This is a last call on ordering a green STL Hops T-Shirts if you want it in time for St. Patrick’s Day. These shirts are the perfect addition for your St. Patty’s Day celebrations. Must have orders in before Midnight.
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Category: Beer Love
Being completely oblivious about wine, I was unaware of this idea put forth called “Open that Bottle Night.” The plan is to break out a bottle of wine that you’ve been sitting on and actually drink it. No special occasion needed, you’re simply drinking the wine to enjoy it.
This is brilliant. I’m sure that I’m not unlike a lot of you. I’m sure that you have a few (or more) beers that you’ve set aside for that special occasion. Sometimes though it begins to get difficult to open to beers just because you’ve sat on them for this long, they may be better if they sit a little longer. Or maybe the occasion just isn’t special enough.
But enough of that, it’s time to open that beer. So, this is the plan, we’re all going to open up something from our cellars this week and post it in the comments. Let us know what you thought about your beer. How it’s aged, how it tastes, are you happy with the results, etc.
I’m curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.
If you’re an avid reader of Indiana’s beer blog, Hoosier Beer Geek, you may have noticed this little nugget of information in a recent interview they did with Tyranena Brewing Company’s Stacey McGinnis:
“As far as opening distribution in other states, we have also been contemplating heading into Missouri, however, it’s not really an either-or kind of situation. When the time is right, we will take Tyranena where we feel it will be sold, consumed, marketed and appreciated appropriately!”
That sounds like we have another prime opportunity to bring a top tier brewery to Missouri. If you haven’t had any of their beers, you’re in for a real treat. Their Bitter Woman IPA is fantastic, as was The Devil Made Me Do It! Imperial Oatmeal Coffee Porter when I got to try it.
They sound like they’re on the edge, so let’s push them over that edge. It doesn’t take much to sit down a write out a couple of sentences to a brewery letting them know how interested and excited you are to have their product.
Let’s begin our campaign by letting Rob Larson (Founder of Tyranena) and Stacey McGinnis (Front Operations Manager) know how much you’d love to seeing Tyranena in St. Louis. And for all of those who don’t know what to say, it can be as simple as this:
Dear Rob and Stacey,
I recently read an interview that stated you were interested in coming to Missouri. I just wanted to send you an email to let you know just how much I’d love seeing Tyranena’s beer in my hometown.
I’ve always found that you guys produced some of the best beer in the Midwest, if not the United States. St. Louis and Kansas City both have rich beer history and your product would only help to continue that image. Please consider coming to Missouri soon!
Sincerely,
STL Hops Reader.
Let’s make this happen guys, this is another great brewery I think we’d all love to see in our local bars and retail shops.
I’ve been told by a number of people that Burns Night at the Schlafly Tap Room is one of their favorite beer events in St. Louis. I can now proudly count myself as one of those people as well.
If you’ve never attended, you must try and do it at least one. The pageantry, the revelry, the poetry, the delicacies and of course the beer. It makes for one hell of an evening. If you weren’t able to attend, here’s some photos from the evening.
First of all, big thanks to Schlafly, Stephen Hale, Andy White and Brennan Greene for helping out with this event. It couldn’t have nearly as successful without their help.
Second, thanks to Clayton for selling raffle tickets, we raised a ton of money because of his help. Third, thanks to Sean Thompson for taking photos of the event, I wish I would have taken some myself, but honestly (and I say this with absolutely no hyperbole) I was having so much fun I forgot.
But if you didn’t attend this is a small gallery of what you missed:
I once again want to thank all of the breweries and distributors, O’Fallon, Schlafly, Morgan Street, Buffalo Brewing Company, Missouri Beverage, New Belgium Brewing and Boulevard, that participated in donating time and beer.
I also once again want to thank the following places for donating items for raffles and giveaways:
- Bigelo’s Bistro
- Bon Vivant Wines
- Boulevard Brewing
- Cicero’s
- City Gourmet
- DeVine Wines
- Pi Restaurant
- Major Brands
- Missouri Beverage
- New Belgium Brewing
- Randall’s Wines and Spirits
- Riddle’s Penultimate Café & Wine Bar
- Salon 231
- Wine and Cheese Place
- Whole Foods Galleria
After everything has been paid for, we raised an amazing $2141.65 for Stray Rescue of St. Louis. I was flabbergasted by the generosity of everyone involved and this money is going to a great cause. This is a huge gain over last year’s $800.
Thank you all, once again for a fantastic event and a fantastic year of beer in St. Louis. I’m looking forward to planning next year’s event already.
This was our last full day in Denver, so we headed to Fort Collins, CO to check out New Belgium Brewing. I was lucky and was able to visit New Belgium last year during GABF. While my tour last year was a lot of fun, this year we got a tour from New Belgium’s Sensory Specialist, Lauren Salazar.
Notes from Day 3, New Belgium Brewing:
- It shouldn’t surprise you that this place is huge. Just enormous.
- Which is why they’re on schedule to do 500,000bbls this year.
- This first photo below is the original brewing system that New Belgium started with.
- Check out Sponge Bob eating a pizza!
- Yes, this is the second day in a row I got to visit the top of a brewery’s fermentation tanks.
- As you may know, this company is very green. You can see the new solar panels they’re installing.
- Drinking beer right off of the large wooden barrels is really cool.
- I asked Lauren about the change in La Folie, she told me that she realized that she was making the beer more for her palette and not for the consumers. Which is why the sourness has been scaled back a bit to make for a more balanced beer.
- While we saw the bottling line, we didn’t actually get to see it in action.
- But I did get to see it last year and I’ve included a video below.
- Yes, that really is a slide and yes you really can slide down it.
I said something similar last year, but I’ll say it again. If beer drinking was a sport, than to me Schlafly’s Hop in the City always feels like the beginning of a new season. It feels like the kick-off to a new year of beer and beer festivals and this kick-off never seems to disappoint.
I’m sure we can all see how much I loved the festival beer. A few suggestions for next year are that I would look at different pouring configuration in the large tent. As we all know, too many people congregate near the pouring areas and there wasn’t a lot of room on the east side of the large tent. Also, maybe some signage about, “Get you beer, then move your rear.”
If you were unable to attend, here are a few photos of the festival which will hopefully tide you over until next year:
