Coloring Contest Winners Announced! But First, Some Rambling

Well hey there! It's that time of week again and we're here to help you get hip to the haps on tap (oh god I'm so sorry) around these parts.

First off, word on the street is there's some sort of big sporting event this weekend (truth be told, we're not terribly big hockey fans), but we ain't gonna let that slow us down! Lined up for this week we've got a beer release and pizza and fancy cookies and burgers and brunch and coloring and some exciting ideas that involve hot sauce.* Here's the scoop:

If he had a third thumb he'd be usin' it!

Thursday we're once again loadin' up on Sillari's Pizza, and this time we're releasing a beer to go with it!** That's right, Chance - our chipotle and peppercorn milk stout, made in the memory of a dearly departed doggo - comes out this week! So if you wanna be The First To Try, swing by on Thursday after three!

Instantly loveable with a little sass thrown in!

Friday is a pretty regular Friday at Home Base (i.e. we'll have nine-ish beers on draft and good times will abound, but that's pretty much the standard these days). BUT, we'll be schleppin' a case of growlers out to CBC Belmont for a tasting from 5-7! So if you don't feel like makin' the trek all the way out to Everett to get some of that Bone Up goodness (including our damn fine double IPA that just came out), come on by!

Props to anyone who makes this a multi-course meal.

Saturday we're bringin' back the snacks, and we're bringin' 'em hard. We've got Boston Bonbon comin' through the taproom for some beer and cookie pairings, and if you want some savory before you get to that sweet, Bonetown Burgers will be parked right outside! Plus, as always, we'll be slingin' soft pretzels until we sell out!

Put on just for you and totally not because we're craving biscuits.

Sunday is brunch day, and we're bringin' Fat Boyfriend back around to provide the eats! So whether you're preppin' for the Big Game, planning on hiding from it (a gentle reminder: we don't have a TV here), or simply recovering from Extreme Beer Fest, come on by and enjoy some of these treats we got for you!

But enough about sippin' suds and snackin', we promised you tales from the production floor, so we're gonna tell some tales, starting with that Big Expansion that we oh-so-blithely mentioned last week..

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People keep asking us, "Are you guys expanding? I heard you were expanding. What's the deal with that anyway?" And the answer to the first part of that is a resounding "hell yes!", though to even semi-regular readers of this here blog (and/or anybody that's spoken to us in person in the past two months) the details are gonna seem a tad anticlimactic (in the sense that this probably isn't "news" to you). In short: we're in the process of expanding our fermentation capacity by fifty whole percent! How are we doing this, you ask? By buying a bunch of equipment (mostly shiny new fermentors) we can only sort of afford! It's also worth noting that we're not expanding our actual physical space at the moment (that's a different topic for a different time), so we're doin' what we do best: taking an already-crowded space and crammin' more shit into it! Should be fun! 

So what does this mean for you, the devotees of our delicious drafts (and/or the people who skim through our blog when they're supposed to be working)? Well mostly it means we'll be able to actually follow through on our stated goals for the year (which, for the uninitiated, are roughly "More. More! More of everthang!") - more hours for the taproom,*** more distribution (i.e. we'll be on draft at more than three places. Hopefully), more (any) festivals, and so on. So basically we're gonna start being more like a "real brewery" and less like a "place with weird hours in an abandoned-looking building." This is all gonna take some time to get in place, of course (since nothing moves as quickly as we'd like it to around here), but things are in motion! We're due to get our tanks delivered in "late January," and the electrical upgrade we need should be done "definitely before February," so things should be rampin' up any day now!

And speakin' of rampin' up, you guys brought it during January's coloring contest! We received 63 completed entries (compared to like 15 the month before) and had one hell of a hard time narrowing down the finalists.**** 

But narrow it down we did! We got our winners all picked out and everything! But before we get to that, we've to get through some runners up. And! For this month only (probably), we have a Last Place entry, which goes to Kelly (yes, that Kelly). But we're not even gonna bother posting that one (you're welcome), so let's get to the Honorable Mentions, presented in no particular order...

First off is last month's winner, Victor, who had a solid shot at gettin' the gold again this month, until he succumbed to The Curse of El Pulpo and didn't finish coloring. 

Next we have John, who wins "Best Unsettling Alternate-Universe Horatio." (Though Long Lashes Horatio by Andrea was a close contender for this surprisingly popular cagtegory)

And how could we forget our award for "Best Use of Alternate Media," which goes to Cora Curtis, who tried to eat her drawing instead of coloring it (the scan doesn't do it justice but she got through a solid corner of that page). 

Hot on her heels, we have the coveted award for "Best Use of Space Pretzels," which goes to Olivia. 

Last but not least, since many of the entries were fairly by-the-book, we have "Best Straightforward Entry" which goes to Corey whose last name I really should know because I worked with him for like three years.  ​

And, since we had so many good entries this month, we've got a friggin' tie for second place! We couldn't decide between these entries by Sarah and Brooke, respectively, so we're throwin' 'em both in! Congrats, ladies - you're both almost winners in our book. 

​And now, the moment you've been waiting for all month...

This month's winner: Adrienne!*****

And if you did make the cut (here's lookin' at you, Adrienne, Sarah, Brooke, Corey, Olivia, Cora (Pinball Mitch acceptable), John, and Victor), swing on by the bar and ask for Jimbo or Jared, so's you can see us scramble to try and make up a prize on the spot. 

We had a hell of a tough time judging, and we feel like there are a bunch that deserve recognition (many of which can be seen in the slideshow below), but we ain't made of prize packs, so if you didn't make the cut, there's a new contest starting this week

Aaaand last but not least here's a quick roundup of all the cool shit we've got lined up for the next couple of weekends (and, as always, we have soft pretzels from Fat Boyfriend Bakery on Saturdays and Sundays):

Thu 2/2 Pizza Thursday w/Sillari's Pizza
Thu 2/2 Chance Stout Beer Release
Thu 2/2 February Coloring Contest begins!
Fri 2/3 CBC Belmont Tasting and Growler Pop-Up
Sat 2/4 Boston Bonbon Macaron and Beer Pairing
Sat 2/4 Bonetown Burgers Food Truck
Sun 2/5 Beer Brunch w/Fat Boyfriend Bakery
Thu 2/9 Pizza Thursday w/Sillari's Pizza
Thu 2/9 Wine Press Brookline Tasting and Growler Pop-Up
Sat 2/11 Chubby Chickpea Pop Up
Fri 2/17 Roadies Diner Food Truck
Sun 2/19 Brioche French Toast Pop Up w/Fat Boyfriend Bakery

​Whew!

* We'll spare you the details until we get things a bit more set in stone, but if you're lookin' for the Inside Scoop then you'd best ask Jared or Jimbo about Hot Sauce Nation. 
** The beer isn't specifically made to go with pizza per se, but let's be serious here. It's ​pizza. 
*** We don't have a huge number of people wandering into the production area and trying to buy beer from us while we're brewing, but it happens often enough that we'd like to address the situation.
**** There was a fair amount of pacing involved.
**** Adrienne didn't see fit to include any sort of contact info, so if you happen to know her, maybe spread the word?