Blog Archives

In Which We Tune In For Labor Day Funtimes

8/30/2023

Hi friends! It's blog time once again and we'd like to kick things off by starting with a big ol' sincere Thank You to everybody who came out to help us celebrate The Anniversary* this past weekend! It was a truly excellent time full of great music and tasty snacks and friendship and a lot more underwear getting shot out of a t-shirt cannon than we were really expecting and sweet merch and good times and, of course, beer!

We say this every year, but we're truly humbled to have met so many people who are pickin' up what we're puttin' down and who in general like to Get Weird in the same way that we do and it's just so damn heartwarming that we get to hang out with all y'all at once every now and then. This big ol' bash is really our gift to ourselves every year, but we're over the moon that y'all like to come out and join us, because we couldn't do what we do without you. So thank you for coming to our party, and thank you for continuing to support all the weird shit we do around here. It means the world to us.

And now to take a complete left turn from all that sappy Feelings Talk, it's probably worth our while to note that the cask hiatus resumes this week on account of how it's still damn warm outside and also because we didn't think to get casks prepped until, like, three days ago (the birthday cask was an exception on both fronts, and boy was it exceptional).

For vaguely similar reasons, it's also gonna be a quick minute before we can release a new beer on account of how we brewed All The Beers for our birthday and we don't have room in the cold rooms for new ones. But! We'll be back to our Regularly Scheduled Releases before you know it, so keep them peepers peeled!

Anyway! Onward we march, sallying forth into the tides of fun times or whatever and the first such Fun Time is on Thursday and it's more trivia! This time around, Matt has decided to tackle South Park as the topic du jour and that's gonna be an interesting one since the show has been on for like 25 years (or maybe it just feels that way? Who even knows anymore) but the point is that it's gonna be fun as heck and you should come out!

Then on Friday we've got Matt Heaton gracin' the stage/loading dock for a laid-back night full of surf tunes!

Then on Sunday we're gettin' into the Labor Day spirit** and havin' a record fair! We'll have Major Wax Buildup and Hot Foot Vintage and One Round Jack and our own Light of Day records settin' up and slinging records (plus some vintage duds and maybe some other goodies) and there's gonna be a DJ to "spin" some "tunes" and also our friends from Lobzter King are gonna be here with their delicious-ass seafood dishes and also this whole event is apparently tied to a movie release which is news to me but also not relevant to the event we're having here so we can just move along on that and come have a good time on Sunday!

Then on Monday we'll be open Holiday Hours (12-8 instead of 3-11) on account of how it's a holiday. And! Next week has a lot of cool stuff, but you should still come out for all the cool stuff this week, and tune in again soon for the next roundup of cool stuff!

Oh! And! We gotta announce August's coloring contest winners! Adequate work, everyone!

* Since it's come up a few times, it's also fine to call it our birthday. I don't actually know how/why we settled on "anniversary" over "birthday" (maybe it was because we started brewing a few months before the taproom opened?) but either works.
** I guess the true Labor Day Spirit would be unionizing, but having fun on a Sunday is a close second

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In Which We Raise a Glass to Seven Years!

8/23/2023

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Howdy kids! Did you know that it's almost time? Time for our anniversary! Time to party! Time for beer! Time for high fives! Time to spend multiple days doing nothing but hanging out outside and listening to live music! Time for friendship! Time for snacks! Time for fun times!

And to kick off all those fun times we must mention that we are closed to the public on Wednesday so we can have a little preparty* for all our mug club peeps. So if you're in the mug club, we'll see you then! If not, we'll see you slightly after then!

And on the other end of that ol' weekend we will be closed entirely Monday because we have learned our lesson about trying to function like normal human beings on the day after the anniversary.

