Iron Horse Brewery

Double Rainbow Chili: It’s Really Happening

Web Drinker — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:34:24 +0000

Since it is still reasonably cold, although the roads are turning to slush pits similar to mini ponds, I thought I would toss in one more awesome winter warmer recipe, this one featuring our Seasonal Malty Red Ale just released: The Double Rainbow. I wanted to make this recipe nice and simple and hand crafted it using ingredients from my kitchen last year, on a day where going to the store seemed like a major task. Please note that ingredient measurements are never exact, so taste test often, even if your housemate accuses you of eating all the Chili before it is finished… Here it goes:

Ingredients:
1 lb lean hamburger meat
1 white onion, or 2 shallots
2 tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic, or more
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 cups tomato juice, or 1 can tomato paste mixed with 1 cup water
2 cans kidney beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 Red pepper, diced
1 jalapeno, diced, or less depending on heat preferences

Seasonings:
4-6 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 tsp. red pepper flakes
⅔ cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. Worcestershire
1 bay leaf (take out at end of cooking)
1 tbs salt (kosher)
1 tbs pepper
½ c- 1 cup double rainbow beer, I usually add about 1 -2 hours into slow cooking
6 big dashes hot sauce
2tbs. dry mustard, or liquid if you don’t have dry

Process:
Brown the hamburger and saute with finely chopped onion,garlic cloves, red pepper, and jalapeno in E.V.O.O until meat cooked and onions and vegetables tender ( you can use shallot also if you prefer smaller chunks of onion). Put those ingredients in slow cooker or Dutch Oven on low, plan on giving it 4 hours plus to cook, allowing the ingredients to really bind together and marry… Add beans, tomatoes, tomato juice and all seasonings except beer ( or you can add ⅓ c beer now and ⅓ cup later). Add more tomato juice if you want a sightly thinner consistency, or less if you like thicker Chili. After all spices added, taste for flavor… I keep adding Chili powder, brown sugar, hot sauce and spices until I have that perfect mix of sweet and spicy, so delicious! If you want extra garlic and the garlic cloves weren’t enough, add garlic powder or salt to mixture. “Taste testing” is key here- I really want to stress that point, mostly because it is more fun if you do. During last hour of cooking after taste testing for spice level ( assuming you have more Chili left) add remaining ⅓ cup of beer, or up to a cup depending on consistency desired. Let simmer for one more hour.

Hopefully this goes without saying but you should drink the rest of the Double Rainbow while you are waiting for this to finish, please, or give it to your Grandma or whomever.

Serve in large bowls with cheese, tortilla chips, and sour cream and green onion to garnish, or add extra hot sauce for even more insane heat like my boyfriend does.

Pairing:
Drink with the malty hoppy richness of The Double Rainbow, a full bodied red ale, coming in around 7.5% ABV. The biscuity flavors in the beer soothe the palate while the hoppy kick from the generous amount of hops added, stands up to the rich spice of the Chili and the beer flavors cooked with in. This is really an amazing, rich and spice laden Chili, the perfect accompaniment for an amazing beer such as Double Rainbow. Since Natalia couldn’t cook this particular recipe with me, we were forced to eat most of the Chili and drink all the Double Rainbow, rough life, I know! Cheers, happy eating and drinking!

Deal:
As with any recipe of ours you cook from our food blog, bring in an ingredient receipt anytime in February or March (until Double Rainbow is gone) and receive $2 off a growler of Double Rainbow at either location, or if not on tap, get a $3 22 oz. bottle of it. You’re Welcome.

Cornhole

Web Drinker — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:42:04 +0000

Winter Cornhole Tournament at the Micropub

Registration is Over and the league is about to begin

500 bucks for first place team. A Can of SPAM for the second place team. You know you want 2nd!

Don’t know what Cornhole is? Learn more here

Important Dates:
January 19th: Last day to register
January 23th: 6pm at Micropub. Tournament Kick off, practice rounds, schedules finalized and raffles of stuff.
January 24th: Season Begins
Week of March 5th:Finals Begin

There are two leagues – Tuesday League (Malt Bomb) and Friday League (Double Rainbow).

