that we can do (either at the party or in general). It is, hands down, our favorite day of the year, and there's nothing we want more than to be able to share it with you: whether you've been with us since the early days or you just found out we exist, we're glad that you come by. You are, with no exaggeration, the reason we can keep doin' what we're doin' and we're damn grateful for that.

So. With all that in mind, we did everything we could to try and recreate the Birthday Magic given the Current Circumstances and we are determined to have the hap-hap-happiest damn birthday we possibly can.

Sure there won't be a cool show like there usually is, but we put together a pretty rad mix CD featuring everybody who woulda done played that show (and we didn't order all too many copies of that CD, so don't hesitate if you want some Killer Tunez) and we're rockin' the beer garden all day on Saturday and slingin' beers to pair with each of the seven bands and we've got cool merch like we usually do and we're bringin' in some friends to serve up tasty foods and when you sit your ass down at a picnic table in the parking lot you are gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse!

And to answer the burning question that we've gotten many* times recently: we do indeed have more hot sauce! Yes indeedy, our friend Alex (from Alex's Ugly Sauce, natch) has seen fit to make us another birthday hot sauce and frankly this might be the best one yet and it's available right now and it's so good!

And while we're on about tasty times, we're bringin' in our pals from PoBoys and Pies (on Saturday of course) and they'll be slingin' some delicious-ass barbecue from noon 'til five!

And. And! Since y'all just straight-up deserve a whole mess o' treats, we're also bringin' in our friends from T.C. Scoops! From six to nine** they'll be doin' ice cream flights (and/or larger portions, if you're not a flight fan) and if you ain't yet had the chance to try their delightful desserts before, you are in for a treat.***

Oh! Also! I almost forgot! Remember when we said there would be an extra special beer release on Saturday? No? That sounds about right (we've had just a few other beer releases lately). But anyway we're releasing Critters X in bottles! And for this here beer (which may well be among the last in the very-small-batch numbered "Critters" series) we decided to "mix it up" a lil' bit and go for the funkiest thing we could make and whoo-ee did we nail it**** on that one! It's bracingly tart, and if you've ever wondered what we mean when we use the word "funky" as a tasting note, then look no further: this is our platonic ideal of funk! Anyway, it'll be available in bottles starting on Saturday and it'll be on draft at some point (we've only got one funk line, because of Reasons) and you should come try some!

* Seriously, we hear this so often it's starting to rival "do you allow dogs"
** Nice.
*** It's been eight months since I've had their apple pie ice cream and I still think about it almost daily.
**** Opinions have been more divided than usual amongst the brewers - some think it's too intense to drink in quantity, while some (specifically Justin) think it's the best beer we've ever made. So in other words we'll let you decide for yourself.

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In Which It's Really Real!

8/19/2020

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Howdy friends! It's really real! It's really happening! Thassright, this week marks the much-anticipated release of our Illustrated Compendium of Weird Bugs, and What Their Names Might Be If They Were People. And since there's been such an outpouring of support for this project, we're also including an exhaustively-researched appendix detailing whether or not we'd be friends with said bugs (again, if they were people), along with reasons why!

But seriously though. This Friday marks the release of the final* anniversary beers and anniversary swag! And also since we're feelin' fancy we decided to go on ahead and release some other beers as well, just for kicks. Anyway, that's way too much news to cram into one lil' ol' paragraph (our editorial staff** has some sort of issue with giant, unbroken walls of text), so read on!

First on up is the seventh and final birthday beer: Control Is In Your Command! And since this is the fourth dang time we've made a Weisstronauts-inspired beer, we figured we'd make a beer that more-or-less perfectly encapsulates the way we feel about their music - which is to say that it's wonderful, but it's also very hard to explain.

Anyway, for this particular beer we took some Double Key Lime that we'd been aging in a Summer Reserve barrel (for those that aren't in the know, Summer Reserve is an intensely blueberry-forward liqueur made by our friends around the corner at Short Path) and we threw in some Ginger Spectacular and just a splash of regular Key Lime for balance and whoa nelly is there a lot goin' on in this beer! But! Even with all that nonsense, the flavors play nicely with each other and work towards a Harmonious Whole or whatever and anyway it's available in bottles and possibly on draft starting on Friday!

And. AND. To complete the whole anniversary theme, we're also releasing our mix CD on Friday! We gathered up some songs from all seven bands what woulda been playing at our party and put 'em on a CD!*** And it's probably worth mentioning that a portion of the proceeds from CD sales will be donated to the ACLU, and the remaining portion of the proceeds will be going directly to the contributing bands!

