Since the last update, beer has started shipping to Connecticut, Minnesota,and Alabama.  Most recently we entered Wisconsin (a second order was loaded onto an eighteen wheeler last week, driving to The Badger State ).

Each new market has exceeded expectations.

California and Colorado will be next, open sometime later this year or early in 2013. For Colorado we are working on logistics and licensing. For California we are analyzing distribution opportunities.

Two new beers recently hit the shelves.

Genghis Pecan Pie Porter reworks the original Pecan Pie Porter. The organic butter pecan extract we used, for me, overpowered the nose and made the beer taste oddly off and artificial, even though the product was all natural. This year we are using fresh pecans, roasted and ground locally (by our friends at The Gallows and Q’s Nuts), as well as the addition of brown sugar. There will be three batches made, with the second batch near completion.

Porcine Unidragon is a 100% bourbon barrel aged version of Blaecorn Unidragon, where we use beechwood smoked malt instead of the peated scotch malt. The beechwood naturally imparts bacon flavor. We wanted to call the beer Bacon Unidragon, but the federal government denied us as the beer is swine free. A pig was allowed on the label, however, which is ironic. With Chocolate Sombrero they let us keep the name despite there being no chocolate in the beer, but had us remove a chocolate candy bar and a belt that said I heart Cocoa from the label.  So, pretty much, the complete opposite outcome.

A few months back we thought we would have cans by now, but that opportunity has become unlikely. Instead we are going to make Hoppy feet, Clementine, and Miracle as six pack bottles. Hoppy Feet and Miracle will no longer be available as bombers when we do this, but Hoppy Feet 1.5 will become a year round beer. The timing for this: sometime early in 2013.

Our Third anniversary beer is Luchador En Fuego, a 100% bourbon barrel aged version of Chocolate Sombrero that we up sized to 11% and added more ancho chile, more cinnamon, and chipotle pepper. The release will be mid to late December.

Date Night, A Saison with rose, is being test batched for Valentine’s day. Experiments have begun using rose hips, rose water, rose petals, and rose extract to see how best to add the flavor of roses.

Ok…  basically: the grind is on!  We are working harder than ever to make good beer and to grow in a competitive craft beer market.

As always, I wish to extend gratitude from Clown Shoes Beer to our supporters, our friends, and to the invaluable feet on the street who rep the brand. Thank you!

Georgia came on board a few months ago. The Peach State has devoured several truckloads of beer.

Connecticut picked up an initial order at the start of June, yet they are about to receive their fifth shipment.

Philadelphia is establishing itself, through the hard work of the team at Bella Vista Beer, as a premium Clown Shoes market. The Bella Vista guys remind me of obsessed, well trained baseball infielders like David Eckstein or Dustin Pedroia, gritty men who outperform their physical forms.

Texas, New York, Illinois, Maine, Virginia, Vermont, Rhode Island and The Shelton Brothers (who have sent several loads of beer to Europe), all keep ordering on a regular basis.

We now have eighteen beers. To my amazement, some stores around here keep up to fifteen in stock, yet it is time to admit, we need to add some structure to our production.

I am thinking of making eight different beers a month. Six of these will be made from the core of Hoppy Feet, Clementine, Tramp Stamp, Muffin Top, Brown Angel, Miracle, Let My People Go, Eagle Claw Fist and Vampire Slayer. The other two monthly releases will be one offs, collaborations, barrel aged beers, and experimental brews.

Nothing is being taken for granted. We know how lucky we are to be here doing what we do and how hard it is going to be to maintain relevance. Yet…

We are working on a contract for 20,000 barrels of production at Mercury in 2013. This will include Brash, just launched by my friend from Texas, Ben Fullelove. I should also be getting two other projects off the ground if things go well. But Clown Shoes will need to account for the bulk of that barrelage.

20,000 barrels is 300,000 case equivalents of beer. That’s millions of bombers and pints that need to be sold and consumed while fresh.

Ummmmm. Holy Shit!

To attempt to tackle this large amount of volume we will be adding cans to our lineup, hopefully in the fourth quarter of the year.