Printable Cornhole Schedule – Final

my attempt at becoming the holiday cheermeister

natalia — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 19:08:17 +0000

This time of year I always feel like Scrooge, and often get accused of being a Scrooge. I don’t buy anything for anyone other than my wife and my kids (although last year, my kids got nothing from me). The usual question “are you ready for christmas?!” that passes for conversation causes my skin to crawl. The assumption being my response will be something like ‘oh, gosh no, i still have to shop for blah blah blah, and i don’t know what to get uncle Jack, and blah de blah”. These activities and conversations are not inherently bad or without merit, and I am sure they do bring some people true pleasure. I just can not busy myself or my mind with these holiday platitudes. Oops, the disdain is creeping back in.

It is not that I truly loathe any of this, well, actually, rampant consumerism I do kind of loathe, but I have nothing against the spirit of giving. In fact, giving can be a powerful action. On occasion, we have chosen to give to Heifer International in lieu of giving to others (my wife is not as cold-hearted as me and has to give in some way). This brings me to the point of my writing. Why do we give so much to our friends and family when, in many cases, they already have so much? This is obviously not the case with everyone who reads this, but for a great deal of Americans, actual ‘needs’ are covered and a great deal of ‘wants’ go fulfilled as well.

This year the brewery joined forces with some other local businesses and individuals and pooled our resources. Together we came up with over $4,000 in cash and services that is going to 3 different families to help them with basic necessities and hopefully a luxury or two. Without help from anyone, it would just be a cold and hard time for them. We started this last year and were joined by others this year, helping us to double the amount we were able to give. We realized that things were going pretty damn good for us. We realized that things are pretty rough for some people in our community. We realized that we would remember helping a family in tough times have a kick ass christmas, while we would most likely forget an ipod nano in a short amount of time. You know what? I remember the family we helped last year like it was yesterday, and it still breaks my heart to think about what they have been through. I don’t remember what my wife got for me last year (sorry Natalia). Natalia doesn’t remember what I got her last year (neither do I), but we still talk about the family that the brewery was able to help.

If you would like to give to this program next year, look for our call to action in November. We would love to see it continue to grow.

And Happy Holidays, even if you are getting a nano.

With Abundant Holiday Cheer,
Greg

Help for the Holidays

Web Drinker — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:23:31 +0000

Best Holiday Giveaway Ever Nomination Form

Thanks for your help!

Because of you, we were able to help out multiple families this season. Next year, we’re going to go even bigger. Now, go have a well deserved beer.

Good Beer Citizen

greg — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:18:40 +0000

Good Beer Citizen: Why do so many beer line ups look largely the same? Or, doing your part for craft beer.

If you are like me… never mind, by this time in my life I have realized that, thankfully, there are not many people like me. Thankfully for society I mean. But, if we do share one thing in common, I hope it is a love of craft beer.

While the measures of growth and availability indicate a golden age for small producers of craft beer there is still a long way to go. Are you aware that all craft beer consumed in America, which includes relatively large producers such as Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada (great breweries by the way) only accounts for 7% of total American beer consumption? Not even one of every ten pints is a craft beer.

So what? Good question. While I have nothing in particular against the mega breweries, I do favor small producers and local businesses. I won’t drone on about job creation, community involvement, connection to citizenry and the multitude of other less tangible benefits of local ownership, but I will implore you to consider these points when making your buying decisions.

Now to the point. Why is craft beer at a mere 7% of the market? Well, without getting too in-depth about prohibition, quasi-monopolies, and other clear disadvantages that small producers face, in a word, Choice. It is about the choice of the supply chain, starting with the citizen. If a retailer gets no push back, or sees no loss by choosing cheap faux-craft, cheap domestic or simply limiting craft beer line up because of cost, convenience, relationships, or laziness, the share of the market available to craft will always be a minority.

