Capt Keith's Beer Blog

We have finally opened our doors in St Louis at 900 Spruce St downtown, just a stones throw from the Third Base Entrance of Busch Stadium. This marks a very special opening for us, as it is the first time we have ignited a statewide rivalry for who gets the first plate.  New St Louis resident and Kansas City MOU, Joe Hoffman has set the town on fire with his promise to not only hang the first plate at the new location, but also to brand his plate with the name “Don Denkinger” with the quote “SAFE!”, a reference to a clearly blown call from game 6 of the 1985 World Series.  Forums on StlHops went wild and when the white smoke trickled from the chimney, Richard Haegele emerged as the chosen candidate to make the 67 day run for first plate, and defend the sacred spot for the city of St Louis.  More details .There are currently seven Knurds in the running for first plate.  I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.  With two months left to go, anything can happen.

Not only are we excited to have our second Missouri location, but the local beer scene in this town is amazing!  We knew we were moving into Schlafly’s backdoor, and are very excited by their large and diverse portfolio of excellently made brews, but we didn’t know how well the newer St Louis breweries were doing.  Breweries like 4 Hands, Urban Chestnut, Perennial Artisan Ales, Civil Life and 2nd Shift (just down the road in New Haven) are making some world class brews.  If you are a beer trader, do yourself a favor and do a quick and easy locals for locals trade and get your hands on beers by any of these guys and you wont be disappointed.

 While the Cardinals haven’t started playing yet, (they are electing a pope from what I hear) Baseball season is going to to be a wild one for us.  General Manager Brian Russel of Fort Worth fame leads our new St Louis crew with Becca Keiffer from the Lake and Colt Miller from Addison into the wild unknown of baseball season.  So make plans for a trip up to see the new store and catch a home game.  We already had a special visit from Lake regular Mark Thompson, who came up to visit Becca on her new home turf.  Cheers Mark!

Today is the second annual Stout Day, (or Tempranillo Day, for the oenophile) and people all over the country have their smart phone in one hand and their pint glass in the other.  Just like IPA Day, Stout Day is a social media driven beer holiday and is focused on not only drinking a stout, but celebrating the stout and spreading its good word.  We have teamed up with Untappd to produce a special badge for those that use their great beer tracking app.  All you have to do is check into the Saucer and a Stout Beer and the badge is yours.  Our Saucers and Moth are all celebrating in different ways, and some are taking it to the next level by celebrating Stout Week and even Stout Month.  Check in with your local spot, everyone has great things planned.

Many people are getting fed up with these “National” holidays (eg. Talk Like a Pirate Day, National Cheeseburger Day, and plenty other even more rediculous made up holidays) but since our little Craft Beer thing represents barely over 5% of the national market, it is up to us to spread the word and get “Lite” Beer drinkers to drop their Macro products and pick up a craft beer.  The stout and the IPA are two of the most misunderstood styles, so to me it makes sense for these two styles to be the first to earn their own day.  How many times have you heard someone say “I don’t like dark beers” only to find out they have never even tried one?  So many people are too quick to judge books by their cover and don’t understand the versatility the stout can have.  Watching someones eyes light up the first time they sip a Milk Stout sweetened with unfermentable lactose, or even a thick and chewy Imperial Stout, perhaps aged in bourbon barrels or on a bed of cocoa nibs never gets old to me. That’s half the fun of craft beer.  Sharing our knowledge and understanding of this craft along with a couple ounces of our favorite beer we might have smuggled back from a vacation wrapped in a sweater we took to the beach simply for the padding.  There are so many people out there who do not understand what we hold so dear, and in some cases take for granted.

Remember, today is not only about the stout (or generating web traffic for the various websites built around capitalizing on this opportunity, most of which I think are spreading the good word for the greater cause) but is also about sharing.  Invite someone from your office who doesn’t drink good beer to your favorite beer joint for Happy Hour today.  Spread the word through your social media outlets that you live the good life and enjoy beer made by hands and not machines.  Proudly exclaim what you’re drinking, who your drinking it with, and where. Open the door for another to become as enlightened as you are.  Help those who are drinking rice/corn beer loaded with chemicals to find out there is more out there.  And as always, tip your server well for letting you have all the fun.