We will also be opening as many new markets as we need to. To that extent we just sent a first shipment to Louisiana. On Monday a truck will grab over a dozen pallets, heading to Alabama. Minnesota is not far behind. We also expect to open New Hampshire and Ohio this year.

Clown Shoes continues to be a polarizing brand. There are those who deeply dislike us, dismiss us, ridicule and reject us. On the other side of that coin there are those who genuinely love us, embrace us, and who loyally drink our beers and share them with others.

We have no problem accepting this.

We know who we are: Clown Shoes.

Check out the label:

Last night Jeremy Cowan and I held a discussion of contract brewing at jm Curley.

My thought was that there was not going to be a real talk, because during the first visit I saw the main space only, which is clean and well appointed, but relatively small. jm would be packed, I figured, and most people wouldn’t care about a discussion on contract brewing. Schmoozing, sure, but public speaking?

Every event is different. Usually I get the unexpected. So I should have expected…

The surprise of a private room packed with hard core beer enthusiasts and professionals…

Jeremey Cowan, dancing around like a prize fighter before a bout, bringing the A game, comedic talent, and sixteen years of experience contract brewing his brand, Shmaltz…

That I would be standing front and center, impaired and unprepared, for two and a half hours of contract brewing analysis.

Well, I am Clown Shoes. Yessir, I am.

We covered a wide range of topics, including our personal histories, the economics of contract brewing, marketing strategy, facing competition, building industry relations, recipe formulation, and the future of artisanal beer.

Kevin, the bar manager, did a fantastic job of organizing the event. Thank you Kevin!

Patrick, of jm Curley, couldn’t have been a better guy. He showed genuine concern for us and for his customers throughout the night. Thank you Patrick!

I also got the chance to meet one of our long time supporters and a long time facebook friend: Craig Caplan. Craig, I bow before you. Your awesomeness demands it.

One last highlight, perhaps the best of the night for me, was seeing our boy, Miracle Mike, arriving in costume for the first time.

Hopefully he is there already.

I am staying on a few more days, visiting accounts with reps on Monday and Tuesday, then doing a tasting at Acre on Tuesday evening.

The time Geoff and I spent together was productive ( as well as goofy and fun), working two events that included a festival of many amazements and much drunkenness held at Durty Nellies in Palatine, getting impossibly lost in the Mayhem Mobile while heading to Stoller for a meeting with an assembled sales staff of sixty, going to a Cubs game that the home team won accompanied by a crew from Stoller Wholesale and Binny’s, and…

While at the game we discussed making a collaborative beer between Three Heads Brewing and Clown Shoes Beer, to be released during the heat of this year’s presidential campaign: Third Party Candidate.

Because we feel America needs a better option, Geoff also agreed to run for President.

Yes, Geoff Dale should be President of The United States of America.

This would make me sleep better, and I find it hilarious, so please, write in Geoff Dale on the 2012 Ballot!

What should our party be called? We were thinking of the D-Bag Party, meant in a self-deprecating way, but it is probably not a good idea.

For the beer, we discussed a Marzen made with freeze dried pumpkin and pumpkin spice, but are open to suggestions.

We welcome ideas for the above questions and for our Campaign in the comments section.

Here’s a photo of the The Man, The Minister, The Mayham Master, our future President:

100 cases of volume from that batch will be blended with the beer from two Knob Creek barrels that we have filled with Blaecorn Unidragon.

This concoction will be called Angry Beast.

The label will have a Blaecorn Unidragon looking particularly irate, breathing fire, carrying a dead vampire in its claws through an idyllic blue sky.

Check out the finished label for Flight of The Pimp, which will be Pimp blended with the other two barrels we have of Knob Creek Blaecorn:

We will be giving scholarships to college seniors (over 21) and are working with the Animal Rescue League of Boston to help place dogs, starting with an adorable puppy named Tom Hanks. Take him home, and Clown Shoes will pay the adoption fee.

Ben Fullelove came in for a whirlwind visit this past weekend. Ben owns Petrol Station in Houston and is working with me to start his beer brand, Brash Brewing, at Mercury. We tasted a test batch of his 12% IPA, The Bollocks, which was intensely hoppy and scary in terms of how easy it drank. Ben had four glasses, which made our visit to Lone Star and Deep Ellum later on pretty tame. He nursed a Smuttynose IPA for three hours and ate one third of a taco. Ha!

