After months of hard work (or a couple of days) the new and improved STL Hops Store is now open for business.  It features new products, including stickers, glassware and the long requested shirts for our female readers.

One of the other new additions is new colors for some of the t-shirts.  If you’re interested in purchasing some green t-shirts before St. Patty’s Day, you need to get your order in before Wednesday, March 10th. Also, you can expect a few new products in the real near future.

I’ve tested the store and it seems to be working without a problem.  But if you’re having a problem, please email support@stlhops.com.  I’ll try and figure out the problem.  We’re still using PayPal for online transactions.

Just a quick rundown on how the system works.  You order from this site, it will take you to the PayPal site to verify your information, and after you hit yellow continue button on the PayPal site, it will direct you back to the STL Hops store where you will have to hit the gray “Make Payment” button.  That’s the final step in the process.

The other new thing that you may have noticed on the right hand side of the screen is the new Donation Button.  What can I say, running STL Hops costs money and as I’m currently unemployed, it would be nice to have a little money rolling in.  Do you have to donate?  Absolutely not, I’ll still continue doing what I do regardless.

What do you get for your donation? Outside of the warm feeling that you’re helping someone out? There may be a joint STL Hops and stlbites.com Podcast in the near future, so you’ll help to fund that. And, I’ve thought this over and it’ll work like this:

• If you donate at least $5, you’ll get an STL Hops Sticker.
• If you donate at least $25, you get a pair of STL Hops Glassware and a 5 Stickers.
• If you donate more than $60, you’ll get a T-Shirt of your choice, a pair of Glassware and 10 Stickers.

Please remember this isn’t a charitable donation, so you claim it on your taxes or anything.  Also, if you do decide to donate and want the gift, make sure your name and address is included with the donation.

I need to get this out into the open, just for full disclosure.  I’m now officially a part-time employee of the St. Louis Brewery.  What does this mean for STL Hops?  Nothing really.

The content of STL Hops won’t change.  I’m not being asked to say or not say anything. Let’s be honest, Schlafly has the same goal as we do, to get people drinking more craft beer and to work together to get it done.

And frankly, as much as I love my new job, (I mean, I love talking about beer and now I get paid to do it) it’s a part-time tour guide position.  It’s not exactly life-changing money.

So, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, feel free to leave them in the comments sections or email me directly:  mike@stlhops.com.

Here we go again.  Last year at this time I mentioned how STL Hops had grown. For the first year of STL Hops, we had 385 posts and 1400 comments.  Over the past two years we’ve now accumulated 881 posts and 4421 comments.  That’s some amazing growth.

More importantly, we’ve created a beer community that not only has a voice that’s been heard, but I think we’ve also helped to change the local beer scene for the better. STL Hops added a St. Louis Beer List which allows users and restaurants/bars/retail to add and edit their own lists.

We’ve helped to add new breweries, like Founders, to the area.  We’ve attracted the attention of other breweries, like Stone.  We also helped to make the St. Louis Craft Beer Week a popular and exciting event.

STL Hops has been featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sauce Magazine, the Riverfront Times and we also won the 2009 Best Local Forum from St. Louis Magazine.

And I know it sounds cliched to say it, but it all couldn’t have been done without people here.  But it’s not just because people are visiting the site, it’s because people are visiting the site and are discussing beer in a positive and respectful fashion.  You wouldn’t think it would be a huge issue having people act like adults, but, this is the internet and it really is amazing to see people act their age.

I’m really proud of the site and look forward to what the next year will bring. So, I once again thank everyone who has stopped by and added something to this community. Thank you.

The process went better than I thought and I’ve finally finished the overall look for STL Hops. Well, what do you think?

I know, I know, change can be a scary thing. But I promise to hopefully make it as stress free (for you) as possible. As you all know, I’m without a job, so I need to find some ways of generating some extra income.

Being as popular as STL Hops is, it seems silly not to try and generate some income off of it. So, here are a list of things you may see changing over the next couple of weeks.

• Design Change – STL Hops has been using the exact same design for almost exactly two years now.  It’s time for a freshening up.  None of the content or resources will be changing, just the look and feel of the site.
• Ads – I know that ads can be a bit of a downer or a bit of an eyesore at times.  But I can promise that while they’ll be conspicuous, (because what’s the good of an ad if it’s not conspicuous?) I don’t think they’re going to distract from the overall feel from the site.
• More Merchandise – A few people have been asking for different colored t-shirts or women’s t-shirts, so those will soon be offered in the STL Hops Shop.  I may also start offering STL Hops pint glasses as well, if I can figure out a way to safely and cheaply ship them.
• More Content – With any luck STL Hops would start generating enough income to allow me more time to work on the site.  What that would intail is more in-depth coverage of beer happenings around town.

Thoughts?  Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?

Hate to use the blog for this kind of thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  Just found out that the contract for my position is ending on July 31st so I need to find a job.  If you need an IT professional or know of someone who needs an IT pro, please email me at mike@stlhops.com.

I’m happy to provide my resume and any references you may need.  Thanks everyone.

Things have been a bit quiet around here as of recent.  Part is that is because beer news and events seem to be a bit slower in the summer than they are in the winter.  Part of it is that, as you can imagine, I’m a bit burnt after everything that happened with the St. Louis Craft Beer Week.

So, in an effort to change all of that, I’m wondering what you’d like to see from STL Hops that isn’t currently available to you?  I’d like to stay away from reviews on the main site if at all possible, but if that’s what the people want, then I’m certainly open to the idea.

Maybe we need more contributors?  One idea I’ve toyed with is having an STL Hops Twitter Team.  The Twitter Team would be comprised of regular members of the forum that could tweet (god, I hate that word) about exciting beer information while they’re out at their favorite restaurants and bars.

One thing I think we’ll see more of this summer is discussion on the main site.  I think I’ll start posing questions like, “Where is your favorite spot to drink a beer?”  I think getting some more discussion in the comments will energize everyone.

But anyway, this is for you, what would you like to see?