Well Ben, you guessed right. Seattle Ale Houses gave us a tap! This morning I delivered two kegs of 3-Grid to the Hilltop Ale House up on Queen Anne. We can't tell you how excited we are to have our beer flowing there. This is quite an accomplishment for us. Thanks to the crew at the Hilltop and to Seattle Ale Houses for supporting Washington Beer! Cheers.
It's one of our favorite times of year, it's HOPTOBERFEST!!! Starting tonight, October 5th, the Beveridge Place Pub will feature rotating IPAs and everyone gets to choose their favorite. At the end of it all, the winner will be the house IPA for the year. This is Schooner Exact's first year in the competition and we just know that the hometown crowd is going to bring it home for us. It has been an amazing year so far and we could not do it without our friends and fans. So swing on by and you just may run into us stuffing the ballot box enjoying a pint and casting one single ballot per day. See you there!
Good news everyone!!! We just received a new account north of downtown and this is a big one for us. Come to think of it, they're all big for us... I'm not going to tell you EXACTly where it is until I deliver two kegs of 3-Grid IPA on Saturday morning but I will tell you that it is at the Top of a Hill... They agreed to try us for a month, so stay tuned to find out where you will have another continuous source of 3-Grid IPA. We're also delivering the first group of kegs to the Beveridge Place Pub tomorrow night for the beginning of Hoptoberfest. We'd be honored to accept your vote in this year's competition for BPP's IPA house tap.
We have been getting some great feedback from our last event at Beveridge Place Pub. First, our friend the Beer Retard stopped by and luckily he decided to stay and hang out with us for a while. We had a great conversation with him about lots of different things and he is looking to do some homebrewing himself. Hopefully we can get him down to the brewery and he can do a podcast of us and learn some stuff at the same time.
We also had Maggie Dutton From the Seattle Weekly swing by incognito and do some sampling. We are glad she made it out to see us since we have not heard from Weekly crew since our interview with them last summer. We hope that next time she comes out she can come say hi.
In other news, last night we experienced another first. Due to the summer heat, out chilling system has not been able to keep up and we have been down to only tow brews a week. Now that fall is here in full swing and things are cooling off we were able to have all four fermenters going at once! Woohoo!! More beer for you and we are working hard to get it out to a few more places. We will be participating in Ray's Boathouse Brewmasters Dinner on the 25th of October. Unfortunately the event is already sold out, it sold out in two days! We are looking forward to seeing those lucky few that were able to get tickets!
We'll also be joining one of our favorite places, of course, the Beveridge Place Pub, for their Hoptoberfest! All during the month of October they will have a grand selection of IPAs on tap for you to enjoy. You will also have the chance to vote for your favorite, and the winner gets to be the house IPA until the event next year. So come on down, vote early, vote often, and keep the trophy local here in West Seattle! Hope to see you there!
So there is a lot to talk about since we were last here. With all the commotion and vacations and such during the summer months, we have been hard at work. First, since you, our loyal readers and drinkers are here, I will start with the news that you should look out for a complete redesign of the website. We will have a few different sections, a page all about the beers, photos, news, events, and we will keep the blog going as well.
Fermenter #4 has finally been delivered and is online, we put the first batch into it just a couple of days ago which was a slice of Schooner Exact Brewing history for a couple of reasons. One, obviously because it was the first batch into the new fermenter, but also because it was #100! That's right, we are now up to 100 batches since we decided to take this little venture on. The additional fermenter will allow us to get more of the beer you love so much ad we will be expanding the number of places it is available. This is very important to us since we know a lot of you are not in West Seattle, so be on the lookout here and we will let you know where to go.
A little good news and a little bad news. First, the bad news is that as the days get shorter and nights cool down, we must retire our beloved Gallant Maiden Hefeweizen fore year. There may be just a little left up at the Beveridge Place Pub if you hurry. Of course, with the end of one season, comes the beginning of a new one. Therefore we will begin working on this year's version of Hoppy Holidays Winter Ale. We are hoping to start getting that out to everyone in mid-late October. Since last year we only started being available in late January, we feel like it was short season and even through the summer we kept hearing about how much people were looking forward to it. So, even though it will be a limited supply, we will do our best to make it a longer season.
