A New Year's Duo of CA-Inspired Craft Beer Cocktails

Whether you're enjoying a warm holiday season in SoCal or a cooler one in NorCal, The Bruery has some CA craft beer cocktail recipes for you to enjoy. As a traveling bartender, our friend Brett has made cocktails & beertended in some of our nation's most scenic spots, but CA is the place he calls home. Have a Happy Brue Year wherever you are with these seasonal cocktail recipes.

These two drinks celebrate The Bruery’s seasonal beers and a new season for me as a transplant from Southern California to an area in San Francisco known for its Italian heritage: North Beach, filled with complex ecopoetics and beer cocktails.

The aim here is to combine both The Bruery’s complex flavors that come via aging with those of italian liqueurs, known for their complexity and recipes that are purportedly hundreds of years old.

Cleaning the Slate -- Beer Issues from 2013

Wow, it’s been a crazy year. Our barrel program has come to life, we’ve released approximately 45 different bottled releases this year, and we are starting to fill the large pair of shoes we have created for ourselves. Part of filling in those shoes is finding our weak spots and fixing them. This year we’ve had five releases that didn’t go as planned -- we want to tell you about them and what we’re doing to avoid this in the future.

Beers That Have Had Issues

As you may recall, earlier in the year we stopped shipments of Ebony & Oak and issued refunds. This beer began souring and building excess carbonation a few weeks after it was released. While bourbon barrels are usually quite stable due to once having bourbon in them, they aren’t immune from causing beer spoilage. However, usually that spoilage happens during the time in the barrel and we catch it before packaging.

Careful Cellaring, Part 4: The Barrel Maintenance Program for Living Beer

We couldn't have a blog series on the intricacies of beer cellaring without addressing the challenges and benefits of having barrel program like ours at The Bruery. In order to produce beer that is up to our quality standards, our wood cellarmen must take utmost care in working with our barrels and beer. To further explain how our barrels are taken care of, our team of wood cellarmen, Cesar Alfaro and Brett Richman, explain the basics and some FAQs.



Here at The Bruery it's the wood cellarmen's duty is to make sure that the beer that comes out of barrels are of best quality and, of course, taste delicious. In order to do so we take a lot of measures to make sure the barrels are in perfect condition before beer goes into them.

Careful Cellaring, Part 3: The Threat of Light

Another factor that can be damaging to you beer cellar is light. Did you know a beer's flavor can change in minutes in direct sunlight? Even unnatural, fluorescent light can harm your beer. The reason this happens is because the hops in beer are very sensitive to UV light. To explain what happens to the chemistry of beer, we turn again to Jess from our lab. 

Ever wonder why "lite" beers in clear bottles taste better with a lime slice and are skunky without one? It's because of a little nasty compound called MBT or as the organic chemist might say 3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol.

The odor and flavor of this compound is often reminiscent of skunks but is commonly referred to as the smell and taste of a "lightstruck" beer. The chemistry that goes on to change your delicious hops to skunkiness is well known and shown in the following graph about "The Lightstruck Reaction" (Graham, 2006):

Careful Cellaring, Part 2: The Importance of Temperature

Cellaring beer properly means paying close attention to the many elements that can make your collection age for the worse. One of the most influential factors that can cause any good beer to go bad is temperature. To best understand how temperature effects beer we've once again turned to Jess, our Quality Specialist, to explain what happens to a living beer when it spends time at less than ideal temperatures.

Why do you keep your milk or yogurt in the fridge? For some of the same reasons you would want to keep a beer in the fridge: it helps keep the beer as fresh as possible.

Too Darn Cold

Cold storage is not to be confused with frozen storage. Besides possibly making a beer-bomb in your freezer, keeping beer at sub-zero temperatures is not preferable. There actually are a few instances where freezing temperatures are used in the brewery:

Careful Cellaring, Part 1: The Quality Assurance Process for Creating Clean, Living Beer

Before a beer leaves our brewery to go to your cellar, or your bottle share, or your mouth, it has a very busy schedule as it gets approved for its release into the world. We've explained previously how working with sours comes with its own trials and tribulations, but for cellared & aged beer month at The Bruery we think it's time to delve deeper into the steps it takes to produce and release clean, cellarable, living beer.

