The details were posted on the Surly Brewing site this morning. The Surly Darkness release takes place on Saturday, October 25th at 12pm. First 700 people in line can get up to six bottles so I am presuming that at least 4200 bottles have been produced. That is over a 500% increase from last year’s total. Six bottles will cost $100. It will hit draft accounts the following week.
Following up on recent reports of East End Ugly American coming out next month and the release of Brewer’s Art Resurrection in bottles, more news comes for the Mid-Atlantic crowd, more specifically Pennsylvania!
Straight from Carol Stoudt, here is the deal with Stoudts Barrel-Aged Scotch-Style Ale:
Click above for larger pic
(Grimstad (Rygene), Norway) – Third post on this Norwegian brewer in the last couple weeks. Nogne O Peculiar Yule, a 6.3% ABV spiced beer, will debut as winter approaches. It is the American version of Underlig Jul, a Continue reading
(Eugene, OR) – Ninkasi Brewing will release its fourth bottled beer later this year. Ninkasi Oatis Oatmeal Stout will join Tricerahops Double IPA, Total Domination IPA, and Believer Double Red, already sold in Continue reading
(Portsmouth, NH) – Peter Egelston, the Founder/Owner of Portsmouth Brewery and Smuttynose Brewing, sent out a scintillating newsletter this afternoon with some interesting tidbits. Here are the highights:
Portsmouth Kate the Great details: The beer will be released on Monday, February 9, 2009, at 1:14PM. “Once again, only ten barrels have been brewed, half of which will be bottled (limit two per customer).” If my math is right Continue reading
A couple quick reminders:
Alesmith Barrel-Aged Speedway Stout – Happens today at noon, Beer Advocate discussion here
Flossmoor Station Collaborative Evil release – Happens tomorrow (details at the blog), Beer Advocate discussion here
Some random tidbits from the email/web:
From email correspondence with Nick Castiglione of Liquor Max, it looks the old adage still rings true: “Never trust a rep.” Some of the initial info that came through about Great Continue reading
(North Yorkshire, England) – Samuel Smith Yorkshire Stingo, a beer of historic proportions, will ship to the U.S. through Merchant du Vin later this year. According to the back label pictured below, the beer is billed to have a rather interesting flavor profile: “fruit, raisin, treacle toffee, Christmas pudding and slight oaky flavours.” In part due to the extensive aging in oak casks for over a year, the beer has an ABV level of 8%. This would appear to make Yorkshire Stingo the second biggest (ABV-wise) commercial beer ever produced for the old brewery. It is brewed with a traditional method once popular in England using Yorkshire Squares. There is a full write-up for brewing history buffs at the Merchant du Vin site.
Label approvals also came through for Samuel Smith Organic Raspberry, Cherry, and Strawberry Fruit beers this week.
Portland-based Widmer Brothers recently got label approval for its 2009 Brewmasters’ Release (W’09). The next rendition will be a Belgian-style Golden Ale. It will be interesting to see the IBU level considering Widmer Brothers boasts a “generous addition of hops.” The beer should be out in January of next year, barring any schedule change from prior releases.
(Bend, OR) – While perusing the Beer Advocate forums at lunch, I stumbled onto this thread about a note that recently appeared up on the Deschutes Brewery website (specifically the page about The Dissident). It reads:
Look for the next Reserve Series release, The Abyss, around November 17th!
The imperial stout ranks in the top 5 at Beer Advocate, top 50 at RateBeer, and is a personal favorite of mine. I will have a couple posts on the Buy Beer page in late November/early December as to how you can order it online.
Speaking of Oregon, another update is coming up later tonight for the Pacific Northwest crowd.
[Click above pic for full label]
(Grimstad (Rygene), NORWAY) – The brewers of Nogne O recently worked with Toshi Ishii of YoHo Brewing in Japan on a double IPA or W-IPA (as it is referred to in Japan). Most of the cases will ship over there though Head Brewer, Kjetil Jikiun, notes that it would be likely that some would make it over here to the states as well. Talks with the Shelton Brothers, Nogne O’s importer, have not gone beyond the preliminary stages yet.
The hops were Millenium for bittering, (Amarillo, Centennial and Brewers Continue reading
Fresh new bottles of Russian River Blind Pig and Pliny the Elder (sold out) can now be found at Bottle Trek.
Surly Brewing announced its Autumn Brew Review lineup on its website this morning. The new batch of Surly Darkness will be among the beers offered at the sold out event taking place this weekend. Surly Two and Surly Smoke 2007 are also among the special offerings to be tapped. Click over to the Surly Brewing site for the full list and schedule.
[12/14 Update: Now Available Dieu du Ciel Solstice!]