Oh and moving on to the duration of the anniversary we figured we should add in a little "programming note" to those of you who like to use the semi-secret back bathrooms (which we know as the "murder bathrooms" but it turns out that people get weirded out if we call them that out loud) to avoid the lines that can form at Bathrooms Prime: we are aware of the increased amount of weird debris that's currently filling that hallway (known as the "murder hallway," of course), and we're doing our best to mitigate said debris pile (not least of which because it's a fire hazard to block that hallway) but every time we clear a path somebody finds a bunch of new weird junk to take up space, so I guess the point is that we'll put on our Sisyphus Pants as many times as we can over the course of the weekend but it might be more of an adventure than usual getting through there.

Anyway, moving on to the actual fun stuff, we totally forgot to (re)mention all the sweet anniversary merch that we've got available! We talked a bit about all the cool stuff we got with the anniversary logo all over it (including the return of the Not Black Anniversary Shirts since those were such a hit last year) but did you also know that if you get the sweet-ass anniversary mug (which measures a respectable 20oz) then you can use it to get 20oz draft pours for pint pricing all weekend long? It's like a vacation to Mug Club Land (or, if you're in the mug club, it's like a vacation to a slightly different mug club. Unless you have a Mug of Shame, in which case it's pretty similar because this is the same base glass). Anyway, cool stuff: we've got it!

PLUS we've got new beers! Lots of 'em! Like, at least three.

First up is Hazy Spacey Jam which is our collab with Sundrifter and it's an IPA called Hazy Spacey Jam (they wanted to call it "Hazy Space Jam" but we don't really like getting sued any more than we already are, so we changed it a bit) and it's hella tasty even though, on account of some "new processes" in the ol' fermentation dungeon, it's actually a lot less hazy than the label would suggest. But that's what you get when you name a beer and/or order the label before the beer is done (fun fact: we do this for every beer!) and the real point here is that we did still cram a crapton of hops in there and it's delicious as all heck and it's available on draft and in cans right now and you should drink some!

And speaking of cramming a crapton of hops into a beer, the next new beer on the docket is Bad At Maths! This one isn't an anniversary beer** but rather a happy*** accident that was made by adding double the dry hops to Extra Naked and if you ever asked yourself "what if Extra Naked, but more so" (and who hasn't asked themselves that), then this beer is for you! And it's on draft right now!

And then we get back into the anniversary beers with this year's Crowfeeder beer and it's an oatmeal brown that we're callin' Kingslayer! I don't actually remember if it was intentional that we brewed them an oatmeal brown the year after brewing them a smoked brown (maybe they responded to our email late and got last dibs? Maybe this was in fact their desired style? Who can say. Certainly not me, I don't want to go back through my email) but the real point here is that this silky smooth brown ale is a damn treat to drink (and also it's a bit bigger than our brown ales tend to be, if that's your thing) and it's also on draft right now!

Wait, did somebody say smoked brown ale? Because we've got a smoked brown ale! This one's for new-to-our-party Hobo Wizard and it's called Cathedral of Trees because we thought that sounded cool (it's a song of theirs and it happens to be a good one, and also it's got a pretty cool story behind it, but mostly it sounds cool) and we definitely ramped up the smoke a fair bit from what we usually do (like fifty percent more) and whoo-ee is it good! Anyway you'll get to find out for yourself because it's in cans right now and you should probably get several because it'll take your palate a little while to acclimate to the smoke (but it's totally worth it).

Oh dang, there's more anniversary beers? How? Why? Oh wait, it's because we like making tasty beer for awesome bands, that's why. And this particular awesome band (namely Sunken City) has been playing at our anniversary since basically tempus immemorial so we whipped up a tart 'n sassy lil' mixed ferm beer that we're calling Undercurrents and it's relatively dark color belies the lightness of flavor therein, but y'all have been on the Critters train for long enough that you know not to judge the funk until you get a snootful (and if you ain't been on that Critters train this whole time, you're missing out) and anyway - you guessed it - it's available in bottles and on tap right now and you should drink some!