As many a craft beer lover may know, the brewing process requires a ton of cleaning and serious attention to sanitation. This attention to detail doesn't just apply to a single brew day. To make sure a beer can be sold and consumed as it was intended to taste, every part of every brew endures our quality assurance process. It takes all levels of staff to pull this off, including our brewers, lab ladies, packaging, cellarmen, and managers. We love to make experimental ales, but with each unique experiment comes new challenges for our team to monitor.

What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 5 with Cambria Griffith

We're taking a look at some of our staff's personal beer cellars as we continue our month of celebrating (or cellarbrating?) cellared & aged beer. Today we look into the cellar tucked away in several cabinets in a (hopefully) temperate Long Beach apartment of Cambria Griffith, our Social Media & Marketing Manager.

Ok, yes, I wrote that in third person. Though my cellar might not stack up to some of those wine caves out there, I love getting surprised each time I decide to go ahead and dig in there to open something special. Thanks to this series of blogs on Bruer Cellars, I've been inspired to do a little spring winter cleaning.

What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 4 with Andrew Bell

Our brewer and infamous beer collector & trader Andrew Bell had some very thorough points on cellaring. Here's what Andrew has been up to with his beer collection.

I'm going to hold onto ___________ the longest. Probably up to _________ years/months!
I usually don't intentionally plan on aging one of my beers for more than five or six years at the longest (with a few exceptions). As far as ones that might stick around for a while: I have a case of 2011 Tilquin that will probably last another 10 years (if I open one a year), as well as a case each of Pelican's Perfect Storm and Mother of All Storms from a few years ago.

From the remaining bottles that I have of Partridge, at least one of them will last the 12 years. I ended up stocking up on that beer when it was first released and common on shelves out here in SoCal. I wasn't working for The Bruery back then, but I loved the beer fresh and ended up buying a case and a half of it around Christmastime. I still have about half a case yet. I figured that it was pretty affordable, tasty, and with all the craziness that was starting to build around Stone Brewing Co.'s 02.02.02, I figured that Partridge would probably be a good investment.

My most exciting beer opening will be _________ because I plan on opening it at ___________.

What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 3 with Matt Olesh

For the month of December, we're taking a closer look at cellaring & aging beer. So far it sounds like we have some serious gueuze and lambic fans, and given our trip to Belgium earlier this year, it's no wonder the enthusiasm for these beers is spreading among us.

Matt Olesh may be someone you know from previous beer trades or our very own Tasting Room. Here's what he has in his ever-expanding cellar.

What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 2 with Matt Becker

For the month of December, we're taking a closer look at cellaring & aging beer. One of the beautiful things about being able to cellar beer is that you can learn as go continually shrink and expand your cellar.

You might know our brewer Matt Becker is you are a New Brew Thursday fan. Here's what Matt has to say about his beer cellaring experience so far.

Check out the rest of our Bruers' cellars:

• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 1 with Benjamin Weiss
• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 3 with Matt Olesh
• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 4 with Andrew Bell
• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 5 with Cambria Griffith

What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 1 with Benjamin Weiss

For the month of December, we're taking a closer look at cellaring & aging beer. Our staff not only works with beer everyday, we obviously like to drink it too, so some of us have amassed our own beer cellar in the process.  We're opening our cellar doors (or maybe it's just a cabinet or closet door) to share our ups & downs of cellaring.

Check out what Ben, our Director of Marketing, has to say about his cellar. We had him fill out this Mad Lib so he wouldn't get bored with another Q & A asking him about his beer knowledge.

Check out the rest of our Bruers' cellars:

• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 2 with Matt Becker
• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 3 with Matt Olesh
• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 4 with Andrew Bell
• What's in our Bruers' Cellars? Part 5 with Cambria Griffith

Recipe: Aaron's Holiday Bruery Beer Cocktails

Our manager over at The Bruery Tasting Room has experience working at fancypants cocktail bars in San Diego, so when we were looking for some holiday recipes that incorporate beer, we had to include a couple bonus "recipes" that the cook might enjoy while preparing all those holiday plates. Aaron put together some new beer cocktails using each a limited release Bruery beer, a seasonal, and a brand new brew that we have not released just yet. It's tough work, but someone has to do it!

