In Which Some Tough Goodbyes Start to Happen

Hello again! We've got another week fulla fun times for all y'all (and also some full-on emo stuff, but we'll put that at the end), so read on up and check out all the cool stuff we've got goin' on!

Oh but before we get to all the good and/or tasty times we should mention that tonight (Wednesday) we will be closed to the general public for our last-ever mug club social. So if you've got a mug, come on out and raise it with us! ​

Comin' up first and/or foremost is cask! This time around we took a pin of trusty-tasty Shut Up Kelly and we "goosed it up" with a handful of oak cubes that we'd been soakin' in some blackberry liqueur and we don't usually get all fruity with ol' Kelly but that don't mean this won't be delicious (it will be) and it's gettin' tapped Thursday so come getcha some! ​

And speaking of beer, we should probably mention that we released All The Critters Beers in bottles, like, just now. Moments ago, or maybe yesterday. And for those of you who ain't "old heads" who've been around this particular block a jillion times, the way we used to do our wild beers was a little different than it is now - we would take a bunch of beer and funkify it and then empty a barrel and serve that straight-up (well, we'd carbonate it first, but we didn't blend funky stuff is my point) and since these weren't always particularly large amounts of beer (take a 15 gallon barrel, subtract some loss to sediment, subtract more loss to the angels' share, you're left with an amount of beer best described as "not much, really") we wouldn't bother coming up with a name and a new label every time, they were just called "Critters" with a number attached. ANYway, emptying wild barrels took a bit of a backseat to the million jillion bottles that we needed to fill, and yada yada yada now there's like six new Critters beers! Mostly in bottles! And also one on draft (right now!) and one that will be draft only at some point. 

But! Amidst all that hoopla, we did still find the time for one last big ol' brett blend and that's Wolf Pup! This one's extra-extra special on account of how it's our last-ever wedding beer and it was blended to celebrate the nuptials of friends-of-the-taproom Steph (who is a former employee, not to be confused with our current employee Steph) and Nate! Anyway that's also available in bottles right now (and will be on draft at some point) and you should come drink some of that too! ​

Alrightyroo, gettin' on to the Fun Times part of this here blog, we've got fun times! First on up is on Thursday and that's Simpsons Trivia! This time around Chris has taken it upon himself to make this the Extra Difficult Edition, which is certain to be interesting. And I promise I'm not trying to bring this up in every damn paragraph, but it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the fact that this is the last-ever Simpsons Trivia to be held here at Bone Up. It was an idea that we thought would have legs for maybe a few months but it's been going on every dang month for years and years - even after Chris moved away and quit bartending at the brewery - and we've had a lot of good times and a lot of laughs and a lot of hilariously terrible prizes (and, on the complete opposite end of that spectrum, one notable occasion when the prize was a signed poster sent to us unprompted by Matt frickin' Groening's office) and anyway as I've said a thousand times before, getting to do ridiculous stuff with y'all has been one of the things that has made Bone Up truly special and we're glad you got to be a part of it.

Anyway. Moving on. We've got even more cool shit lined up through the weekend and that starts in the afternoon on Friday when we've got our friends from Heads Up back in the house for some live screen printing! It's basically the same deal as what we do at the anniversary (only inside this time) - Heads Up is bringing four cool Bone Up designs and will be printing them on demand for the evening! They'll have blank shirts available for purchase, or you've got the option to bring your own clothes and get them printed (we recommend flannels, but hoodies are always a good choice too) so if you wanted one last opportunity to get some Bone Up apparel, now's your chance! 

And then. Also on Friday we've got live music! This time around we're rockin' on out with Beneath Purgatory, Maidenhead, Dyhanna, and Vantablack and you know it's gonna be a hell of a time, so come on out! Doors are at 6:30, music is at 7:30.

Then on Saturday we've got even more live music because it turns out that hosting live music is a lot of fun? Anyway we've got a stacked lineup full of a buncha bands that have played here a time or two before (though never inside) and that's Sundrifter, Blue Manic, Ballast, and North Star the Wanderer (most of whom are anniversary vets) and the doors are at 6 with music at 7, so come on out!

And then next week we're "playin' it cool" on account of how there's some kind of annual celebration over the weekend next week (we'll be closed Christmas Day and I'm assuming we're closing early on Christmas Eve) but I might as well mention that the week after that is our Last Weekend so we're goin' out with a bang! On Thursday the 28th we're auctioning off all the taproom hippos (which I would explain here but this post is already 5,000 words long somehow) and then live music for two consecutive nights shortly after that with Glacier, Girih, and Stryga on Saturday the 30th then Goblet, Viqueen, Karate Steve, and Graviton playing on Sunday the 31st! And then after that we'll probably all need several days to let the ringing in our ears die down.

Lastly, as though we haven't gotten emo enough for the entirety of this blog, we've got to say a couple bittersweet goodbyes. Firstly, today marks our brewer Ben's last day here at Bone Up.* He's been a part of the Bone Up family since spring of 2017 and he's been here for all the highs and all the lows we've gone through over the years - back when he started we were fermenting in plastic tanks and carbonating kegs one at a time (it was terrible and I will not elaborate on that) and thanks to some... questionable information we'd received on the power available in the building it would be several months before we were able to use those shiny new tanks that we needed so badly.

Since then, we've not only increased the amount of beer we can/do make but also added a barrel-aging program and a bottling line (which was originally just a single-head homebrew bottle filler, which was also terrible thank you for asking) and we expanded within the building (which definitely didn't come with a mountain of bullshit from the city, that's for sure) and added another barrel-aging program and then covid happened (which, somehow, also involved a mountain of bullshit from the city**) which indirectly meant we had to get and also learn how to use a canning line and Ben's just been back there making beer and learning with us this entire damn time. I got a little sidetracked there but the point is that the dude's a Fixture around here and he will be sorely missed*** and it's hard to find the right thing to say when we're sending off somebody who's been here the entire damn time (and who has stuck around during some pretty low times) so instead here's a smattering of our favorite pictures we've taken of him over the years. We love you Ben! Thank you. 

And finally, we're saying goodbye to Extra Naked. That's right, the perennial best beer on our menu has been laid to rest and all of our lives are poorer for it. We've shared many a good time with ol' XN over the years and even though we may have periodically gotten distracted by the newest thing on tap (because there's always something new on tap), Extra Naked was always there - the beer that we were never not in the mood for. It's a deceptively simple beer, recipe-wise - just two row and corn and a dash of hops from our friends at Four Star Farms - but that really just embodies the "simple done right" ethos we've always tried (sometimes unsuccessfully) to imbue into most of our beers (it's also one of the easiest beers to make, but that's not why we love it). I could keep waxing poetic about this beer (and at some point I probably will), but for now there's a crossbones-shaped hole in my heart and I'm gonna go see if I've got any cans or crowlers kicking around in the back of the fridge.

* He accepted a job at another brewery, and we're genuinely glad to see him land on his feet. Hell, we're the ones that told him to apply to this other brewery.
** The head of the building department threw a tantrum - about us specifically - so hard that it made the newspaper.
*** It's less likely that we'll miss all the ska he tends to play on the production speaker, but you never know.