Time for fresh new week of beer celebration in San Antonio and this time we are celebrating FRUIT BEER!  Starting August 6th, they will have fruit beers on Fire Sale and special tappings or glassware giveaways every day Monday through Saturday.

Special tappings will include Jolly Pumpkin/Maui Brewing Collaboration Sobrehumano and Dogfish Head Black and Blue among others, and will all start at 6pm.

Check out the stores social media outlets on Twitter @FlyingSaucerSA or “Like” The Official San Antonio Flying Saucer page on Facebook for updates

Beerknurds – mark your calendars. The crew at the Forth Worth  Saucer is almost ready to  fill your glass again. We have a cold draught system and the plates are hung. BUT, we still have some finishing touches left before the triumphant return of our original Saucer.  It won’t be exactly the same (we will all miss the old Land and Title building), but there will definitely be some big improvements!   We will have more seating capacity and an enhanced food menu. We also have a dedicated cellar to stockpile some rare jewels. This obviously wont make an immediate impact but will allow us to save some great beers for the 20th anniversary (three years from now) and of course give you a stellar line up for our annual BeerFEAST during TX OU weekend.

Soon this patio will be brimming with craft brews!

If everything goes according to plan we could be open THIS WEEKEND!  We have an excited crew of Beer Goddesses and Beertenders ready to get back in action and serve up some pints from our brand new beer system.  For those that value the subtleties of craft beer there really is nothing like a pint from a brand new draught line.  At the other Saucers we often cut and rerun fresh lines every year or two, but every single line on our 80 taps will be brand spanking new.  Staff training and refreshers are going on now and we have had the opportunity to put together quite a crew of seasoned Saucer and 8.0 vets as well as importing some new additions from other areas of Texas and the craft world.

As you can see we have plenty to do but it already looks like home

We look forward to opening our doors to our loyal Beer Knurds and former 8.0 regulars.  Keep an eye on my twitter @Schlabs and the local @FlyingSaucerFW or my right hand man @SaucerSam for details on the goings on in our world.

It is hard to believe that it has been 16 years since we opened Addison Flying Saucer. Our first  beer joint in Fort Worth  had only been open for nine months at that time. (Which BTW will be moving into the 8.0 space across the street – in May) It did not take us very long to figure out that the world wants better beer! So, we decided to keep growing – and now look what happened, we have 15 Saucers. AND we have our sites on a few more locations…..

Sunday is the day to celebrate BEER in Addison, TX. Join us all day for beer and good times.

Let me list a sample of what you can expect tomorrow:

Ranger Creek Le Bestia Aimable

St Arnold Farmer Brown in Chardonnay Cask

Real Ale Kraken

North Coast Grand Cru

Avery Rumpkin

and more……..

Tapping Schedule will be posted on site and check out Facebook for more detailed information. Plus – check this out: We’re also doing a canned food drive for the North Texas food bank and giving away raffle tickets for prizes to those that participate – tshirts, beer swag, glasses etc. Grand prize is going to be a 3L Double Bastard signed by our friend Greg Koch himself. Be there! We are hoping to see you.

Vintage Barley Wine Week will feature a special tapping of a different vintage barley wine every night, Monday through Friday, at 5 p.m. It is perfect weather for a visit to the Lake!

The selections of barley wines being offered throughout the week include a Monday night offering of 2011 Live Oak Old Tree Hugger; 2010 Scaldis on Tuesday; a 2010 Left Hand Oak Aged Widdershins on Wednesday night, which will coincide with the Left Hand Goblet Brewery Night that begins at 7 p.m.; Moylan’s Blarney Wine 2011 on Thursday; and Real Ale Sisyphus 2009 on Friday.

Our at a good man, Matt Gardner is putting together Sour Ale week at the Flying Saucer in KC. Matt is a big fan of Sour Ales – let him and his team show you how fantastic this style of beer can be.

Click on this link for a local press blurb on his event. We hope to see you there.