We also tried tests batches of the two brown ales that will comprise Pimp, the collaboration between Clown Shoes and Brash that we are making next month. Ben’s 10% Belgian Brown was toasty, balanced by layers of deep cocoa sweetness, which he wants to tone down by adding some priming sugar when we start the beer. There was also too much banana in Ben’s opinion, which we will negate by lowering the brew temp. The upsize of Brown Angel needed more hops, we think, but was dense and delicious. The blend of the two, however, was… PIMP!

Four Knob Creek Bourbon barrels were recently filled with Blaecorn Unidragon. Two of these will be blended with Pimp, one part Bourbon Blaecorn to two parts Pimp. This will make about 150 cases of our first limited release beer: The Flight of The Pimp. The Richard Bailey label will have a Pimp riding a Blaecorn Unidragon.

Here’s Richard’s artwork for The Bollocks:

The road trip only made it as far as Ledyard, CT. With two thousand dollars in my pocket, I told myself if I lost half of it I would keep driving south. Maybe down to Florida.

Well, Poker Gods smiled on me as I worked away at the low and mid limit no limit hold ‘em tables, located in the basement of Foxwoods. The poker room manager got me a poker room rate ($90 a night, first at the MGM and then at the Great Cedar Hotel) so I spent five days attempting to be observant, patient, and brutally aggressive in spurts.

Overall, I was pleased with my play. I made two unusual calls over the 40 hours at the tables, having a pretty good read on the players and the situations.

In one spot I thought the guy was chasing a draw a huge percentage of the time, so I called him on the flop and turn for small bets, and then for $150 on the river.  I had a pair of 5s and called into a board with four higher cards on it (2 6 7 9 K).

The second spot was wild, in a mid limit game. I raised with QJ of diamonds in late position. An aggressive player who had been playing very loose and in my mind bluffing a fair amount called. The board came with a queen and two small diamonds. I bet, he called. The turn was a black ace, which I didn’t love, but I also didn’t feel like he had one. He bet $100 and I called into a pot that had about $350 in it. The final card came and it was a black deuce, which eliminated the possibility of a flush or a straight. He checked, I bet $150, and he went into thinking mode, actually mouthing math quietly to himself before declaring his stack all in. He had roughly $550 left, which made it $400 to call into a pot that had $1150 in it. This guy would have missed a draw or would be bluffing way more than a third of the time, so I called pretty quickly and was happy to see he had only a pair of sevens. After playing tight and conservative for days, it was difficult putting so much of the money I had won on the line to make that call, especially as light as my hand was. But this guy and the way he played the hand reeked like a tomato shit.

Stacking $1500 of red chips is fun. You can build a fortress with them.

As glorious as this all sounds, about four days in I started getting very tired. While there are a great number of decent and interesting people, there are also a great number of lonely people and degenerates that play poker at Foxwoods. Sitting with these folks, vying to take cash from one another, eventually beats me down. Even if I am winning.

I decided I’d move upstairs to the tournaments, play one or two and head home.

That evening I flamed out of an $80 buy in No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament. I brought a Foxwoods cup filled with Vampire Slayer and sat there sneakily sipping on it. I think my opponents could smell the beer on the other side of the table, so I am not sure how sneaky that really was.

The next morning I played a $140 buy in No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament. Seated next to me was a salty, wrinkled old man with thick white hair and two gold teeth, who took to calling me Tommy. He would say stuff to me like, “Hey, Tommy, what shit you got over there?” Everyone at the table started calling me Tommy. Which was cool, because I kept building one of the biggest stacks in the tournament, eventually making a deal with the final five players to split the prize pool. Each of us received $943, but I got a nickname too.

Just call me Tommy.

Now I am back at work.

Miracle is getting bottled late next week.

Ben Fullelove is coming in from Texas to taste the first test batches of Brash Brewing Company beers.

Clown Shoes is working on the recipes for Let My People Go (pale ale with cucumber) and Rosebud (wit with rose).

It should be a good Spring!

Gregg B.