And that's the last of the anniversary beers (packaged this Tuesday! Right on time!), but we were on a roll or something so we figured we'd blend up another barrel-aged blend just for laughs and that's Joining the War on the Side of the Whales! This blend was conceived by a punk band (Stryga, during the same blending session that birthed Artificial Reaper) and it was named by our mug club (after taking many, many suggestions at our last mug club party (props to Camille for the suggestion, even if it wasn't meant to be a real one). Seriously, it was like two pages of single-spaced double-column names) and it seems like it would be less work for us if we get other people to do all that stuff for us but it turns out that those are the fun parts and we still have to do the actual work parts but that's all well and good because this beer is tasty as heck and it's available in bottles right now because why not and we suggest you drink some of this one too!

And also there's a beer that's not new but is making a triumphant return in a new format and that format is cask! And just like last year, we decided that Stick the Landing was pretty much the perfect candidate for some summertime caskin', so we casked it on up! The beer engine will resume its hot weather hiatus once this pin kicks, so if you've got the cask itch then come on out and get your fix!

Anyway that's all the new beers we've got (not to mention the return of some past band beers like barrel-aged Dark Humor which will be on tap until one and only keg of it kicks, and Man Overboard which never really went away but it's really good, and also No Light Ever for Glacier who had to back out because they saw/heard the noise level that gets us phone calls from the police and realized that they are much, much louder than that) and we already talked about all the happenin' tunes and good eats and cool merch and fun vendors that we're gonna have over the next few days, so at this point all we can say is: come hang out with us! It's gonna be a great time!

* "What can we do to show appreciation to the people who are most likely to drink with us for four days straight?" we asked ourselves. And then, apparently with a straight face, we told ourselves "I know! Let's drink with them for a FIFTH straight day, before all the other drinking starts!"
** Oh wait, we don't explicitly have a beer for the JackJohn Funk Faction. This is their beer now. I decree it.
*** We actually really like how this beer turned out, I just had to put an asterisk there because it's funny to imply that we're not happy about it.

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In Which the Days Inch Ever Closer to Party Tyme!

8/5/2023

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Hello again! It sure is August around here and the last time we left off we were shoutin' about all the fun stuff that was gonna be goin' on at our anniversary party at the end of the month so we're just gonna get right on "back in the saddle" and get back to it!

But first I wanted to to "circle back" on something that I "mentioned last week" which is that we're gonna be temporarily pausing new beer releases so we can release a whole buncha anniversary beers all at once because the anniversary is NEXT FRIGGIN WEEK! It's so soon, you guys! Anyway, here's what you can expect for the rest of the anniversary weekend (see last week for the writeup on Wednesday through Friday):

Saturday August 26th is "the big avocado" as they say, with a full dang ol' day of music and food and also a couple extra fun things thrown in for good measure! For music, we're startin' the day off with our friends from DnA's Evolution who will be playing an extra long set because of Reasons (one of those reasons is that they're a lot of fun to see live) and it's still up in the air whether they'll be making any hot-sauce-related bad decisions whilst on stage (it... did not go well when they did that last year) and then after that we've got Sundrifter returning to the stage and hopefully they'll be playing stuff from their upcoming album because we've heard some of it and it's hella good (their older stuff is also good, we just get excited) and then for the first time ever* we've got a band travelling from out of state to play at the anniversary and that's Clouds Taste Satanic whose beer (Ales of Demonic Possession) pretty much flew out of here when we released it so it's good we saved some (and also we love their music, but that should be obvious by this point) and after that we've got a trio of returning bands that all just so happen to have barrel-aged beers (god help us, or at least help our livers) and the first of those is North Star the Wanderer who have the dubious distinction of being the first ever band to participate in a barreled beer blending session with us (it... it got weird, but it resulted in a great beer) and they're followed by SkyTigers who have the dubious distinction of being the ones that forced us to make a pumpkin beer (it's honestly really good) and then we're movin' on to Stryga whose guitarist is our bartender Sam (who you might know as "that guy in the short shorts") and we're ending the evening with Brain Famine who thankfully doesn't have a barrel-aged beer but the sheer force of their performance will probably turn your brain into mush anyway and that's the musical lineup for the day!

