Estate Hops

Here's Tyler and Kevin sorting through all of our estate hops, which you may have seen growing out front of the brewery. We grew Zeus, Chinook, and Cascade. We threw a bunch of them into an estate hop pilot batch, so make sure you come by and try some when it's ready!

Cute Dogs Love Our Beer

Name: Rosko

Age: 2.5 months

Favorite Bruery Beer: Saison Rue

Bruery events around GABF

Looking for some amazing meals while in Denver for GABF? We have three fantastic events scheduled at some of Denver's best restaurants:

Tuesday, 9/14, 6:30pm: Mizuna Brewer's Dinner featuring Great Divide, Stone Brewing Co., Moylan's Brewery and The Bruery (of course). The dinner will feature two beers from each brewery paired along five courses. Brewery representatives will be on-hand to discuss each beer. Reservations required.

Mizuna

225 E. 7th Avenue

Denver, CO 80203

303.832.4778

http://www.mizunadenver.com

Wednesday, 9/15: Bruery Beer Dinner at Colt & Gray. Six exceptional courses paired with some of our best beers. Not to give away all of the secrets, here's a selection from the menu:

Two Plates: Baked Mussels with Coriander & Orange AND Oysters on the Half Shell with Lemon Grass & Lavender Mignonette, Trout Roe

Orchard White

Barbecued Pork Belly with Creamy Succotash and Cheddar Dusted Puffed Pork Rind

Saison Rue

Grilled Coffee Rubbed Lamb T-Bones with Cress Puree and Cherry & Rhubarb Compote

Oude Tart

Our mouths are already watering! Reservations required.

Colt & Gray

1553 Platte Street #120

Denver, CO 80202

303.477.1447

http://www.coltandgray.com

Saturday, 9/18, 9am-11:30am: Breakfast with The Bruery at The Cheeky Monk (Colfax location). Let's be honest, by Saturday of GABF week we can all use a good hangover cure. So back by popular demand, The Cheeky Monk will again be opening their doors early to The Bruery & their fans. Come meet The Bruery team and enjoy delicious brunch selections with Berliner Weisse & Orchard White mimosas, as well as a tasting flight showcasing The Bruery's diverse & creative beers. Very casual (pajamas welcome!) and pay-as-you-go, but reservations suggested.

The Cheeky Monk

534 East Colfax Avenue

Denver, CO 80203

303.861.0347

http://www.thecheekymonk.com

We'll also be participating in the Denver Rare Beer Tasting II at Wynkoop Brewery on Friday, 9/17. Hope to see you all at one or all of these great events!

Black Tuesday-- Apology and More Details

I apologize to everyone who wanted tickets to Black Tuesday and weren't able to get them. I hope you understand we are a small brewery that is just over two years old, and a release like this is something an organization of our size struggles to get its arms around. In addition, we've been consumed lately with opening a new retail store, brewing at capacity, and facing all of the challenges of being a recent startup.

There were 250 tickets available, and we believe around 1,250 people trying to get them. If we had executed perfectly, there would still be unhappy people. We do aim to execute perfectly, and given the circumstances I'm happy with how things went. After hearing from our customers on how it went for them, I hope you'll trust me in believing we're not patting ourselves on the back.

We created Black Tuesday, but we did not create the demand for it. That's all thanks to you guys. Demand is a wonderful thing, but it kinda sucks for everyone when the demand can't be filled. Perhaps that's part of the allure of Black Tuesday.

Here's a list of issues encountered, and my take on them:

-- eCommerce Site Issues: Our eCommerce supplier certainly has it's weaknesses, but it's the best we can afford. As some have suggested, if we did go through Ticketmaster, the same amount of people who wanted tickets still would not have tickets. I apologize for the several minutes of filling out a form to come short tickets at the end. That does indeed suck, and now we'll all know that tickets aren't guaranteed until the entire transaction is complete. I'm relieved after upgrading to a dedicated eCommerce server that it went as smoothly as it did today. Word of advice to other breweries planning releases similar to Black Tuesday: Do not trust your eCommerce provider when they say it can handle the demand of thousands hitting refresh at the same time. Just go with their most expensive plan for a month and cross your fingers.

--Reserve Society: For those disappointed Reserve Society members, I feel badly about the responses we've received. I felt we were being fair in allocating 2 bottles, plus the 1 bottle you get with your membership. Reserve Society members are guaranteed to receive Black Tuesday. If Reserve Society members were able to purchase the tickets for the release party first, there would only be Reserve Society members going and we'd be taking flack from everyone else. We'll announce details soon for a barrel tasting for Reserve Society members in November, and I can assure you Chocolate Rain and Cherry Chocolate Rain (along with a lot of other unusual stuff) will be pouring. I promise it'll be a fun time.

--Remaining Black Tuesday: We will be releasing more bottles on Oct. 27th through our website. Yes, the same crappy website, so please be prepared to complete your transaction before you find out whether you got any bottles or not. This release will account for the largest amount of bottles sold, but since we haven't yet bottled Black Tuesday, we don't know precisely what the bottle count will be.

As great as all of the attention is around Black Tuesday, it has become a curse as well. Today's events certainly did not enhance our reputation as a craft brewer. Business advisors recommend that we charge according to supply and demand (keep in mind these business advisors don't follow craft beer too closely). I'd hate to sell Black Tuesday for $50, $80, or even $100 a bottle, even though we probably could and still sell out within a reasonable period. I can imagine what nasty eMails I'd be receiving if that was the case. I feel $30 is a lot of money to pay for a bottle of beer, and it gives me a dirty, uncomfortable feeling inside to think of charging more.