Really, to the point now, I promise. What should you do if you agree with me? Drink Iron Horse Beer. Or don’t, but don’t walk in to a place, lament the line up of beers, and then plunk down your money. Tell the management their line up sucks (or isn’t to your liking if you are a more classy individual) and you want to see some Northern Lights, Roslyn, Snipes, Yakima Craft, Lost Falls, Ice Harbor, Rattlesnake Hills, Whitstran, Old Schoolhouse, Alpine, Horse Heaven or any other of the more than 1500 craft breweries of the country that are not Eastern Washington breweries. Yeah, that’s right, all of the above are Eastern Washington breweries and I am sure I overlooked a few. At that point if you are feeling like a real badass, after you tell them their line up sucks, walk out. Then do that every week or month, or whatever you are comfortable with. Or if you are not ready for total badass status leave it at that, but tell that retailer every single time you are in there, you want real craft beer and tell them you will stop coming in, even if it is an idle threat.

You know what happens next? The pressure builds, they cave and put on more craft beer, new citizens get exposed to craft beer, more craft beer becomes available at your favorite retailer and next thing we know, fizzy yellow beer is relegated to 7% of the market and we save the economy and the world, or maybe just the working class of America, but hey, that ain’t so bad. Even if the option to choose true craft beer, or the craft beer that you desire is not available to you, let everyone know that you would choose it if you could and your loyalty could be won by some enterprising establishment that chooses to offer you that opportunity. Brewers across the country thank you for your consideration.

Hugs and Kisses,

Greg

regan’s famous spaghetti paired with 509 or BDG

natalia — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:49:23 +0000

Spaghetti Blog

My mom helped me develop this recipe years ago, and since then I have added multiple ingredients, taken away others, and adapted the flavors into a rich and robust pasta sauce that can be tweaked to your individual likings. This recipe is delicious and complex and sure to warm up your mouth and soul (well most souls anyway). To top it all off, It pairs quite well with the Beire De Garde because of the herbal tomato notes in the sauce, or the 509, because of some of the light sweetness the sauce imparts and the way the 509 mellows and integrates with the flavors. Bring in a receipt showing you purchased some of these ingredients and you’ll get a $6 growler fill or a $3 22 oz bottle of the beer of your choice, so you can create the pairing at home.

Ingredients:

6 cloves crushed garlic
2 shallots minced
10 sliced, sauteed mushrooms
Sautee all the above in 3 tablespoons olive oil

Remove and set aside above ingredients
In same pan, add 1lb Italian Sausage and 1 lb lean ground beef
Brown in pan until no pink shows in center, dicing up in small pieces
Add garlic, mushroom, shallot mixture back to meat in pan

Over medium heat- add the following
1 can Organic Tomato Paste
2 cans stewed tomatoes
1 can Hunt’s Roasted Garlic Sauce
Or instead of the above, add your own canned tomato sauce like I do, with fresh roasted garlic, peppers, and peeled stewed tomatoes and herbs. If you don’t have that, a mixture of the top 3 works perfectly.
½ cup robust red wine, like Shiraz
½ cup Brown sugar
1 Bay leaf
2 Tablespoons fresh chopped basil
1 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp dried Italian Herb mixture
1 tsp sweet basil, dried
If too thick, a little water to thin out sauce

Let this mixture sit and simmer for about 45 minutes in large dutch oven, add extra garlic salt, pepper, chilli flakes or red wine to get sauce to your liking, tasting as you go.

Cook Spaghetti noodles and toast up some baguette brushed with olive oil and fresh garlic under the broiler to sop up extra sauce. Grate some fresh parmesan cheese over pasta and Voila (it’s much more impressive when I say that), you’re meal is ready, and a bomb as* one at that.

In my house, this meal lasts about 1 day or less. We eat some that night then Alex takes the rest to work whether I like it or not. Sometimes though, I accidentally eat half of it before I am even done through what I call “taste testing” so I can’t judge, and if Natalia comes over, she sneaks bites when I am not looking.

Enjoy.

Regan

Brewery Expansion, AKA What the hell is Iron Horse Brewery doing?!

greg — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:06:35 +0000

Or, when are you going to move?
How soon?
Where?
Why?
What is the purpose?
Seriously?
….and other questions.