And since we're puttin' out that ol' Mix Tape on Friday, we'll also be releasing its associated mix pack the same day! You've already heard us mention that we brewed beers for each of the bands (and if you hadn't, now you have), so we're crammin' 'em all into one weirdass seven-beer mixpack (six cans and one bottle) so you can enjoy the beer and music pairings without having to buy several cases worth of beer! (We do still encourage buying several cases worth of beer if you so desire). And if you're in the ol' Beer Garden and you wanna do the ol' Anniversary Flight like all the cool kids are doing, we'd be happy to oblige (and by "oblige" I mean "throw a mix pack and a bunch of cups on the table and let you sort it out"), but we can't legally give you that much beer at once (at least not for On Premise Consumption) unless you're in a group of at least four, so maybe plan ahead if that's your plan.

And if you wanna double down on all our sweet birthday merch, we will be offering a deal for you starting this very weekend! Grab the CD, mixpack, two can glasses, stickers, and a tank top/t-shirt for $85 with our Cool Kid Anniversary Bundle!

Includes:

All seven band beers
The physical CD with art booklet
Digital playlist
Two can glasses
Fistful of stickers
A t-shirt or a tank top in your size

How friggin' cool is that?!

Anyway. Moving on from anniversary-related shenanigans and into regular ol' shenanigans, we've got a new beer coming out in cans on Friday! This here's the latest installment in our series of "IPAs that we dumped a bunch of fruit in" and then we completely lost momentum when it came to naming the beer**** and now you can have some Mango Thango!

But wait! We have more beers for you to drink! The last addition to our Beer Family is Zoopah!, which was brewed to showcase Zuper Saazer, a hop grown by our friends at Hop Head Farms! Now, Hop Head Farms has put a bit of effort into drumming up interest in this hop, which has been tricky since it's kind of new and interesting, but its flavor profile doesn't include any fruits that nobody is actually familiar with (and thus there are fewer people saying "it doesn't really taste like that") (we're looking at you, gooseberry, lulo, lychee, passionfruit, papaya), and it's kind of historical, but not enough so that people can be snotty about it. We happened to be intrigued by the Free nature of these hops, so we used some on the tacit/unspoken agreement that we would give them free marketing/awareness/whatever in exchange. (Consider that deal honored!)

Anyway, we're pretty sure this is Michigan-grown Saaz (unless it's some other hop that has saaz as a parent? Unclear), and Saaz is a Noble Hop, which sure does sound fancy, don't it? But what is a noble hop, anyway? Well, depending on who you ask, you'll get two very different answers: a) something about history and tradition and Europe and they might even use words like "terroir" and "landrace" in a way that almost but not quite convinces you what those words mean, or 2) it's a marketing term that was made up by the hop industry, and a relatively recent one at that. Anyway, we got a whole buncha this hop and we threw it into a grisette and now we'll all get to see what it's about, as a family.

* Probably final, anyway. I can't even keep track anymore.
** Liz.
*** We did consider cassettes, but we figure at least some people still probably have CD players. And before you ask, vinyl would have been crazy expensive and there are very few people who would be willing to pay $65 for an EP that we compiled.
**** We seldom start with a real name for the beers we make (which is why we draw inspiration from such diverse sources as "caller ID" or "thing Jared found on the ground" or "Jeff") and one time we named a beer after a note in the brewlog that was just an acronym for the specialty ingredients in the grain bill and anyway that's how we got our first Cease & Desist.

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In Which There is Some Ranting

8/11/2020

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Howdy friends! We were hoping to spend this week's blog ramblin' about Cool Birthday Stuff, but the Powers That Be have put us in a particularly peculiar pickle at the moment, so instead we're gonna treat you to a modestly-unhinged rant about some fun new covid-related rules* that have been doled out by the state (the rules themselves are, if we're being perfectly honest, not exactly "hinged" themselves). Anyway...

...given the increasing evidence that the virus is passed primarily through the air (as opposed to, for instance, people touching the same things) - which strongly suggests that having indoor spaces open to the public is less safe than outdoor spaces - coupled with the recent uptick in positive test results - which has largely been traceable to a number of large, private (often indoor) gatherings - the commonwealth of Massachusetts has declared that in order to consume alcohol on-premise, all patrons must... [checks notes]... purchase food. But! It can't just be any food. That would obviously lead to some sort of unimaginable crisis. No, in order to gain the magical health-and-safety-granting properties of eating while you're drinking, said food must be Prepared Onsite (and it must be enough food to "sufficiently serve the number of people at the table").