But wait... there's more! Somehow! Since there's been a trend of our food vendors running out of food startlingly early on the Saturday of the anniversary** we've got TWO options for eats and that's Lala's Pizza and An Thoi (who make Vietnamese street food but they don't include that in the name of their business) and both options are straight-up delectable so you might as well eat the full menu from both of them, especially if you're gonna be drinking all that barrel-aged beer later.

And. AND. Following the tradition of years past*** we've got Heads Up Screenprinting here to do live screenprinting! They'll have four special designs that you can't get elsewhere and they'll have blank shirts to print on but the real pro move is to bring in stuff of your own - they'll print on pretty much anything for like ten bucks and it looks cool as hell to get anniversary art on the back of a Bone Up flannel (or on the back of one of our standard-model t shirts, or on some stuff that you panic bought at Target on your way over) and anyway that's a lotta dang fun for one day which means we can't cram more fun times in there but we've still got one more day! And it's gonna be a good one!

Sunday August 27th you might think we depleted our reserves of awesome bands and delicious food vendors and other fun accoutrements but you would be so, so wrong. In years past we've used Sunday as our "let's ease into consciousness" day and we're definitely takin' it easy on you in terms of intensity at the beginning of the day but the fact of the matter is that we've got a completely stacked lineup all day on Sunday!

It starts off with the only band that's been at every anniversary party and that's The Weisstronauts! We've heard their music described as "the perfect music for relaxing outside with a beer" and we couldn't agree more, but then we're gonna turn up the tempo a bit with some stoner rock from Organ Meats and then we're turning that tempo right back down (but keeping the volume up) and bringin y'all some doom from new-to-our-stage (and our second ever out-of-state band at the anniversary) Hobo Wizard and I don't think their "flaming trash can" trick will work outside in the middle of the day but that just means you'll have to go see them again which is a double win for you (and also you should check out their latest album on account of how OUR TAPROOM IS ON THE ALBUM COVER and also Liz did the art for the other parts of the album and that's completely cool as hell) and then we've got another new-to-our-stage band comin' on and that's Cortez and we really wish we'd known sooner that these guys were local because they're rad as hell, and speaking of bands that we didn't know were local next up is Major Stars who have been quietly coming to the taproom for years now and just neglected to mention that they're in an awesome band and then we're closing out the day with the first band to cause us to get a phone call from the police and that's Crowfeeder! They've played here a handful of times before and they're very good, which is why we invited them.

And if you happen to be in the mood for sum munchin' while all these awesome tunes are being played, we've got Black Tongue Sloppy Joes in the house and there's pretty much nothing I want more on a Sunday morning than to bury my entire face in the sloppiest of joes, so that sounds pretty much perfect. But wait, there's more! We've got Green Room Prints comin' by with vintage band tees and sellin' some stuff and also Light of Day Records (our in-house record shop) will be putting out their whole spread so you can peruse a whole bunch of records out in the sunshine just like god intended or whatever and anyway that's a ding dang jam packed day for what was originally supposed to be a "relaxing afternoon" but it's gonna be fun as hell so you should come hang out!

Monday August 28th we will be closed for the day so that all of us can spend the day dramatically flinging ourselves onto the couch and declaring things like "no loving god would allow me to feel like this."

If you Anniversary like we do, bloody marys probably won't help you at this point, but you might as well try.

* Unless you count Jack's Jazz/Funk Pregame night, which we clearly don't
** Including one memorable year when our main vendor was packed up by like 1:45 PM, but we're not gonna name names on that front
*** Not to be a downer, but every time we think about anniversary traditions we get a little sad that Alex's Ugly Sauce isn't around anymore

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In Which Our Birthday Month Begineth

8/5/2023

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Howdy do kiddaroos! We've got some tasty brews and fun things for you, so giddy on up and let's get to doin' what we do!

