Beer Tap TV names Monday Night Brewery “beer blog of the week”

I don’t know what they’re smoking drinking, but Beer Tap TV named Monday Night Brewery the beer blog of the week. Hey, we’ll take it. I queued up the video of the show to the part where they start talking about us (around 31:30 in, if you’re curious). There is also a dog that runs into the frame, thus proving a point I’ve been trying to make for years, that dogs enjoy weeknights more than weekends.

Thanks for the love, guys!

It’s Business Time

MNB is officially open for business.  Okay, so we’re not selling beer but due to numerous requests for MNB paraphernalia (and the fact that those capitalistic shareholders are putting some pressure on us to generate SOME revenue) we are opening the MNB store.  You can visit this online shopping mecca by simply clicking the new “Shop” button added to the menu at the top of the site.

Right now our inventory is limited to pint glasses and t-shirts.  Here’s the good news:  if you buy a pint glass you are guaranteed to get major kudos from friends when you tell them you’re part of the hot new micro which hopes to someday launch in Georgia.  So go buy your MNB merchandise, wear the t-shirt, drink from your pint glass, and stop by sometime to show your support.

2x the months, 2x the pint glass winners

August slipped by without a monthly pint glass winner, but we plan on picking up the slack this month. I would like to formally congratulate August’s winner, Tom of Bearbrook. He lives near Nashville, my hometown, which automatically makes him cool.

Not to be outdone, Eric of Cure For What Ales You and Evolvor was also randomly selected to be September’s winner. This month I used an emerging quantitative technique called “close my eyes and scroll through my address book.”

Congrats guys! Expect your pint glasses to arrive soon. Beer not included.

Georgia hates microbreweries

Our neighborhood restaurant (and by that I don’t mean Applebee’s) is incredible. It’s called the Treehouse and it’s a converted house with a huge deck, great food, and g eat beer.

In a recent visit there I was quite disappointed to find that nearly all (3 out of the 4) beers they carried on tap were no longer available. At first I thought the waitress was just kidding but as I explored the topic further I became a bit upset. Turns out all three of these beers now have a new distributor in the Atlanta area. Turns out that distributor (who shall remain nameless) is the “King of Beers” and as part of their policy they simply won’t be selling to small establishments such as the Treehouse. Not cool in my opinion.

Georgia has this wonderfully insane system that essentially gives all power to the distributors and big brewers and screws both the consumer and the microbrewers (see article). In a country and a time where the small guy is able to compete like never before (ex. mom and pop can compete against Fortune 500s via tools like ebay) we have this strange segment of products (beer) that just haven’t gotten the benefit ? especially in Georgia.

Hopefully the landscape will start to change in the coming years. Stay tuned for things like Support Your Local Brewery, SaveBeer.org and other grassroots movements to force political change (as well as tastebud changes for all our friends who have NO idea what good beer tastes like). And remember at the end of the day to support your local establishments (if they are not Applebee’s).

This month’s pint glass winner: some “Mike” guy

Congrats to Mike from St. Louis for having the wherewithal to have his name chosen at random! He has already stepped up to claim his prize, but there’s still plenty of time to sign up for next month’s chance to win two fully functional Monday Night Brewery pint glasses.

We’re glad Mike won because he brews his own beer. That’s right. A homebrewer. On tap at Mike’s house right now? A nut brown ale, with James Spencer APA in the bottle and a dark brown ale in secondary. I can’t imagine any one of those not tasting better in a Monday Night Brewery pint glass!

MNB reaches out to bikers

My father is a motorcycle enthusiast. Not Harleys, so don’t worry. More like BMW off-road bikes. He also does a bit of track work (that’s him on the left). That said, he asked us to create a custom brew for an annual motorcycle event held in North Carolina. Needless to say, we decided to do it. MNB can use all of the free marketing we can get at this point, given that we’re not so much “funded.”

And now it’s official. My dad’s motorcycle buddy, and our go-to man as we develop these beers, just posted on their discussion board about our efforts. See the “Special Beverage” section. We’re FAMOUS.

The Dogfish Head of the South

Whilst washing about 200 bottles last Saturday, Jeff, Joel and I participated in another segment of what has been an ongoing MNB discussion: what kind of brewery should we be?

We’re early enough in the brewery creation stages that we can still shift gears fairly easily. And this is something we will continue to wrestle with as we concoct our brewing schedules and formulate our recipes. While the marketing will (hopefully) communicate who we are, it all has to be backed up by the beer.

So, long story short, we stumbled upon this notion of being “the Dogfish Head of the South.” Dogfish Head is a Delaware-based microbrewery that we all admire. I don’t think their marketing is all that great, but they definitely make up for it in their beers. They have some killer “old faithfuls” such as their 60 minute IPA, but they also aren’t afraid to experiment, and many of their beers have a unique twist ? a hoppy apricot beer, a raisin-infused Belgian, an IPA/brown ale, etc.

We don’t think Dogfish Head is the most accessible of breweries (you can’t just name a beer “Raison D’Etre” and expect everyone to get it), and since part of our mission is to educate the Bud-drinkers of the world about good beer, we would like to bit more user-friendly. So… a slightly more accessible Dogfish Head.

We would appreciate any of your comments as we try to pull our thoughts together on who we should be. At this stage everyone has a lot of influence. Ultimately we want to be YOUR brewery, so let us know what you think.