The loyal employees of Iron Horse are faced with these types of questions on an ongoing basis. So, instead of actually answering them directly I’m forcing them to refer people to this blog post, because 1) I can, 2) I’m a jerk because of point #1, and 3) because I probably haven’t told them as much as I’m about to reveal here because of point #2.

1. The Big Deal
Currently we have a contract on a building located on the Vantage highway. 1621 is the address. While things look pretty damn good, nothing is certain until the t crossing, i dotting, micro managing, intrusively investigating, bankers have signed off on the deal. This building is a beauty, actually from the outside it is as ugly as your sister, but from a brewing standpoint it doesn’t get much better. 12,000 square feet is the building footprint, nice huh? That is only the beginning. The ceiling is almost 30 feet high which gives us 360,000 cubic feet. Which is almost enough air to keep Ross, Iron Horse sales master, talking for 15 minutes. It also allows us to put in tanks that tower over our previous fermenters and conditioning tanks, saving precious floor area. This facility is situated on just under 3 acres, which in conjunction with the existing building gives us opportunity to grow by some significant multiplier which I will spare you from because I don’t want to blow your mind!

2. The Guts
Now if you are wondering, “what form will the expansion take?” I will answer that question. If you are wondering something else, why haven’t you submitted a question to “ask the brewer”? Phase 1 Expansion, as I am calling it, utilizes an obscure method of beer transport called “tankering” (actually I just made that up, which I just Trademarked for future litigious use). We are going to continue to produce wort and ferment that wort at our existing facility on Prospect street. Then we will pump that beer into a specially designed tank that sits on a not specially designed truck. This “tanker”, if you will, will then take the fermented beer over to the new facility, we will call it Vantage for now, and pump the beer into conditioning tanks. Once conditioning is complete, we will package the beer into kegs, bottles or my face, and divide it into orders to be shipped. Hmm, it doesn’t sound that amazing when I put it onto paper, but if you see a brewer, you should ask them what Phase 1 Expansion means to them and they will tell you how much better it will make their working lives.

3. Fruit – (Or how this deal bears it)
How is this helpful? Well, I am glad you asked. By getting packaging operations out of Prospect and into Vantage we don’t have scheduling conflicts which currently inhibits our ability to brew at least one day a week. Moving the cellaring operations to Vantage will also allow us to add some more fermenters and conditioning tanks which means more beer, whoooooooo!!! It also means we won’t have to load trucks in the snow with the beer delivery van pushing the forklift around in 6” of the slippery curse. Doing that sucks, it looks ridiculous, and as you might imagine is incredibly inefficient. The extra space will also allow us to take on special projects such as a barrel aging program, pilot brews, and high gravity brewing. Booyah!

4. What’s Next
Eventually we will move the entirety of our brewing and retail operations from Prospect to Vantage, save for our presence downtown. At some point we will order in a new brewhouse with a larger capacity and greater extract and labor efficiency. There are lots of exciting things to consider with the expansion and Phase 2 as I just now dubbed it. Beer garden? perhaps. Tasting room overlooking brewery operations from the second floor mezzanine? You bet your sweet ass! (ok, its not that certain, but I love that saying) Iron horse thrillbillie obstacle course? Pretty unlikely, but who knows, we will have almost 3 acres.

5. Summary
We are attempting to bite off more than we can chew, but we figure with the aid of Irish Death, we can just wash it down the gullet and get on with things. For those of you who have visited the brewery, you can attest to how badly we need this breathing room. To be on the cusp of breaking ground, well, words can’t explain the excitement of what is to come. Until we have Phase 1 complete (with any luck by February of 2012) we will continue to short customers on their orders, trip over each other, have a tangle of hoses, and fight over forklift access. In other words, business as usual.

In consideration of all this, I would like to say thank you, to all our supporters. It probably sounds contrived, because businesses always do this, but it has been a lot of fun getting here and it wouldn’t have been fun, nor would we have gotten here, if it weren’t for all of the Iron Horse evangelists out there.

