Happy Holidays

We would like to take this moment to send best wishes to all this Holiday season.  Thanks again to each and every one of you, whose patronage grants us the luxury of making & serving artisan, off-the-wall beer and pizzas for a living.

Holiday Hours:

December 24, 2009 – Open 11:30am – 4pm.  $2 Off Growler Fills on Christmas Eve! Share some beer with the family!

December 25, 2009 – Closed.

Normal Hours Resume December 26.  The Flamin’ Hellcats live on the Patio, Saturday December 26 7-10pm.

December 31, 2009 – Open 11:30am – 6pm. $2 Off Growler Fills on New Years Eve! Share some beer with your friends!

Normal Hours Resume January 1, 2010.

What’s In Store for Year Two.

As you all know by now, we turned the big ONE on Thanksgiving Weekend.  A lot of customers have been asking what’s in store for our little brewery in year two.

The first big project we are excited about is being dubbed “Ceres”.  Ceres was the first discovered dwarf planet in our Solar System named for the Roman goddess of growing plants, the harvest, and motherly love.  What Ceres is in terms of Freetail, is the first step into our long awaited barrel-aging program.

Friend of Freetail and local homebrewer, Mike Klueber, transported Ceres from the Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky to Freetail, where it now sits full of the remaining volume of this year’s batch of La Muerta.  Being the first fill of this freshly emptied bourbon barrel, La Muerta does not require a lot of contact time to absorb the flavors and aromas of the barrels.  Very shortly we will be draining Ceres and putting Barrel-Aged La Muerta on draft and releasing an extremely limited quantity of bottles.  Then we will fill Ceres will this year’s batch of Old Bat Rastard for extended aging.

Also coming in the New Year will be our winter saison—Invierno Inexistante—brewed with dark cacao; look for a new batch of Torpor Porter and our fourth lager: Tim.   Watch for news of our Winter Strong Beer Tasting which will feature special releases of Old Bat Rastard, La Muerta, and American- and French-oak aged Sisyphus from Real Ale Brewing Co.

As the New Year rolls along we’ll be reintroducing you to some old favorites like Danny Mijo while bringing some new additions to our growing family of brews, such as our first take on a Belgian Dubbel, tentatively named TwoTail.

Celebrating First Tappings & the Vernal Equinox

Although we celebrated our birthday Thanksgiving weekend, this weekend is the celebration of another milestone for us.  December 20 is the one-year anniversary of the day we sold our first house beer.  We’ll be celebrating this moment along with Monday’s Vernal Equinox by lining up the following small-batch specialties over the weekend:

Sunday:  Double Honey One—anniversary ale refermented with Texas honey

Chamomile Witicus, Spiced Otoño III (White Cardamom), BrokeThesis (4:1 blend of Broken Promise and Hopothesis

Winter Solstice (Monday):  Starflower Wit, Spiced Otoño IV (Orange and Allspice), Brotoño (Otoño fermented w/ Brettanomyces)

Cowboys vs. Saints, Saturday on NFL Network

The Cowboys playoff hopes appear to be teetering on the edge disaster, but this Saturday they can salvage the season by beating the unbeaten Saints in New Orleans.  Whether you are rooting for the Texas team to pull off the upset or for the Saints to crush the ‘Pokes hopes – you’ll need the NFL Network to catch the action.  As we all know, Time Warner doesn’t carry the network, but Freetail does!  So come enjoy a beer, a pizza, and watch the football drama unfold.

Congrats to Markus Haas nd his Sour Cherry Stout for wining this year’s Funkiest of Show at the Alamo City Cerveza Fest.  We’ll brew this delight next year for our GABF Pro-Am entry!

You can subscribe to this newsletter by emailing news@freetailbrewing.com

Science community unsure of ramifications of brewing Hopothetical Ale– warn of universe collapsing upon itself.

Today we brewed batch #45, another La Rubia to replenish the quickly depleting stocks.  That means we are quickly approaching Batch #50, long ago scheduled to be hopothesis A.    Upon hearing the news, local scientists quickly warned us of the potential ramifications of such a brew.

Staff astrophysicist Klaus von Banderburghen weighed in on the subject:  “While the hop content of das bier is astronomically high and, quite frankly, categorically insane – these scientists are clearly suffering from torschlusspanik.”

The University of Chicago Institute of Cataclysmic Destruction (ICD) issued a statement last week saying the brewing of Hopothetical Ale, the construction of the Superconducting Super Collider Particle Accelerator in Waxahachie, TX and Global Climate Change are currently the largest threats to the viability of life as we know it, further adding that at least Global Climate Change is gradual and doesn’t run the risk of imploding the entire known universe overnight.

“The use of so much hops in a single beer is unprecedented,” said ICD Chair Regan MacNeil.  “And to be quite honest I find it to be irresponsible.  The addition of such high concentrations of alpha acids and unchartable IBU poses a threat not only to our children, but to our children’s children, and their children.”

“Das is crazy,” says Klaus.  “To say such hops are hier ist die Hölle los is silly.  When this brew works and I enjoy a sip of the first pint, I’ll be sie feiern bis in die Puppen!”

We’ll brew Hopothesis A in a few weeks.  Pray Klaus is right.  

Summer Beer Dinner

Summer Beer Dinner tickets are on sale now and are moving fast!  Taking place on 09.09.09 at 7pm, a $40 ticket (not including tax and gratuity) gets you the following menu.  Come reserve your spot before it’s too late.

Course 1: Warm Pear, Gorgonzola & Walnut Arugula Salad w/ Rye Wit Balsamic-Honey Dressing paired with Morning Wit

Course 2: Warm Oysters w/ a Morning Wit Sabayon paired with Verano Sin Fin Saison

Course 3: Your choice of the following paired with Freetail Amber Lager:

a)       Pork Spare Ribs w/ Nacho Sancho Ancho BBQ Sauce, German Potato Salad and Porter Baked Beans

b)       Baked Halibut w/ Nacho Sancho Ancho Glaze, Roasted Potatoes and Asparagus

Course 4: Peach Raspberry Cobbler w/ Bat Outta Helles Vanilla Bean Ice Cream paired with Witicus Double Rye Wit

Course 5: Rye Wit Macerated Fruit paired with Nacho Sancho Ancho

Broken Promise brew video on YouTube.

Ever wonder what a day at the office is like for the brewers at Freetail?  Check it out for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr93gL5k0VQ

San Antonio Beer Tour

Patrick Beach of the Austin American-Statesman and Travis Poling of Beer Across Texas recently took a beer tour of San Antonio which included a trip to Freetail.  Read about it here: http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/bws/entries/2009/08/10/my_perfect_day_trip_san_antoni.html

Beer-writer extraordinaire and all around nice-guy Patrick Beach recently toured San Antonio’s unique beer establishments with always-delightful Travis Poling.  Here’s what he had to say: http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/bws/entries/2009/08/10/my_perfect_day_trip_san_antoni.html