Of course, more than anything else, we enjoy getting out to the pubs and interacting with you. We love hearing the stories of how you heard about us and getting feedback on our beers or just sitting back and having a pint together. We will be getting out there a couple of times this month. First we will be at the HopFest at Brouwer's Cafe in Feremont. We will be one of over 60 IPAs they will have on tap from September 7-14. We hope to see some of you there! We will also be having a very special night at the Beveridge Place Pub. On September 13th we will be having a side by side tasting of our 3-Grid Imperial IPA. This just like the good old 3-Grid that you know and love, but more of it. More malt, more alcohol, and WAY more hops!! The side by side part comes in that we will have it on a regular tap, and have it in a dry hopped, naturally powered cask. Same batch, different serving methods, try both and see the difference for yourself. Also that night, we have something very special. So special in fact, that we are not even going to tell you what it is. Once the cask goes dry, we will put it on line, so you have to hang out to see what it is, but I can guarantee that you will not be disappointed. Cheers!
Happy July 3rd everyone!!!
Since tomorrow is the 4th and all of you are looking for something fun to do this evening we will be releasing our new summer ale, Gallant Maiden Hefeweizen. We are conducting the release at the usual spot, The Beveridge Place Pub. Please join us this evening if you happen to be free.
Where: BPP, 6451 California Ave SW, Seattle, WA98136 (one block north of Fauntleroy on California, west side of the street)
When: July 3rd, 6pm
What: Schooner Exact Brewing’s newest treat, Gallant Maiden Hefeweizen!
Why: Why not, we don’t have to work tomorrow….
If you can’t make it please have a happy 4th!
Wow! Today was great! The turnout from people coming out to see us was amazing. It's fun to be the new guys that everyone wants to come see. We always wonder about how many people come see us here online and what an impact we have here. We heard a number of times today "I've been following you guys online for a while and it's great to be able to come try your beer." That means the world to us. We hope to have a bunch of people come by tomorrow. Bring your dad, buy him a beer, and show him how much he means to you! Cheers!!
This weekend, June 16th and 17th, is the Washington Brewer's Festival at St. Edward Park in Kenmore! This is the "Mother of all Father's Day Festivals" and Schooner Exact is going to be there! Along with a bunch of our fellow craft brewers from this great state so you can sample what everyone has been up to. We know that this is a family oriented weekend, so there is a rootbeer garden, entertainment, and a playground for the kids. So bring the whole crew out to see us! We will have our new t-shirts available for sale at the merchandise booth too, be sure to check them out.
In other news, our fourth fermenter should be arriving in the next couple days and that will put as at max capacity as far as our current space goes. We will be hard at work to make sure all four are bubbling away on a constant basis to bring you the handcrafted goodness that Schooner Exact is known for. This also means that we will be branching out and getting our beer at more places near you. We are in talks with a few different alehouses around town so stay tuned here for more info on availability. We can let you know that we will be making a delivery to the Roanoke Inn on Mercer Island very shortly, so be sure to stop by and ask for a pint.
Finally, we would like to extend a truly heartfelt congratulations to Heather McClung, one of our founders. As I am sure you know if you are a loyal reader of this blog, getting a brewery off the ground is no easy task. So while being instrumental in getting things done around the business side off the ground and holding down a real job, Heather was also able to complete getting her Masters degree in teaching from Seattle University. Heather's drive and determination to be able to juggle so many things and always do it with a sense of grace is inspirational to us all. Great job Heather, we love ya!
We just wanted to get a quick note out to our fans that we do have pint glasses available. All you have to do is send us an email and we will get you the info. Come on down, check out the brewery, buy a couple of glasses to take home, maybe even a growler while you're at it! We understand a few of you have gotten a little creative about acquiring our glasses, and while flattering, we would much rather you just purchased them from us. T-shirts and stickers are on the way too!
So, as I am sure you can imagine, we do not have a huge marketing budget and have been relying on word of mouth and a little web buzz to keep interest in what we are doing up. One of the toughest things is that given our size, most people that are into craft beer really want to support us and think what we are doing is great. However, we always get the question, "that's great, so where can I try it?" Until now, that has not been an easy question to answer. We always just told people about the blog and let them know that we would post where we are and when on there. Well, our jobs just got a little easier. Our friends over at West 5 Lounge in West Seattle have decided to pick us up full time for at least the next few months. We have been there on a rotating basis for a while and the popularity with both the customers and the staff has gotten us our very position in the line up. This is a pretty big deal for us as it is our first full time tap, and has come a lot sooner than we had expected. Thanks to everyone that has stopped by there for a pint and thanks for West 5 for giving us a shot!