Hugs and Kisses,
Greg Parker

Irish Death Stew paired with, well, Irish Death

natalia — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:55:23 +0000

The freezing Ellensburg wind came out to greet us last night after a beautiful, sunny fall. And it reminded us, that while we’ve been running around in flip-flops, pretending it’s still practically summer, we won’t be able to deny the onset of winter for much longer. While winter provides some significant drawbacks for people who prefer to spend most of every day outdoors and requires significantly more effort in the shoe department,, it does offer up one sizable benefit – Irish Death stew.

This recipe came from an Iron Horse pioneer, if you will. Sarah Allen was the second person to regularly serve beer at our tasting room when it first opened. She has since gone on to much more interesting things (okay few things are more interesting than people + beer), but you get the picture. She recently sent this recipe back to us, and because we love putting our beer in our food as much as we love pairing it with food, we just had to try it. We were not disappointed.

It’s a simple recipe to shop for and make:

¾ cup all-purpose flour
2 ½ pounds lean stewing beef (cut into 1 ½ inch cubes)
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 to 3 large potatoes (peeled and cut into bite sized pieces)
2 to 3 carrots (peeled and cut into bite sized pieces)
2 large yellow onions quartered (I used sweet onions…really good)
4 stalks celery (sliced)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1 to 2 sprigs thyme
2 cups Irish Death
1 teaspoon salt
Chopped fresh parsley for garnish

Place the flour in a resealable plastic bag. Add the beef to the bag, several pieces at a time, and shake to coat completely.
Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and add the oil. In batches if necessary, add the beef and cook, turning, for 8 to 10 minutes until browned on all sides. Using tongs, transfer to paper towels to drain.
Place the beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, thyme, celery and garlic in the slow cooker and pour the beer over top. (If you prefer the vegetables with more texture, let the stew cook for 1 hour before adding the vegetables.) Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the meat is very tender. Season with salt. Remove and discard thyme.

When you sit down with a piping hot dish of this goodness, make sure you have a bottle of two of Irish Death on hand to pair with it. The sweet and roastly malt flavors in the beer round out the hearty meat and vegetable flavors of the stew perfectly. If you’re feeling really crazy, follow it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a little Mocha Death poured over the top. If you aren’t feeling that crazy after the stew, you can just curl up in a ball and go to sleep. You’ll want to. At least that’s what Regan did.

We would sign this “Hugs and Kisses”, but Greg already does that in his blog, so,
- Regan and Natalia

P.S.Remember to bring a receipt for these ingredients to the tasting room for $2.00 off a growler fill of Irish Death (as supply permits). Make this for your friends and family and then give us all the credit- actually, give it to Sarah!

Will there be a Belgian-style golden ales in the works? You know that its kind of a tradition for Belgian golden ales to be named with either a devlish or angelic title. Perhaps a Beligian style golden ale could be called, “Irish Life.”

greg — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:14:21 +0000

Not at any time in the near future. Our capacity issues have forced us to focus on our main beers. We do have an expansion in the works and if that is enough of a relief we will be getting back to playing around in the brewhouse. We like the idea and are always looking for interesting perspectives, so keep up the questions and suggestions

I-1183, or why I will be voting no.

greg — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:57:44 +0000

As someone who has staked his entire future on the ability to make and sell beer profitably, I am going to be voting no on I-1183. While there are many arguments stated by the “no” community (some valid and others I find inflammatory), I will be outlining issues that are lesser known and meaningful only to me, my staff, other small breweries, small wineries, and small beer stores, and . . . Okay, I am trying to be dramatic, when the truth is I only care about keeping my kids outfitted with Italian made shoes. Nonetheless, I will outline what I believe to be considerable concerns for the craft brewing industry in Washington state.

