Schlafly Brewing did something pretty unique this week when it announced its new Helles Lager to Twitter followers online. Dogfish Head did something similar recently, revealing ‘Brand X’ to be Sahtea. The beer will be released on/around March 27, shortly after the onset of spring. I’d tell you more but the site appears to be down at the moment. Instead, here are a couple more Twitter breweries to follow! Lost Abbey, Firestone Walker, and Hoppin Frog.
Cigar City Brewing did not pass its inspection but is hoping for a re-inspection shortly.
Meanwhile, can anyone shed some light on what this post is about from Todd at BA? Freedom is afoot at BA perhaps?
Kid Rock will bring a few hundred jobs to Michigan apparently. Who knew he’d be the economic savior? And how is he doing it? With a new beer deal with Michigan Brewing Co. Any thoughts on this one?
The National IPA Championships are about to start. “Great Lakes Brewing News is thrilled to annouce the 2nd Annual National IPA Challenge. As with last year, participating IPAs from across the nation will be randomly chosen for a 1:1 single elimination bracket tournament. Winners of the first round will advance to the next. The complete IPA tournament bracket (see outline on back of this page) will be published in the February/March issue of Great Lakes Brewing News and posted on-line. The events will be held at beer festivals across the nation, beginning February 22. The judges will all be brewers. As with last year, IPA lovers will be able to choose their winners for each round on-line.”
Finally, Buddhist monks apparently built a temple out of 1 million beer bottles. Impressive.
The BA comment was a post from Todd with a new policy outlawing store/website pimping of any kind. He said something along the lines of “if you want to pimp your stuff, contact us about advertising”. Several members, including me, said that they didn’t like the new rule because it specifically forbade posting “Beer X is available at Store Y”, which many of us use to track down beer. The new rule also didn’t allow you to post an event on the calendar, then start a forum post to draw attention to it, stating that the calendar was enough.
That policy seems to be a bit much. Wish I had more to say about it other than it’s a rough market out there.