Whoa! I'm back people. Sorry for the delay. I hope that everybody has been doing OK while I was away. Since you heard from me last I was in Montreal for half of a week. When I got back it was straight into a week that saw our company charity golf tournament and the Beer Connoisseur Festival (pictured).
I am working on a story and slide show for you about my Montreal trip (hint: It did not suck), but it is just taking too damn long to get it done. I have special events coming up that urgently need your attention. Let's begin:
- Peak Organic IPA & Brown Ale Casks- This Friday (tomorrow!) we have an IPA getting tapped in Decatur at 6:00 pm. Next Friday we are tapping an IPA at Perimeter at 5:00 pm, then a Brown Ale at Dulth at 6:00 pm. Wanna drink a beer with me at Perimeter? Better be there early, because I gotta split for Duluth in a hurry. No time to hang around there unfortunately. Saturday the 26th we will be tapping the last IPA at Mall of GA. They should be getting ready to tap around 5:30 or 6:00. We have some more of these on the East side, and I will let you know once we set a date to pop 'em open.
- Also on Saturday the 26th we will have some casks of Terrapin Reunion Beer 2010 at The Fred. This starts at 4:00 pm, and I would be on time if I were you. What can I say about this beer....hmm....big-ass Scotch Ale-style beer made with a true Trappist yeast strain from Belgium. Casks. Two of them. Can't wait to try it. Be there. Terrapin guys will be in attendance, and they are fun to party with.
- Monday the 28th we have a meet & greet with the owners of 21st Amendment Brewing Co. from San Francisco. Stop by Metropolis Taco Mac between 6-8 pm to meet the people behind Live Free Or Die IPA, Hell Or High Watermelon and other beers. The two beers mentioned are the only ones available in GA right now. I bet if you come out and help these guys see how ravenous Atlanta is for new beer, they might be encouraged to send us some other beers pretty soon. Oh, and if you are not getting psyched about the watermelon beer, let me tell you something: I do not like watermelon very much at all, and I like this beer a lot. They use mostly the rind, not the fruit. The beer smells like watermelon but does not taste very much like it. And in case you were asleep during history class, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment. OK, if that dos not make any sense to you, the 18th Amendment is better known as Prohibition. For those of you still sitting on the short bus: You hate the 18th Amendment. It took away people's ability to legally consume alcohol. You are very supportive of the 21st Amendment. In fact, if many of you had to name the single aspect of the United States Constitution that you are the most ardently supportive of, regardless of any domestic or international turmoil affecting the planet, it would the 21st Amendment. I know this because I have met many of you and know how you feel about drinking. On a survey asking how you regard drinking, you would check "Very Positively". If you had to rate the importance of drinking to you on a scale of 1 to 10, you would write in "11", and not be joking in the least. If you had to describe, in five words or less, what lengths you would go to in order to drink some rare and obscure beer, you would say, "...would trample own mother", and have a word to spare. You know who you are.
- The menu for the July 13th beer dinner is ready. The problem is that Marie is on vacation. She handles our web site, so you won't be able to see the menu for a few days. You can still purchase tickets via http://www.tacomac.com/. I can tell you that we will be featuring 7 beers from different breweries, and that Matt's food will be like a super-deluxe picnic without the ants. We will start with a beer cocktail I had in Chambly, Quebec recently. We named it after one of our favorite French-speaking characters and his husband. Hint: It is from a movie about auto racing, sort of. Anyway, this dinner is one of two bigger and more elaborate ones we do each year (the other is for the holidays). They are a big hit. Feel free to arrive in your favorite picnic or beach apparel. It is a laid-back affair with top-notch food and drink. (If you absolutely need to see a menu before Marie gets back, send us an e-mail to the "Comments" section of our web site. I can e-mail you the menu.)
- Holy crap July is going to rock. Why? Because we took the tired old "Christmas In July" and made it way cooler than ever. We are going to release a ton of cellared items at every store throughout the month of July. I am gathering all of the data into a calendar right now, and if I can figure out how to link that sucker here I will. Otherwise it is intended to be on our web site but, right....the Marie thing. Just go down to your local store over the next few weeks and find out what they have cooked up. Remember that if you are looking for Brewniversity credits, these are the kind that go away forever once the beer is gone. I know that some of you are really excited right now, and you should be. There are over 40 vintage dated drafts and 15 vintage dated bottled beers that are about to come out all over Taco Mac land.
That is all I have for you for now. Thanks to everyone who came out to the 1st annual Beer Connoisseur Festival last Saturday. It was a great success, even though God was playing a cruel joke on us with the weather. Next year we are going to do it bigger, better and earlier in the year. We laid a strong foundation for this to become Atlanta's premier beer event of the year in the future. If you missed, that is OK. There were 1,100 people who didn't, and they sure looked like they were having a good time. Stay tuned for that story about Montreal. I might have it done tomorrow. Bye.