The first cocktail is a classic that has been around The Bruery since it's inception -- you will even see it in our Tasting Room from time to time: the Hottenroth Mimosa.

Recipe: Daniel's Smoked & Savory Grey Monday Wild Boar Shanks

When Daniel sent in his directions for making your own delicious-and-simple-yet-time-intensive soaked & smoked wild boar shanks in your own backyard, we couldn't help but share this one with you. And the fact that it requires we open up a little Grey Monday isn't too shabby either. For honorable mention in our Holiday Cooking with Beer Recipe contest, enjoy Daniel Fernandez's take on smoked shanks.

Full recipe after the jump.

Recipe: Stacey's Bread Pudding with Spiced Black Tuesday Sauce

The first winning recipe from our Holiday Cooking with Beer Recipe contest comes from Stacey Thompson. Her Bread Pudding with Spiced Black Tuesday Sauce is an indulgent holiday twist on a relatively simple holiday classic. We love the idea of having a "bread + liquid bread" dessert to top off an evening of gluttonous holiday dining.



Full recipe after the jump.

Recipe: Belgian Beer Geek's "Chicken a la Bruery"

Our next winner from our Holiday Cooking with Beer Recipe contest comes all the way from Belgium! Belgian Beer Geek's Kevin Desmet translated his recipe for a spiced up chicken dish that incorporates Saison Rue, our award-winning farmhouse ale made with malted rye and Brettanomyces.

I saw the post about the recipes on the FB-site of The Bruery and wanted to participate even tough I realize that Belgium is a bit too far away to really be a contender.

I made this recipe with Saison Rue (about the only Bruery beer that is easy to get around here) and posted this on my Dutch written beer blog, Belgian Beer Geek.

The spiciness of the beer nicely accentuates the spices of the chicken and the freshness of the tarragon while the carbonation cuts trough the creaminess of the sauce.

Recipe: Bräuista's Beer Cheese Fondue Macaroni & Cheese

The first winning recipe from our Holiday Cooking with Beer Recipe contest comes from Cher Lemos of Bräuista.com. Her Beer Cheese Fondue Mac & Cheese certainly works well as a filling meal, but for the sake of our waistlines we'll start this week off using her rich recipe as our contest-winning appetizer.

Nothing says comfort food to me quite like homemade macaroni and cheese. It's warm, gooey and cozy. But can I leave it at that? No can do. I had to add beer.

Harvest Beer & Cheese Pairing Favorites from our Resident Cheesemonger

Today's Harvest Month beer & food pairing comes from one of our humble barrel fellows who spends his day making sure the thousands of barrels in our warehouses stay happy and organized. Before Cesar started focusing much of his time on Bruery beer, he did a lot of homebrewing and worked at a local cheese shop.

Here around The Bruery some call me The Barrel Whisperer, but did you know when first starting at The Bruery I was also working as a cheesemonger? Let’s say I just did I did it for some extra ... cheddar.

Anyways, while working the cheese shop I learned a great deal about different varieties of cheese and how I can incorporate my love of beer to every type.

Holiday Beer & Food Pairings for the Season from our Certified Cicerone™

Our very own Director of Marketing has some thoughts to share on pairing seasonal beers with seasonal foods. For today's pairing suggestions, Ben give us his best Certified Cicerone™ thoughts on what to pair with Saisons, pumpkin beers, and holiday ales which fit this time of year all too well.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. The weather has changed and parts of the country are about to see their first snowfall. It’s time to fatten up for the winter. May as well do it in style. Right?

This is a great time of year for both food and beer. It’s not too hot to enjoy something hearty or spicy and it isn’t too cold that a frosty beer seems out of the question. There are great new vegetables popping their heads up at the farmers market and all of those malty holiday ales are starting to hit the shelves at the local bodega. So, where do we begin? As with any classic tasting, let’s go light to dark.

Harvesting a Brew: Hop School with Tyler King

The words "harvest beer" may trigger thoughts of fresh or wet hopped beers. They are indeed delicious, and though we don't make a lot of beers that taste hugely hoppy, we use hops regularly in both our sours and barrel aged beers for balance and flavor. For our third post on what it takes to harvest a beer, our Senior Director of Brewing Operations Tyler King shares his experience in visiting the Pacific Northwest during hop harvest.

