In case you aren’t a subscriber to our newsletter (why the heck not?), here are some highlights.

Bottle Release This Saturday

We have a triple bottle release this Saturday.  22 oz bombers of Witicus, Outlaw McCaw and Chilly Invierno go on sale at 11:30am.  We also have a limited number of 750ml Witicus bottles as well.  To make things even more fun, we’ll have the first tapping of Ananke as a sneak peak at it’s October 9 bottle release.  Sips of this devine brew have made Scott cry several times this week already, so you won’t want to miss it.  Keep in mind, we will have a VERY limited amount of Ananke on Saturday.

Bring your pooches to our patio!

Over the last few months we’ve worked very closely with the City of San Antonio’s Metropolitan Health District to obtain a special permit which allows us to have dogs on our patio.  Starting Thursday 9/9, you can bring back your best friends.  A couple of rules, however:

• You must keep your dog in the specified section
• You cannot feed your dog any food, even treats, while on the premise
• As much as we love dogs, the City says we aren’t allowed to pet them.  No matter how adorable they are.

NFL Season is here!

Also Thursday, we’ll kick off the NFL season with Brett Favre starting his 970th NFL season against the defending champ Saints.  We have NFL Sunday Ticket, so we’ll have access to every game being played.  You can follow your home team right here at Freetail.  Keep in mind that local teams (Cowboys, Texans) have priority on the big screen.  We can show up to 4 games at once, and other games will be selected on a first come, first serve basis.

Support the Freetail Cycling Team as they fight MS.

Lastly, the Freetail cycling team is training for the MS Ride to the River, a 2 day, 160 mile ride to raise money to fight MS.  If you can find a place in your budget to donate to the MS Society, you can do so on our team page here

To all fans of Freetail, past and present:

I owe you all an apology for what has happened to us on Wednesday Date Night’s, culminating in the events of Wednesday 7/28.

Since we started Date Night, we’ve seen the volume of people coming to get a pitcher and a pizza for $16 increase steadily.  The last few weeks that number has absolutely exploded.  While this is a good problem for a business to have, unfortunately I personally dropped the ball in not anticipating this and last Wednesday we weren’t ready and we essentially went down in flames due to our unpreparedness.  Stories of 90 minute plus waits for pizzas, 30 minute waits for beer and 15 minute waits just to see a waitress are common.  All of these aren’t acceptable for us to treat those of you who have supported us.

I’m not someone who just works here or manages the brewpub, I personally built Freetail from the idea stage to what it is today, so I take these matters very personally.  I hope you can trust me when I say I am going to do everything in my power to ensure it never happens again.  You may have already noticed a number of new faces on the staff, which is part of an ongoing effort to ensure things like this never happen again.  We are upping the staff in every aspect of the organization to make sure that you recieve first class service and your experience is a great one.

Thanks to all of you willing to give us a second chance after last week’s ordeal.  We want to do everything possible to make it up to you.  I personally promise we will do better going forward.

Scott Metzger
Founder & CEO

Freetail Brewing Co. has announced that it has created the strongest, most hoppy beer ever weighing in at an astonishing 92.73% alcohol by volume and 11,312 IBUs, far surpassing recent achievements by Scottish brewer BrewDog and Danish brewer Mikkeller. 

To create the beer, Freetail used a patented cryogenic freeze distillation process they hope to eventually sell to ethanol fuel production facilities.  “We’ve developed a very alcohol tolerant strain of yeast to produce our high-gravity beers, but even it stalls out at around 13%,” said Freetail Founder and CEO Scott Metzger.  “At that point we begin our cold distillation process.  We got the inspiration for our process by watching Encino Man starring Brendan Frasier and Pauly Shore.”

Metzger went on to describe the hopping process.  “I hoped this would never be made public, but I’ll go ahead and spill the beans,” Metzger said with a sheepish grin.  “We were responsible for the 2007-08 hop shortage.  To make one half barrel of finished beer we used over four thousand pounds of cascade hops in 120 barrels of wort.  We could have just as easily used a higher alpha hop at an earlier stage of the boil, but we didn’t want to lose all that terrific flavor and aromas obtained by this American noble variety.”

To mark the achievement, Metzger and Head Brewer Jason Davis ceremoniously poured the beer down the drain together.  Metzger explained, “It was quite the achievement, but who would want to drink this?”  Assistant Brewer John Lee was seen on the ground mouthing the words “Me!” while Metzger posed his rhetorical question.

“This was a horribly stupid idea,” said Davis.  “I consider myself a professional and I’m ashamed to have ever participated in such a waste of precious resources.”

Freetail plans to resume the production of completely drinkable and delicious beers immediately.

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.