But first we've got a bit of a "programming note" around these here parts and that's to say that since The Anniversary fast approacheth we're gonna be taking the briefest of hiatuses on releasing new beers so's we can unleash a whole unholy hell of new beers on all y'all when it comes to The Big Event. We know you're used to our usual breakneck "beer per week" pace that we've more or less kept up lo these past seven years, but we thought this would be fun. We hope you understand, etc.

But wait! It so happens that there's somehow three more releases that managed to "squeak by" before our arbitrarily-self-imposed release cutoff and the first one is Brew Famine! This beer was brewed to go with the dulcet tones of our friends in Brain Famine (who will be playing at the anniversary, natch) and it's a lovely hazy IPA brewed with a double handful of a new-to-us hop called Hydra and it's the perfect pairing for some grindcore and more importantly it's available in cans right now and you should drink some!

The second beer that's been released during our "hiatus from releasing beers" is Artificial Reaper! This one's our collab with Stryga (for their triumphant return to the stage at our anniversary) and instead of going "light 'n easy" this year we brought those boys in for a blending session and blend we did! They actually helped us come up with a few blends (which will be trickling in over the next few weeks/months) but the biggest blend of all is named after them and it's on tap and in bottles right now!

And speaking of new beers that are on tap right now the last of these sneaky releases is Pale Glow! This one is our fourth collab with Lesser Glow (to pair with their second time playing our anniversary) and it's a straight-up no-funny-business pale ale full of a buncha local grains and local hops plus some of the freshest and fruitiest hops we could get from farther afield and honestly we think pale ales are super underrated, so come give this one a try!

And then movin' to the "fun times" portion of this here publication, we've got some fun times! First up is on Thursday and that's this month's Simpsons Trivia! The theme this time around is Season 13, which marks the first time ever that we've ventured past the Season Twelve border that was erected around this trivia night back in the Before Times and y'all are the ones that voted for that so you can't blame me for the fact that you had to slog your way through that season.

Then on Friday we're "playin' it cool" in terms of commotion and whatnot, but that don't mean we can't have some tasty eats and so tasty eats we shall! More to the point, Tasty BBQ is gonna be poppin' up for the evening, so come on out and grab some grub!

Movin' right along to Saturday we're kickin' off the day with some yoga! Specifically it's Emo Yoga hosted by Crystal and then later in the afternoon we've got Craig Mac 'n Cheese swingin' through with some cheesy goodness and it's gonna be a good time!

And! Now that we're into August, commonly known around here as Our Birthday Month because we can be a little dramatic sometimes if we want, we're gonna shout about our upcoming anniversary party!* If you're new around here and/or if you managed to miss all ninety of our social media posts about it, our taproom is turning seven(!) at the end of August and we're throwin' ourselves a party! And over the years this lil' shindig has grown and mutated and partied even partier every year and the point is that this year we're gonna be throwin' down for four days (five if you're in the mug club) and anyway we're gonna give you the day-by-day breakdown so's you can know what to expect (and/or plan what days you want to come by if you're not the die-hard call-out-of-work-for-a-week-afterwards type) but in the interest of not turning this blog post into a dang novel (and also in the interest of making sure we have stuff to talk about next week) we're gonna split up this blow-by-blow into two sections, so here goes!

Wednesday August 23rd is the members-only kickoff party for our friends in the Mug Club (and their +1's) and it's the only day that doesn't have a live music component, but it does give people in the Mug Club a chance to have a sneak peek at all the anniversary beers and we might also have some other tricks up our sleeve(s)? (We don't, but I wouldn't rule out some kind of last-minute thrown-together nonsense).

Thursday August 24th marks the gen-u-wine o-fficial starty to the party and we're gonna "ease in" to the weekend with some of the more "easygoing" tunes you can expect to hear - the night starts with what we're calling a "Jazz/Funk Pregame" put on by an untitled collection of musicians that we know as "whoever Jack felt like inviting" (Jack has run sound at most of our anniversary parties in years past, plus he bartends here, plus we made a beer for his wedding, plus he's just a good dude) and then we're ending the evening with the return of Sunken City who have been gracing the stage at the anniversary for quite some time now and also we've got food from Matilda's Pastelitos and it's gonna be a good time!