So. Now that we have this kind-of-baffling rule, there must be some clarification, right? Haha nope! It seems straightforward enough, until you realize that the word "prepared" doesn't have a real meaning in this context. The ruling does (rather specifically) state that opening a bag of chips and putting it on a plate doesn't count as "preparation" (sorry, fifty-year-olds-who-think-of-themselves-as-clever, your affinity for FritoLay won't fulfill this arbitrary requirement!), but that still leaves a lot of gray area! If we were to make chips, would that count? Probably! Do our soft pretzels count? Depends on whether or not the act of seasoning, heating, plating, and serving food counts as "preparation!" We (obviously) think it does, but the ruling specifically mentions pretzels as being somehow bad (though we assume it's talking about the bite-sized prebagged hard pretzels, since they're mentioned in the same context as chips) so it's anyone's guess! Maybe the governor has an issue with the pretzel industry?

But wait! There's more! Not to get all** lawyery on you, but it turns out that the word "onsite" is also open to all kinds of interpretation! If we were to want to hedge our bets on the whole "preparation" thing and bring in a pop-up, does that count? Excellent question! What about a food truck? Well, that probably depends on (among other things) whether or not the area directly next to our patio counts as "onsite," but it also raises the question of whether or not food and drinks need to be ordered on the same ticket. As far as the latter is concerned, it's implied that they do, but what if we just subject everybody to some sort of terrible pass-the-order-along telephone game, wherein you order from our staff, who then places your order with the food truck? That's sure to make everybody safer, right?

And while we're at it, what's a "sufficient quantity" of food, exactly? Well, other than an invitation to a Lawsuit Party if you try to enforce it, we don't know! But now we have to force you to buy ancillary stuff (at a threshold that we set) in order to have a drink, which sounds like the sort of thing that would get our license revoked if it were a rule we invented. But now The State is insisting on it so here we go!

Anyway, the point is that now you need to order one of several fairly specific food items in order to enjoy our beer garden and we are maybe a smidge grumpy about it. Assuming things go well,*** we'll be certain to start adding to our menu so that you don't OD on hot dogs, but that might take us a little while to finagle from a logistical standpoint (unless we can slap some slices of presliced cheese from Costco onto some presliced bread and call it a "deli sandwich," in which case we'll be up to speed fairly expediently). And that's all assuming that the rules won't completely change (again) in two weeks.**** Fun times!

* A gentle reminder ("disclaimer"): we feel it's important to note that, despite the somewhat flippant tone in this blog post, the health and safety of our employees and customers is our top priority. And, it should go without saying, we will be following whatever new rules do get passed, regardless of whether or not we consider them to be misguided.
** Even more.
*** They won't.
**** They will.

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In Which We Drum Up Some Band Beers

8/5/2020

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Howdy-ho camperinos! We've been hard at work crankin' out the sips 'n suds for our upcoming (and/or ongoing) semi-celebration of our birthday! And what that means in practical terms is that by Friday we will have six - that's right, six out of seven - band beers available in cans (and, for a couple of them, on draft too) and soon there will be a seventh and once that happens there will be a seven beer mix pack and also an accompanying CD and probably some other cool stuff because we get carried away sometimes.

But anyway, the first of the three new(est) beers happens to be on tap right now (and it'll be in cans on Friday, as previously discussed) and this is the third consecutive pale ale we've made to pair with the sounds of DnA's Evolution and we daresay they've gotten better every year,* but you ain't gotta take our word for it because you can come drink some! Oh, and also it's called Spirals, since we couldn't think of any clever ways to give it a name that's a slight variation on "DnA" like we did last year.

Next on up in our triple-can-release Friday is the totally-easy-to-pronounce Guill O'Teen! This here beer's made for the only newcomer to the ol' birthday setlist, The Guilloteenagers! Anyway, we brewed up a tasty lil' hoppy ol' amber for them and you should drink some!

And, lastly but far from leastly, we've got yet another double IPA called Untethered for our doom metal pals in Benthic Realm! This time around we focused on a single, new-to-us hop that promised loads of Fruity Goodness (Michigan Copper, to be specific. But this was grown in New York, so it's... New York Michigan Copper? I guess?) and we crammed a whole bunch of it in there and whoa nelly does that hop deliver on the fruit front! It's hella tropical and... well, you've had double IPAs before so I'm not gonna, like, tell you how hops work. Anyway, it's very very good and we think you'll enjoy the heck out of it, but you won't know until you drink some!

* By "they" we mean the pale ales, though we suppose it's probably true for the band as well

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In Which We Celebrate Four Years of Good Times!

In Which It's Really Real!

In Which There is Some Ranting

In Which We Drum Up Some Band Beers

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