The weather has been fantastic around Dallas, Texas and to celebrate good times with good friends,  Flying Saucer will host the annual Beer Festival on Lake Ray Hubbard. Daniel and his crew have been collecting some interesting and limited kegs from various breweries around the US and abroad. He will release some of these on May 7th at his 2nd Annual Summer Beer Festival.

As a sneak preview, the following is a small list of some of the brews you will be able to try:

Stone Vertical Epic 10.10.10

Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball

Saint Arnold Divine #10

Avery Collaboration not Litigation

We will also have a variety of sessionable beers at this event. We just get excited about some of the bold and adventurous offerings by our brewing friends.

There will also be rare tappings inside the Flying Saucer starting at 2 pm. I hope to see you there.

How time flies when you work with people like Matt Gardner! He and his team have been working hard to bring you the best beers in KC, MO for THREE years now.

Come help us celebrate with a Cellar Release event on Sunday May 1st. We hope to see you there.

The crew down in Austin have another beer week starting up this week.  This time they are unveiling a plethora of Barleywines for central Texas’ drinking pleasure.  Each day they will be tapping a new big Barleywine, some of which have been cellaring for quite some time.  Austin’s General Manager Ted Rowell (and his team Sam, Joe and Andi) are not afraid to lay kegs down for months and often years to make sure the brews are in their prime when they are tapped.

On Monday they kicked things off with Great Divide from Denver, CO.  Their Barleywine, Old Ruffian, is a an American Style interpretation with big doses citrus hop additions that sometimes lead to the beer being called “over hopped”, if there is such a thing.  The keg being tapped is of the 2008 vintage, so the hops should have faded a bit to let the caramel sweetness of the malts catch up.  As of today they still had plenty left, so head on by to see what you missed.

Tuesday’s tapping is Brooklyn Brewery’s Monster Ale.  Garret Oliver decided to take his Barleywine in a more traditional direction, so this one is an English Style Barleywine.  This brew can have quite a bit of alcohol heat in the nose, but that disappears when you take a sip.  This malt forward recipe results in molasses and berry flavors with very little hop flavors or aromas.  They have 2007 and 2011 kegs to tap, but they are only 5 gallons so they are sure to go quickly.

Wednesday will host Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot.  Probably the definition of American Style Barleywine, this brew is a big hoppy monster.  Chinook, Cascade and Centennial hops come together to give Bigfoot its wonderful hoppiness.  They will tap a 2007 for tasting and a fresh one to be poured into the Brewery Night Glass.

Stone Brewing Co. will be represented by Old Guardian, another American Style Barleywine on Thursday.  Commonly referred to as the “OG”, this bad boy is from the 2010 vintage, so be ready for tons of flavors, both from the grains and the malts, to fight for dominance in your mouth.  The Hop recipe for this brew can change from year to year, and sometimes from batch to batch, but it never disappoints.

Friday’s tapping is one of my favorites, Avery Samaels 2010.  Technically this one is an English Style Strong Ale, but it fits right in with the Barleywines.  Caramel, Raisins and Molasses all come together in the aroma as well as the flavor and let the hops take a back seat.  Be careful, this one clocks in over 14% ABV!!!

On Saturday Harpoon Brewing Co. will contribute with their Leviathan Barleywine, not to be confused with their Barleywine from the 100 Barrel Series.  This beer calls itself an English Style Barleywine, but it has enough hops to put it somewhere between English and American Style.  The malt bill is nice and complex with enough hops to bring it all into balance.

Sunday is the day of $3 Texas Pints so why not tap a Texas made Barleywine on Sunday?  It will not be included in their special, but this is a great local barleywine.  Old Tree Hugger considers itself an American Style Barleywine, but has the malt complexity to compete with those of the English Style.  Plenty of caramel flavors and dark fruits, this 13.5% ABV brew hides its alcohol well so watch out!

There are plenty of Barleywines to be had down in Austin this week, and many of them will be available beyond their tapping days as these big beers are served in small pours.  So if you are able to make it by don’t be afraid to ask about some of the previous days tappings.  Enjoy!