Friday August 25th gets a little (a lot) heavier and faster musically, with The Guilloteenagers kickin' things off with a buncha antics that happen to have music happening around them** and then we've got newcomers (to our stage and also just in general, they're a super new band) Blood Lightning steppin' up to kick things up a notch and then perennial heavy-hitters Lesser Glow will round out the night with a sonic assault that will probably leave you a bit disoriented (in a good way) and we're gonna have Bonetown BBQ bringin' the beef (but not their truck because we get shit about it if we have trucks here) so come rock the heck out and eat some meats with us!

* I know, we normally start shouting relentlessly about the anniversary well before August. But this year we had a packed 'n stacked events lineup and we didn't want to give short shrift to those events (even if they did get rained out more often than we cared to think about. Womp).

** It sounds like I'm being mean here, but that's pretty much how they describe themselves. Their music is honestly a lot of fun (and a lot of the lyrics are pretty meat-centric, but it's up to you to decide if that's a good thing or not).

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In Which We Are Stoked on Doom and/or Gloom

8/1/2023

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Hey there, kids and squids! It's that time again for us to talk about all the cool stuff we're doin' around here, so let's get on with it!

And first on up we should probably definitely mention that we've been restocking the bottle fridge as of late! That ol' menu was startin' to look a bit sparse so we dug out the ol' bottling line and that means you're gonna see a couple old favorites poppin' back up here and there (and also there's a buncha new stuff that's in progress, but that's pretty much always the case) and anyway the point is to keep them eyes peeled if you're on the lookout for some of the fancy stuff!

And since we mentioned new beers back there for a second we should probably tell you that we've got a new beer coming out in cans on Saturday! The beer is a tasty lil' hoppy saison called Somergloom, named after (and made in collaboration with) the fest of the same name that we just so happen to be partially hosting but we'll get back to that later and anyway the point is that this beer is tasty as heck and you should drink some!

And movin' on to fun times this week, we're kickin' things off on Thursday with Music & Beer Trivia! We personally probably know a thing or two about at least one of those categories, which means that this week you'll get to see The Management confidently embarrassing themselves on the ol' scoreboard but it'll be fun no matter what so come hang out with us!

Then on Friday we've got another acoustic set happenin' in the ol' beer garden (and/or taproom) and this time it's a newcomer to these here parts: Tiny the Bear! I don't know a ton about what they'll be playing, but I do know that our acoustic sets have yet to disappoint, so come check it out!

Then on Saturday we're hosting day two of Somergloom (and quietly praying that it won't rain for the like ninetieth weekend in a row)! If you ain't familiar with Somergloom (and you really should be), it's an annual fest full of doom, gloom, sludge, and shoegaze and it's going on for three days at three different venues and on Day Two (our day! We're hosting that one!) we'll have Vivid Bloom, Tears From a Grieving Heart, Still Life Sounds, Cradle of Judah, and Ashen Veil and also we'll be releasing Somergloom The Beer and just in case that wasn't enough we've also got An Thoi Vietnamese poppin' up with some tasty eats and it's gonna be hella fun and you should come get gloomy with us!

And then to take a brief peek into next week, we've got Simpsons Trivia next Thursday and the theme is gonna be Season 13 because that's what y'all voted on and apparently you're all a buncha masochists but that's cool we ain't gonna judge and anyway it's gonna be a good time!

Oh! And! We've got the July coloring contest winner/runners up to announce! Adequate work, everyone!

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In Which We Tune In For Labor Day Funtimes

In Which We Raise a Glass to Seven Years!

In Which the Days Inch Ever Closer to Party Tyme!

In Which Our Birthday Month Begineth

In Which We Are Stoked on Doom and/or Gloom

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