During my transition from BJ’s to The Bruery I was lucky enough to visit the beautiful Yakima Valley for the 2007 hop harvest. I guess I never thought of where hops came from before my trip. With my love of wine and the countryside, I always envisioned lush green mountainsides with 20 foot tall hop towers as far as the eye could see.

Harvesting a Brew: Jessica Davis explains Working with Brewer's Yeast

So far we've explored what it takes to harvest barley for brewing, but what does it take to get those amazing little living beings we call yeast to convert that barley-sugar-water into beer? Our Lady of The Bruery Lab Jessica Davis can explain and expand your microbiology vocabulary.

You can’t get very far in a brewery without yeast. One way to keep a yeast culture going is to harvest it. Harvesting yeast implies that the cell culture has already been used to make beer. The basic principle is that you are collecting it to use again, then again and probably 10 more times.

Harvesting a Brew: Barley Basics, from Brewer Andrew Bell

As we jump into Harvest Month at The Bruery and The Tasting Room, our staff is dissecting what it takes to harvest all the parts that make up beer. With the number of craft breweries skyrocketing, it's a wonder barley and hop suppliers can keep up

It's easy to take the supply & demand of beer ingredients for granted when we're simply focusing on the enjoyment of a fresh brew, so let's get to know our beer better in our series of posts on Harvesting a Brew. This first one comes from Bruery brewer Andrew Bell, homebrewer-extraordinaire-gone-pro.

Barley is by and large the biggest harvest-able component of beer. Hops get all the glory, and beer people sometimes grow hops at home, but very rarely have you heard of people growing barley at home. In fact, very few breweries grow barley in the US -- two of the few that I can think of off the top of my head are Sierra Nevada and Rogue, and only for a small range of beers.

This is probably due to the fact that raw barley is not particularly useful for beer making. To make it useful in most circumstances, it has to be malted. The malting process is both an art and a science, and is relatively complicated and resource-heavy to do at home, or at an actual brewery, in any large quantity.

Black Tuesday - The technical side of things

Our goal at The Bruery is to create exciting beer and along with that, to share that beer with as many people as we can. It sucks when the plan to share the beer becomes an issue, as it did earlier this week with our Black Tuesday 2013 online sale.

Though our online store website initially failed us, it did eventually start working, and thanks to our amazing and patient fans we were then able to get Black Tuesday into the hands of more people than ever before. We know how frustrating this was, and we are very sorry. We appreciate the flood of comments offering advice and support, so we felt it appropriate to give you guys an outline of what happened.

10 Bruers, 5 Days, 642 Breweries -- How we Handled Ourselves at The Great American Beer Festival

With a very full schedule and crew of 10 in tow, we had quite the trip to Colorado this year for the Great American Beer Festival!

We kicked off Day 1 without with Mr. Patrick Rue, as he had already made his trek to CO so he could judge beers. Without his majestic presence, we tearfully loaded into a limobus to visit our friends at New Belgium and Odell Brewing Company in Fort Collins.

Getting our Feet Wet. In Hops?

We love our little pilot brew system. In case we aren't doing anything crazy on our regular system (which in itself is a crazy notion) we have a strapping little 3 bbl babe system beckoning us to fill it with our weirdest, most experimental, beer dreams, fantasies, and small collabs.

For almost any brewery in So Cal, (wait, let's just go with ALL of CA) brewing with a boatload of hops is increasingly common. And that's one of the things we love about our sunshine state -- we have some of the world's best hoppy beers made right in our own backyard. All. The. Time.

That's all the more reason we made the promise years ago to leave this beautiful beer style to the numerous breweries near and far that are doing a tremendous job making world-class IPAs. And all the more reason it's really bizarre that we've been working on not one, but five hoppy beers for you to try in our Tasting Room.

Tyler has been really excited about this new project, which will ultimately let you enjoy five, single-hop, fresh hopped American pale ales side-by-side (by-side-by-side-by-side). Here's his explanation of what's going on, straight from the Sr. Director of Brewing Operations himself:

It's Barrel Aged Beer Day! Happy #BABeerDay to the World!

It's the most wonderful day of the year: the first ever Barrel Aged Beer Day to celebrate all the delicious beers that spawn from the beauty of barrel aging.

