Alabama legislature on beer

Sean from Fullsteam left this as a comment, but it’s too good not to post. First, I have no way of verifying this (and believe me, I tried). But this is allegedly the audio from Alabama Representative Alvin Holmes (D) arguing against the beer law last year.

Enjoy.

Will higher gravity beers be available in Alabama soon?

Maybe. The Alabama Senate Tourism and Marketing Committee voted for a bill that would allow beer up to 13.9% ABV ? very similar to Georgia laws. Currently beer sold in Alabama is limited to an insanely low 6% ABV. Which is why all our friends in Alabama fill up on beer while they’re in the great state of Georgia. According to the AP:

The legislation would permit selling many gourmet beers in grocery stores and restaurants that can’t be offered in Alabama now because they exceed the alcohol limit, said Stuart Carter, president of Free the Hops. They include Russian imperial stouts, Trappist beers from Belgium, and products from many small American breweries.

So what’s the big deal? Is this progress? In a word, yes:

Free the Hops’ efforts to get stronger beer fell so flat in 2007 that the House gave its annual Shroud Award for the deadest bill to its sponsor, Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville.

MNB gets a new stalker

Well, well, well. Now we know what Britney Spears feels like. Because it’s only when you’re truly popular that you get the weirdest of all stalkers.

Yesterday I was alerted to the fact that there is now a @FakeMondayNight on Twitter. Whoever is behind the account not only took our Twitter background and icon, but he/she also took my NAME. Not cool. Thus far they’ve only tweeted relatively tame things. But who knows when they’ll turn. Here’s an example:

So here’s what we’ve got on them:

• They know beer. (Who else would talk about a Sinebryoff Porter?)
• It’s not Joel. He’s not smart enough.
• It’s not Jeff. He doesn’t know how to use the internet.
• It might be Travis. Oooooh, Travis.

First person to leave the comment, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” gets a kick in the pants. Because I’m officially re-writing the phrase: “Imitation is the sincerest form of oh HELLLL no.”

Come forward, @FakeMondayNight. Let’s talk this out. If you have any information leading to the unveiling of this imposter, please let us know. Free beer and a pint glass goes to the informant.

Why Jeff is CEO

Yesterday I nicely asked Jeff for our IPA recipe. He responded in a snide and unhelpful manner, saying:

“Do you have the most recent one we did?  Just use that one.”

And I thought… Uh oh. This guy is starting to take his CEO position to heart. To-the-point. Showing no regard for other employee’s time. All the symptoms are there. So I thought it would be a good idea to put him in his place. Turn the screws a little bit. I responded:

“Typical CEO move.”

I was mistaken in making the above assumptions, however. Jeff took the time to write back, with the note:

“The attached file should provide some clarity to this discussion.”

This was the entirety of the attached file:

And that is why it was a great decision to make Jeff the CEO of Monday Night Brewery.

Nope. No brewing tonight.

In a move that is both precedented (which apparently is not a word) and expected, we will NOT be brewing tonight. Little 7lb, 1 oz baby Teddy still hasn’t learned how to use the bathroom by himself, and it takes at least 2 of us to baby-sit him. It’s a messy job.

Don’t show up at Jeff’s tonight. You might get some of Teddy’s dribblings on you. Take that however you would like.

Final MNB logo (hopefully)

We listened. We took appropriate time to process your comments. We found some more time to tweak the logo. And here it is:

The Week of the Logo: Day 4 Update, in which we address recent comments

Thanks again for all of your feedback. As of this post, a whopping 87% of voters chose concept B. And with a sample size of 113, I?m inclined to believe that this is statistically significant. If you haven’t voted yet, be sure to do so. Interestingly enough, most of the comments seem to be votes for concept A with an explanation of why B isn?t quite there yet. A couple concerns were brought up, which I will address in kind.

Concept B looks like his collar is too short on each side

Point taken. I think this is a function of me attempting to unbutton the top button without really adjusting the rest of the collar. I?m going to expand the unbuttoned area and lower the tie some to accommodate it.

Concept B isn?t as crisp/uncluttered

I agree. I think there are some simple things I could do to make it more easily recognizable. For one, lowering the tie will give more visual room to get the collar right.

Put a beer mug/bottle/pint glass in his hand

This suggestion has been made more than once and in various forms. And believe me, I understand why the suggestion is appealing. Toasting the end of the day is a great image to invoke. But here?s why we?re still probably not going to implement it:

We want our logo to be a platform for our identity, not our identity itself. The fewer stationary elements we include in the logo, the more liberties we will be able to take as our image evolves. For instance, for our Laissez-Faire Barleywine, we?re playing with the idea of putting a sack of money in his hand. The real guts of our image is the suit and loosened tie. This is the weeknight.

Also, we always want to keep context in mind when making these types of decisions. In initial logo development (or redevelopment) phases, we deliberately shied away from images of beer bottles or pint glasses. Why? Because our logo will primarily be seen on beer bottles and pint glasses. There?s no need to bash consumers over the head with the fact that we’re a beer company. The context will say that we?re a beer company. I can?t think of many instances in which our logo will need to stand on its own. Realistically we?ll be a small brewery with a small marketing budget. If we ever do reach the big time, our logo will already be able to stand on its own. I keep coming back to the New Belgium logo and how great it is. But there?s no reference to beer. Just a bicycle.

Last, someone brought up a similarity to the Rogue guy. While we think our logo is sufficiently different, both in concept and execution, the Rogue guy has a stein in his hand. No need to infringe on their vibe if we?ve got a perfectly good vibe of our own.

So expect what will hopefully be the final revision soon. Thanks again for all of your thoughts. This thing is going to be banging when we’re done.