Unfulfilled promises

Happy Monday to our beer faithful. I thought I would sit down and catch you up on a few things this morning and make up some excuses for some of you. A long while back we promised to do a better job of keeping you up to date on new beers, new events and other brewhouse plans. Sorry we dropped the ball a bit. A little while back I said we were going to post more regularly for all of you who hate to check the blog just to see a two week old post still lingering. I could say we're too busy and not be far off, and I could say there is no news, but would probably be farther off. So, let's just say, we dropped the ball again. Nevertheless, I vow to do better and it starts today. Here goes:

Flossmoor Beer in Bottles:
Andrew has done a great job providing the links to our new labels and added the first pic of our filler, but let me tell you what else needs to be done before you see our beer in bottles.
What's done:
Filler is in house
Three labels are approved by TTB
UPC codes have been purchased
Bottle guy is ready to print
Distributor is almost all ready and lined up.
Customers are thirsty

Yet to be done:
Go to Schlafly in St. Louis to figure out exactly how this filler works
Go to OFallon in St. Louis to peek at their homemade bottle rinser
Go to Smokin' Al's in St. Louis cuz it is awesome bbq
Buy table to set it on
Buy air compressor to run the air acctuated components
Get CO2 hooked up to unit
Cut a hole in the foundation of basement
Haul grundy/bright tank from three floyds (comes complete with Three year old Dark Lord Sludge inside!!!! ebay here I come :) )
Get bottles from printer
Get crowns for bottles
Buy some extra fittings and hoses for filler
Start bottling and figure out what in the heck we did wrong in setting this unit up.

I tell you all that in the hopes that you realize we have a good bit of work to do before we can fill bottles, BUT the hardest work is done. We promise to get this going as soon as possible. You are sure to see the announcement right back here.

As a quick aside, many wonder how far away from the brewery they will find our beer. The answer is 1) we don't know and 2) not very far. The city is our first priority. Then, north, west, and south suburbs (remember if you live close to us we'd love to sell you the bottles at our pub where you can pick up a growler of our other 9 beers on tap). One of the main goals for this bottling project is marketing. For every new customer we bring into our pub for dinner, is another success for the project. Also, realize this is a REAL small operation. We'll make as much as we can and as much as we can sell, but remember we have a brewpub to run first. As far as downstate is concerned, we have had distributors interested, and we are too, but we have to see how we can supply our immediate area first. We are in a good position because we don't have (and don't want) to send pallets to Ohio, Virginia, overseas, etc. to just get by. (no offense to those states listed-just examples). I think we'll have plenty of sales at the pub and in our close market.

Beer updates:
Andrew updated our CURRENT draft list a few days ago, but here is what's coming.
Killer Kowalski Baltic Porter is lagering away for a March release.
XIPA is being brewed tomorrow also for a March release.
Milky Way Stout is finishing up. We will have this on along with Iron Horse Stout on Paddy's weekend, but full time pour will have to wait a bit for a handle to open up.
As winter turns into spring, we have to wait and see how the increased production of StationMaster, Pullman and IPA affect our brew schedule. We will commit to brewing IPAs and more hoppy beers as much as we can. We know the demand is there for it.

Minorchange in FS draft beer linup!
Miller Lite is gone on draft (YEAH!-but still in bottles). Now we have a line for guest beers. WE tapped into Three Foyd's GumballHead on Friday and have a keg of Bear Republic's Racer 5 coming this wekk. Look for the possibility of big and rare beers filling this tap.

Events:
We have revived the idea of regular brewmasters dinners with the addition of our new chef Eduardo. We are in the planning stages for late April BM dinner.

The Mug club had two breakfast tappings last year and were received very well. We may get the planning going for that again, but also might open it up to the public and see if we can fill the restaurant with eggs and beer!

We'll be serving the traditional corned beef and cabbage the weekend b4 St. Patty's Day (it's on a Monday this year). Come join us for a great meal and a pint of stout or two.

We'll be pouring two or three beers at Chicago Beer Society's Night of the Living Ales MArch 1

We'll be pouring 2 or 3 stouts at the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild StoutFest MArch 17.

We're entering Eight Beers in the Brewers Association World Beer Cup. Flossmoor Station has wone 5 WBC awards, with andrew and I garnering two so far (only one year entered so far).
The Beers are:
Panama Red
Pullman Brown
Milky Way Stout
Killer Kowalski
Black Wolf
Hoppy Little O
De Wilde Zuidentrein
Sarge

Wish us luck!

Until next time-cheers!
Matt