For those who eMailed us today (we received hundreds of eMails, mostly from unhappy people), please be patient as Stef and Kevin get back to you. There are a lot of requests we simply cannot accommodate, so I apologize in advance.

I still feel this is a better way of releasing a beer that has so much demand, but as we all know it still doesn't fix that demand / supply problem. It does help that "sitting in a dusty, dark alleyway beerless and wondering if you'll be able to get beer anytime soon" problem.

As the old adage goes, you can't please everyone. In this case, I don't think we pleased the majority. Ulcers develop in my stomach as I imagine what next year will bring.

I am blessed to have such great fans and I hope we have the opportunity to win over those who are currently disappointed with us.

Cheers,
Patrick Rue
The Bruery

Weekend of August 13th at the Tasting Room

Highlights this week:

- Fresh Humulus Lager back on tap

- All 14 taps flowing this weekend!

• Kogi BBQ on Friday

• Crepes Bonaparte on Saturday

• The Lime Truck on Sunday

Happy Friday the 13^th to all! We hope you can stay out of trouble long enough to last the work day. To celebrate surviving this notoriously bad day, come down to the Tasting Room tonight and have yourself a glass Mischief. It only seems appropriate.

Each and every one of our 14 taps will be pouring this weekend so if you've got a friend who's never been to The Bruery, now is a good time to bring them in for a flight. We also have a fresh batch of Humulus Lager that we're tapping today for the first time and it's tasting great!

Our food truck lineup is as follows for the weekend. Kogi BBQ on Friday, Crepes Bonaparte on Saturday, and The Lime Truck on Sunday.

This weekend we're pouring:

Orchard White*

Saison Rue

Rugbrød*

Mischief*

Hottenroth Berliner Weisse*

Trade Winds Tripel**

Humulus Lager*

Humulus Rice*

Humulus Gold*

Seven Grain Saison*

Filthy Blonde*

Filthy Redhead*

Melange No. Sechs

Autumn Maple

* = Growler fill available

**= Reserve Society Growler fill

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Stef & the other folks at The Bruery

Our beer is in Belgium?!

Jay, one of our awesomely fantastic brewers, recently went on a trip with his family across the pond to Paris and of course he had to make a quick stop in Brussels, seeing as he was so close. No surprise, he happened upon many amazing beers that one could never buy in the US, but to great surprise, the world famous Delirium Cafe in the heart of Brussels had not one, not two, not three, but FOUR of our beers in stock!

If that wasn't cool enough...their giant, enormous, telephone directory of a beer menu has a page featuring our info with a photo of another one of our brewers, Travis!

Does the cool stop there? Not really. Jay bought a bottle of our Saison Rue to share with the bartender and other staff and was rewarded with a comment that it was one of the best Brett beers they had ever tried from America. This compliment coming from a bartender at what is often regarded as the best beer bar in the world, right in the heart of Belgium, is simply remarkable.

Slainte!

Fruit Delivery

We just got in an awesome delivery of various fruit to add to a few of our sour beers that are slowly aging away. Raisins, cranberries, tart cherries, grapes, kiwis, raspberries, dates and a whole slew of goodness. We just need to stop snacking on it all before we can get it into the beers.

Brewing Education

We like everyone on our staff to know as much as they possibly can about beer and here that means more than just tasting beers and studying flavor profiles. It means more than reading books about the history of barley and ancient fermentation techniques. It even means more than setting yourself up with a 5 gallon homebrew pot on your stove. Here, at The Bruery, it means you are going to get your hands dirty and your brow sweaty.

Today, we had our Tasting Room (and soon to be Bruery Provisions) staff put on some rubber boots, tie their hair back and get here early in the morning to help Tyler, Travis and Jay brew a batch of Autumn Maple.

There isn't too much to else to say on the subject, so we'll just let these few photos of Jarred and Kendra do the talking.

Our new brewers are rather tired, but Tyler gives them a big thumbs up.

The Bruery Provisions

If you haven't yet heard, we're opening up a brand new retail space in Old Town Orange!

Click here for the announcement and head on over to our new blog that will document the opening of the new space as well as keep you up to date with whats new in stock and what events are going on from week to week. brueryprovisions.blogspot.com

We're pretty darned excited about it all, but as anyone who has followed this blog from the beginning knows, opening a new business can be mighty stressful. So don't be mad if we snap at you from time to time at the Tasting Room over the next few months :)

Ohana Brewing Company

About four years ago when I was brewing at Bj's Restaurant & Brewery in West Covina I had the pleasure of working with Karsen Luthi. Today Karsen, along with Berne Bush and Leo Martinez, are opening a brewery in Los Angeles. Ohana Brewing Company (Ohana is the Hawaiian word for “family”) is located south of the Arts District and is currently in the construction phase. You can follow their progress on the company's blog at www.ohanabrew.com. Ohana will be brewing on a 7bbl brewhouse that was once used to brew all of the wonderful beers from Craftsman Brewing Company. Karsen says they are targeting a December 2010 opening with an IPA, Smoked beer, Pale Ale and a Session beer (as of right now) but don't ask him about the last one because they're keeping it a secret! I wish them the best of luck and I can't wait to try their beers!

You can chat with Karsen about his brewery at Stein Fillers (local home brew shop) where he works part-time.