This year for Christmas, we got ourselves some toys! Or, more accurately, we got ourselves some industrial-sized manufacturing equipment that we're (hopefully) gonna beat the hell out of during the upcoming year. Check it out! (equipment shown alongside a Jimbo for scale)

We've been anxiously awaiting this delivery for weeks, so now we're gonna go play with our new toys! And hopefully not hurt ourselves! Happy New Year!

Gather 'round, cats and kittens! The lack of any real news to report means that Head Brewer Jared has a (mercifully short) yuletide yarn for y'all. You see, we're suckers for Christmas, and we like to do our celebrations the right way 'round these here parts. And with that in mind, we've got a special holiday tradition that dates back to a time before Bone Up was even a figment of our imaginations:

Following in the footsteps of many other great breweries, we like to whip up a big ol' batch of somethin' special for the holidays. And since these cold New England winters are made for hunkerin' down to sip and savor something strong and soulful, we just so happen to be partial to Imperial Stouts for our Christmas beers. No two are alike, and that's intentional, since no two Christmases are alike. We like to say we brew a unique beer to suit each unique year, but the reality may lie closer to us brewing whatever the hell we feel like (which does, in a way, reflect the circumstances of the current year I guess). 

We've talked a little about this year's Christmas beer before, but never bothered to mention what it was - and this year it's an ass-kickin' slap-you-in-the-face imperial stout, no frills about it. It ain't nothin' fancy, but it's big and it's bold and it certainly has some strong opinions:

We decided to play it simple this year because, frankly, all of our energy went into planning this here brewery. But never you fret: we've got months of pondering time, so that by this time next year we'll have a whole bunch of a whole new hoity-toity high-falutin' beer for you to enjoy with us. We'll tell the beer to keep its opinions to itself this time.

It's been a big week for Bone Up! First and foremost, our federal permit applications have been submitted. We crossed all our t's and dotted all our... lower case j's, so now it's a waiting game. The general consensus is that this usually takes about 90 days, though the TTB themselves seem to be singing a different tune. After that we move on to state permits, then town-level, then we get to put beer in your mouth (and maybe some in kegs)!

We've also had several people notice us this week, apparently out of the blue (hello new readers!). And that's fantastic, but it brought to mind the fact that we should do "more than zero PR" so that people "know we exist." So we wrote a press release and it's got punctuation and everything, but it would appear that we're kind of bad at getting press contacts? So if you, dear reader, know anyone that has a newsy sort of job, please send them this link:

Press Releases!

And yes, we are going to seek people out ourselves instead of just hoping the internet will do everything for us (though that would be nice), but we know we're bound to miss a few people here and there. You can read it even if you aren't part of The Press, but please bear in mind that this is meant to be a lot more fact-heavy and dry than most of the stuff you're used to hearing from us (for instance: we took out the line where we threaten to slap the reader, something that would never happen on this blog). 

But wait! Even more exciting things happened this week! This past weekend we met our neighbors, Short Path Distillery, for a Very Important Business Meeting (some of you non-industry folks might know this as "day drinking"), and guess what: they're great people! We are all quite excited to help build out our little boozy enclave in Everett. Their operation is two doors down from our brewery and slated to open around the same time, so check 'em out.

Look at us go! Grand times are ahead.

As many of you are already aware, we are now Bone Up Brewing Company (for those of you who are reading this on our old site, please head to www.boneup.beer and bask in the glory of our site redesign). The name change was necessary for legal reasons: while trying to trademark the name 'Bona Fide,' we came across a winery that had also decided to go by the same moniker. Since the higher-ups classify beer and wine into the same category, and the company who owns that winery distributes throughout Massachusetts, our legal team advised us to nip any potential problem/confusion in the bud and start with a fresh name. It's been a tricky process getting everything changed over, and now we have five hundred business cards that aren't of any use, but we're glad we've finally nailed down the real name of our company!

Things didn't go quite so smoothly when we first decided to name ourselves Bone Up. When we told our "focus group" (my roommate Tony and that one weird friend he had over that day) about the new name, the overwhelming response was "...I liked the old name better." Yeah, thanks for rubbing salt in our wounds. But as we got that reaction more frequently, we realized: it's because people are assuming we're just gonna be making a bunch of obvious dick jokes on our labels/website/social media accounts. And, man, that's a little insulting (editor's note: those of you who know our head brewer personally, particularly those who knew him ten or five years ago, are completely justified in assuming this). 

Dick jokes are the low-hanging fruit on the banana tree of comedy, and we know you deserve better than that. Hell, if we were gonna stoop that low, we would have just called it Dick Jokes Brewing Company (or like "Tee-Hee! Boners! Incorporated") and called it a day. But we know that you, the World Wise Craft Beer Drinker, are too classy for that. Rest assured that if (when) we make dick jokes, they'll be dick jokes that make you think.

So, cheers to getting your Bone Up!