As a small craft brewery with a penchant for wood, we have quite a few barrels under our warehouse roofs so that we can make the beer we love. Whether it's one of our big spirit aged ales, a sour brew, or a beer & wine hybrid, The Bruery team is passionate about coming up with beers that defy the norms and styles of beers out there, and barrels open up endless possibilities to grow our beer program.

Given that nearly every possible thing has a holiday made up for it (relax, there is an Elephant Appreciation Day and World Beard Day), we felt a day celebrating barrels and their bugs was well overdue. And so it begins, the first Friday of every October we encourage you to raise a glass (or tulip, or snifter) to Barrel Aged Beers and toast one another across the universe.

It's already been October 4th for a while in Australia. Here's an ongoing list of where we're hearing online toasts for #BABeerDay -- where are you?

A Feast of Food Pairing Ideas for Autumn Maple

Autumn is here and it's time to take a look at the great seasonal eats on the horizon as the leaves turn. This guest post comes from cookbook author and freelance writer (and our friend!) Randy Clemens:

Autumn Maple is a beautiful thing. Chock full of yams and the perennial potpourri of pumpkin pie spices, it’s pretty much a natural choice to have alongside a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. But that’s just a little too predictable for you, isn’t it? You want to dig a little deeper because you’re a gourmand. You’re clever... and I like that about you.

Funny enough, when I gave Saison Rue a shout out in a piece I did on beer pairing last year, I got an email shortly thereafter from The Bruery’s Director of Marketing, Benjamin Weiss, exclaiming, “You put a Bruery beer in a Thanksgiving article… and it wasn't Autumn Maple?! You are crazy!!!”

So, what else could you pair with Autumn Maple? I thought you’d never ask. Here are a few of my favorite things to match it up with:

Staring into the Barrel -- Our Final Days in Belgium

What do they call craft beer in Belgium? Beer.

So many beers. So many personalities. Each a mirror of their brewer.

First, Tilquin, a "blenderie." No production here. Just blending of some of the finest lambics Belgium has to offer.

The Bruery's First Day in Brussels

Our day began with the usual wi-fi check in at the nearby hotel, followed by a brisk walk through Bruges to the train station. All of us were equally excited at the idea of purchasing Belgian beer from a vending machine to drink on the train, but alas, it required ID and none of us trusted that our California ID would work. So we ended up having fun buying several bottles of cola which had our coworkers’ names on them.

Once in Brussels, it was another short walk to Cantillon. Like nearly every other beer geek, Cantillon has been on my list of bucket list breweries to visit since my first introduction to the Cantillon Gueuze in my craft beer drinking infancy. I had heard stories of others’ visits, so I knew to expect the brewery to be oddly located in an unassuming industrial building, in a not-so-glamorous area of town (sound familiar?).

The instant we walked in, a change in atmosphere could be felt. We went from the warm sweaty streets of Brussels to a cool, pleasantly humid, and deliciously smelly interior. The stern-faced lady behind the counter greeted us with a friendly smile and gave us her spiel of the brewery basics, the lambic brewing process, and how to proceed on the self-guided tour. Soon enough, we were on our merry way.

The first stop was the ‘Mashing tun’. The rustic white walls and floor of the room complimented the rustic wood and antique looking metal equipment as if it were staged for a museum… except, unlike a museum, this is completely functional and makes some of the best lambic beer around.

Cantillon, Cantillon (You're so delicious)

I think I Cantillon, therefore I can.
What tricks belie your layered lambics?
The guzzled gueuze that goes so quick?
With sours of cherries, grapes and raspberries.
A perfectly balanced lot, like your teetering tin man, a teetotaler not!

Cantillon, our fermenter mentor, our tormentor.
Spiders in webs, wed beside barrel heads. Spying on flies.
So is this where spontaneous souring secrets lie?
Or in the wood beams, near the coolship tun?
(Is there no health department in Belgium?)
I've prayed tell us, what games, will say the rows of
Rosé de Gambrinus, are played?

Forget it. A sip of Lou Pepe made with Schaerbeekse,
a Zwanze, a Kriek, a Framboise. A fanboy am moi.
An ode to an oude gueuze of 2006.
What would I owe to taste the brett in that mix ... again?
So much to gain.
I think I Cantillon, therefore I can.