[9/25 Update: According to Dieu du Ciel President, Stéphane Ostiguy, Solstice dHiver should be in the states by the end of fall if everything goes according to plan and Rigor Mortis ABT, hopefully during the winter. This schedule could easily change, of course.]
(Montreal, Canada) – An email is out to Shelton Brothers reps for a timetable on two beers shipping from one of the, if not the most, respected craft breweries in Canada. Presumably, Dieu du Ciel Solstice dHiver and Rigor Mortis ABT will arrive in the U.S. either later this year or in early ’09.
Rigor Mortis ABT is one of the more admired representations of the Continue reading
Lost Abbey Ten Commandments is probably the biggest new release of the past week. Both South Bay Drugs and Liquor Max have it for sale on their sites. This year’s version has a more noticeable Brett profile in it. Only a handful of reviews have been written since the new version came out; time will tell as to whether more ‘bugs’ will translate into a better beer this time around.
Both SBD and Liquor Max have a bunch of other beers in the Port/Lost Abbey line as well. SBD may even still have some bottles of Stone Cali-Belgique though the remainder of the stash is very low.
Liquor Max now has an extremely limited supply of Deschutes the Dissident. Looks like it is the only site to carry it now that Bottle Trek appears to be out of stock.
Lastly, Liquid Solutions still has Russian River Pliny the Elder (sold out) and Blind Pig in stock as well as the Struise Earthmonk and Pannepot combo.
(Boston, MA) – Because of fatigue brought on from working on yesterday’s top Belgian Fest beer picks (Saturday sessions) post, I am keeping the Night of the Funk picks to a mere five selections even though, pound for pound, the Friday night attendees may have the better options.
5. Cambridge Funky Bitch – What a name. Good to see the locals Continue reading
(Houston, TX) – It is a big day for Texans as Saint Arnold Brewing releases Divine Reserve 7, a weizenbock. The Austin, DFW and San Antonio areas will get this today and it arrives in Houston next Tuesday (delayed as a result of Ike). For more on the brew, click over to Saint Arnold’s blog containing a video of the brewing process. I contact Spec’s to see if they would be selling it online and it appears that won’t be the case. I was told that the beer sells out immediately, immediately being ‘in fifteen minutes.’ That may or may not be an exaggeration.
As for Dogfish Head Theobroma, it is now on tap at the Dogfish Head Alehouse. As far as it arriving to retailers, this is the only thread in which I have seen such a report on Beer Advocate. And it may have hit Ohio already based on this Ratebeer thread.
Surprisingly, there is still no mention of Great Divide Barrel-Aged Yeti or Old Ruffian. Click the pics on the right for more info on Theobroma and the Great Divide beers.
Beer Advocate’s Return of the Belgian Beer Fest ’08 is nearly upon us. In case you have clicked over to this post from the forums, check out my post from yesterday on some quick suggestions as to what Boston offers for beer joints during your brief visit. As I will normally do with these lists, I base them partly on what I have been able to try, brewery reputation, how limited the beer is, and how intriguing the description is (if there is one). Most of all these are meant to be just for fun and to start up a conversation about what will be at the fest.
This is for the main sessions only. There will be a post about Night of the Funk later today or tomorrow.
10. Samuel Adams Knee Deep Kriek – The folks from Boston Beer Continue reading
There is lots of good stuff out there in online beer shops. If you leave a comment (look for the link just below the post title) in this post with the beer that you want to find, I can probably help. Just note that if it’s something rare like Alesmith Barrel-Aged Speedway Stout, there is no chance of finding it online except for at eBay. Depending on popularity, I may not get to every request.
Think of it as an online beer shopping “request line.” As an alternative to leaving a comment, you can also write me an email (link is in the upper left of the main page).
Trading is a great way to get more beer, too, but for someone like myself, I need those precious few hours that it will takes to: travel to and from the beer stores, get packaging together, box up the beer, prep the shipping label, and drive the box to the post office. When I have more time, I might begin to trade with some readers. I did just get a case of Founders Breakfast Stout shipped 
Tap handles at the Publick House - courtesy of Boston.com
Tomorrow, I will be releasing a short list of top beers to check out at the Beer Advocate event: Return of the Belgian Beer Fest ’08. Until then, some friendly suggestions for festgoers heading into Beantown…
Before I get into what the newsfeed is, I have updated the Craft Beer Index. In case you have not been visiting regularly over the last 45 days, I have marked some of the new beers covered during that period as “New!” Also, I provided a brief update to the About page. It is more for new people visiting the site for the first time; many of you already know why the site has grown to reach thousands of craft beer people.
OK, so what is that little orange button that you see to the left for the main page stories and to the right for the ‘Buy Beer’ stories?