Issue 1. Loss of Uniform Pricing. One element that is left over from the immediate post-prohibition era is uniform pricing. What this means is, a supplier (e.g. Iron Horse Brewery, ABC Distributing) must sell a unit of iron horse beer to every retail establishment for the same price. That’s right, Joe’s Bar pays the same price as Global Conglomerate Beer Warehouser Club for a keg or bottle of Irish Death (this statute applies to all alcohol). The effect here is two positives for the little guy. Joe’s Bar has at least a snowball’s chance in an equatorial region of maintaining its business because it works on the exact same alcohol margins. Yay Joe! (Joe’s Bar is still at a disadvantage because of the free stuff that is technically illegal to get from alcohol suppliers that the big groups get despite the laws). The other positive is the effect of best beer wins. Since pricing must be consistent across customers, producers set prices at sustainable levels.
“The current system encourages competition based on the merits of the beer and the brand rather than the depth of discount or value-added practices (free shit). These protections have strengthened the beer ecosystem by putting small breweries and small retailers on the same level as the big producers and retail chains.” (footnote 1) There are no price wars (not entirely, but it plays out much differently than if there were no uniform pricing) for retailer business, so price being equal, retailers take on the beers that consumers want and that sell the best. It is my honest, heartfelt belief that uniform pricing is one of the largest factors contributing to the birth and growth of the craft beer industry in Washington state. With the passage of I-1183, suppliers would be able to discount as they see fit, or in the case of Joe’s bar, not so much, since its buying power is minimal. Conversely, Global Conglomerate Beer Warehouser could come to Iron Horse Brewery and say, “we believe that your product belongs on our shelves, so long as it is 20% less than you charge Joe’s Bar or the Corner Store”. What does a small brewery do? Sell to the big retailer for little to no profit, or perhaps a loss, so they can remain relevant to the consumer? Or should the small brewery forgo the added sales volume necessary to carve out a greater share for craft beer and the future of its own operations? You, the voter, get to determine the future landscape of the brewing industry.

Issue 2. Central Warehousing or Die! Little Retailer.
With the pasage of I-1183 it will be legal to buy wine in massive quanitities from any winery, from any state at the price a business might get if it were buying, say, 10 semi loads to store in their 400,000 square foot central warehouse to distribute to their 180 retail outlets. Unless of course you don’t have a warehouse, then sorry for you. You will be buying along with Joe’s bar at the prices that the little guy gets. Now that you have this higher cost, but the same item, what do you do? You sell it at an unsustainable margin, or you don’t sell it at all. Both of those options provide an inadequate profit to continually operate your business, and the next thing you know you’ve got your 9 year old working behind the counter, Child Protective Services comes in and hauls them away and you get carted off to jail and the one employee you have loses their job because your store closes. So much for creating jobs. See how much this matters?

Issue 3. It Will Be Very Easy to Make these Statutes Apply to Beer.

Right now, you may be thinking, “I-1183 doesn’t apply to beer, Greg, you asshole!” You are right, on both accounts. Although, one of these truths is likely to change. The Washington State Liquor Control Board has a stated goal of parity among the various manufacturers (wine, beer, spirits). So I-1183 changes the law for wine and spirits currently, and later, with a stroke of the administrative pen, beer can be, and in the opinion of myself and many peers of mine, will be, eventually included. Suddenly, Washington will become a “how low can your price go”, bigger brewery dumping ground. Considering that Oregon, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts all have breweries that vastly outsize all but one Washington brewery, and therefore benefit from significant economies of scale, I believe we will see those breweries meeting the desired price point of massive retailers and taking a large share of Washington beer sales. (Obviously this does not apply to you, Mr./Ms. Craft Beer Purist, you will always support Washington beer, but what about your less informed, chain store shopping, counterpart on a tight budget?)

Issue 4. Taxpayers are Getting a Bad Deal.
I have no aversion to privatizing liquor sales. In fact, it makes a lot of sense – so much so that there have been a grand total of zero initiatives filed by citizens to privatize liquor sales. Sorry for the sarcasm (sort of). I believe liquor sales should be privatized, but not for the benefit of large corporations. Liquor sale’s privatization should benefit liquor producers, the state, and most of all consumers. You want liquor in Babies R Us? Fine, just get the initiative written by a citizen, not a corporation. (I don’t hate corporations necessarily, Iron Horse Brewery is a corporation in fact, s-corp to be exact, although we are thinking about changing to c-corp so we can have different classes of stock and wage class warfare internally, between the four of us.) If we get the state out of the liqour business, let’s make damn sure we sell the assets for a fair market value. Some other state did (I can’t remember which one, someone help me out on this) and made a lot of money. We’ve surely invested plenty, we should get a return on our collective investment in the state liquor stores.