Yes, this beer poem was indeed written by Carl Katz, our CFO and resident champion of eastern culture ... and poems.

We're Famous! In Belgium, at Least

We were part of a Belgian TV Show segment while visiting 3 Fonteinen during our pilgrimage! Check out Patrick, Matt, Carl, Ben and Tyler in the clip starting at about 2:03



Thanks to our very astute Facebook fan Kevin Dvs, we have a translation of what master brewer and lambic blender Armand Debelder is talking about after we handed off some of our beer to him!

Basically they are saying that a lot of americans are visiting 3 Fonteinen. The commentator says that it is unbelievable how much these americans know about Armand's brewery and that they almost see Armand as an idol; they have an unlimited respect for him. 

Armand himself doesn't understand this hype around his person. After the conversation in English (when Armand is pouring some gueuze) he says that his brewery is some kind of Disneyland for American brewmasters. Then he says that he visited USA in June, and when he told people he is a belgian brewer, Americans considered him as a rockstar and wanted pictures with him. 

The commentator says 3 Fonteinen was almost broke 15 years ago but because of the big interest from American customers and other foreigners, they survived. Now they can't keep up with the orders from abroad. If Armand wants to, he can sell all his stock to American customers but he doesn't do that because he's loyal to his local customers. 50% is export.

Kevin kindly explained the highlights of the rest of the piece as well:

Belgium, Day 3

Lets start at the very Beguine, a very fine place to start.

For our first day of brewery tours, we loaded up in Serge's van and headed towards Antwerp. Not far from there, in the area of Mechelen is Het Anker, a brewery that is on a location where beer had been brewed for over 700 years. In the 1400s, the Beguine sisters received permission to brew beer here. Beguines and Beghards were an indigenous Catholic religious order, whose adherents performed works of mercy, which included running hospitals, baking bread for the poor and, at this particular Beguinage (convent), brewed beer.

A local volunteer took us on a tour of Het Anker. We tried to explain that we were an owner and employees of a brewery in the States, but the point got lost. Tyler especially enjoyed hearing how beer includes four basic ingredients and how yeast turns sugar to C02 and alcohol.

Belgium, Day 2

Note to self... when seeking to conquer a foreign land, be well rested.

Our 20 hour journey from Orange County to Chicago to Brussels to Brugge took its toll on us. We arrived in Belgium on Tuesday (though it might've been Wednesday), met our driver Serge, who took us the 90 minutes to Brugge.

The Bruery Takes Off for Belgium

Belgium is a door mat. In the course of European history, one country/kingdom/empire/duchy can't conquer another without trampling over the country. It's the original Game of Thrones.

In the course of the last 2000 years, the Romans, French, Habsburgs, Vikings, Germans, Spanish, English, Austrians, and countless fiefdoms have had there way with large swaths of the Low Countries. No wonder Belgium is the world's beer capital, as what could be more needed than a nice pint after another day of storming the castle?

Today, The Bruery prepares for its own invasion.

Sour Barrel Aged Beer 101 -- Packaging

It's time for our last blogpost about sour barrel aged beer. Whether it's brewing, cellaring or packaging these beers, each step of the process takes extreme diligence and care to make sure our sour (an non sour) beers stay happy. Such is the life of employees that work at a place that makes crazy delicious barrel aged sours and non sours under the same roof!

Packaging these unique beers not only requires duplicate equipment, which takes up space, funds, and requires even more cleaning; it also takes extreme attention to detail and utmost care, as this is the last stop before the beer heads out on its way to you (and if we're putting a beer in your hands, we want to be proud of it.)

Not only is the chance of cross contamination risky business, barrel aging introduces a plethora of other things that can potentially lead to unpredictable (and even unwanted) outcomes. If one barrel has an unwanted bug that goes undetected,  it might do nothing, or it might ruin a whole batch over time. Alas, these are the challenges we put up with to make the beer that excites us. YOLO?

Great Lakes of Bruery Beer are Coming

In just one week, we'll be launching The Bruery in the state of Michigan!!

Jonas and Cambria will be in Detroit next week to kick off our most recent addition to our list of US states where our beer is distributed, and we want you Michiganders (or Michiganians) to be a part of this launch. We're having an Instagram contest with $100 of Bruery swag for the winning photo. Here's how to enter the contest.