Issue 5. Punishment of Suppliers for Distributor Violations.
This is a weird addition, but with the passage of I-1183 Iron Horse Brewery could have our licensed privileges revoked in a market because of illegal activity of our distributor with our product, whether we know it or not. What?! i don’t know where the hell that came from, but that would be a major blow if suddenly we couldn’t sell beer in Megalopolis because our distributor gave away a free keg of our beer to Global Conglomerate Beer Warehouser Club without us knowing or consenting. (footnote 2)

I have probably really agitated many of you and I hope, as did not occur with my last post, that you read me the riot act. I am sure some of my information is less than perfectly defensible and I hope you illuminate that which is not. From my position, this initiative has some pretty detrimental possibilities for my chosen profession and the 13 other people that have decided to make Iron Horse Brewery part of their working lives. This is what matters to me. From what I see, I-1183 has little to offer in benefit to citizens that couldn’t be accomplished with simply privatizing the liqour stores and not totally upending the foundation on which our current alcohol marketplace has been built. More importantly, vote yes, vote no, hate me, love me, but please, oh please, do not cast a vote without being fully informed of the true ramifications and intent of this proposal. Simplified television advertisements are not telling you the entire story.

Hugs and Kisses,
Greg

footnotes

1 Greg Parker in an email to himself dated 8/19 on the same subject

2 This may already be in the law, i need to do some more research, but i ran out of time.

Not Enough Beer, WTF?! Signed, an Angry Loyal Customer

greg — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:57:44 +0000

I see, not surprisingly, little, from my dumpy off-site office. Sometimes I open the blinds and see the backside of an old brick building and power lines, but often enough the sun is blaring through the window turning it into an oven so I tend to leave the blinds closed. More importantly is my lack of view of what is happening at ground level at the brewery, tasting room, micropub, distributors, and retailers. It is not that we don’t have an excellent and in-tune staff who convey the challenges to me. It is just that a layer of insulation tends to dull the pain. Add to that, the ongoing juggle of wholesale vs. retail, staff happiness vs. increased production and we end up with no one feeling truly loved. It is easier, perhaps, to have one child, but it is not ultimately better for the child or the parent. (unless you are the parents of an only child then i am sure it is better, it just screws up the analogy for me)

So here we are, iron horse brewery with a wholesale child and two retail children (which are kind of like siamese twins. and each distributor could be considered there own child and,boy, this is getting complicated). The strength of having retail and wholesale are at once obvious and obscure. Each has taken its turn in holding up the family budget in tougher times. They both promote iron horse brewery as a brand locally and regionally. Retail gives us direct consumer feedback, which is of immeasurable importance. Wholesale is demanding volumes of beer that will justify the imminent expansion of our production facility.

“No fair”, says retail, “we deserve more beer”. “No fair” says wholesale “we deserve more beer”. If only it were that simple. We take the concerns we hear seriously, they are real, and they trouble us. The other day a “passionate” conversation was had by a few key staffers of the brewery. How do we solve this problem of limited supply and increasingly threatening demand was the question. Answers ranged from pull out of some distribution to get rid of specials at retail and raise prices. Everyone who participated had different views and something different at stake. We all decided that we didn’t like any of the answers that we came up with but we had to be adults compromise and make some decisions. (Is anyone in Washington D.C. taking note?).

What we decided was this: Retail you have to give up something you have been accustomed to, growler fills of every beer on tap. When we have a limited supply of a beer, it will be for pints only and when the cost of inputs is dramatically higher, the retail price will be higher as well. What we didn’t keep on the table was elimination of the smoking hot growler special, [you’re welcome!] and our everyday rock bottom growler prices. While prices always go up, and ours will on some items, we value getting good product to local consumers at prices that reflect cost of living and current economic factors. Wholesale? You’re stuck, we are at capacity and there will be no more volume being carved out of retail for your benefit. We love you, but difficult decisions have to be made.

Now, I prepare myself for the barrage of angry comments. Let me have it, I love abuse.

Hugs and Kisses
Greg

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