STATS SPORTS BAR IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA, has instituted a new way to deliver draft beer to the customer.  They are putting the taps right on their table.

STATS is a three-story shop with five bars in it and the expected array of  huge plasma-screen tv’s tuned in to the endless sports programming.  Located just a block from the Georgia Dome, they have a good trade.  There are two taps built into each table and they are hooked into a cooler filled with kegs in the basement.

The Associated Press tells how it works:

A waitress must first check IDs before turning on the tap. When the digital ticker counting each ounce hits 180 — or about three pitchers — the taps shut off until a server comes by to check on the table. Bigger parties keep servers running back and forth fairly often, while it’s rarer for smaller groups to hit the limit.

To use the taps, diners simply reach into the middle of the table and pull the lever to get as much — or as little — beer as they’d like. Meters and valves monitor the flow and instantly display how many ounces the table has tapped.

Of course, this unique system demands a new pricing scheme. Charging customers by the ounce instead of by the drink means that if a full pint of brew costs $4, a single ounce would only cost a quarter.

To read the full story, click HERE.
STATS Sports Bar WEBSITE.

SUNDAY THE WORD WAS SPREAD ABOUT THE MISSING GUINNESS BEER COSTUME in Detroit (Firegeezer story HERE).

The Eastpointe, Michigan, police had issued the press release hoping that St. Patrick’s Day parade-goers might spot the culprit who stole the $3,000 costume.

Beer salesmand Michael Nowak had lent it to a friend for a Halloween party and later somebody entered the friend’s garage and spirited it away.  Apparently the publicity paid off because early Sunday morning the suds duds were dropped off anonymously on the friend’s front porch.

Nowak says that he’s happy the costume’s back in part because of the grief he took from his boss.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS WORKING IN KENT, ENGLAND, HAVE UNEARTHED A 4,000-yr.-old bronze-age skeleton. 

It is located in a burial site and it is known as a “beaker” burial because there is a pottery vessel at the skeleton’s feet.  They believe that is was a beer mug.  Tests on beakers from other sites suggested Bronze Age man was brewing a type of beer from grain.

BBC News has the full story of the discovery HERE.

IF YOU’RE ON PARADE PATROL IN THE DETROIT AREA this weekend and you see a 6-foot tall Guinness walking down the street, don’t call for a beer.  Call for the police instead.

Eastpointe Police photo

Sometime during the past four months someone sneaked into somebody’s garage in the Detroit suburb of Eastpointe and stole the $3,000 costume.  It’s one of only two such publicity outfits in the U. S. and was sent over from Ireland on loan to a beer distributing firm.

The Eastpointe police believe that the purloiner won’t be able to resist donning the draught duds during the St. Patrick’s Day festivities and have issued a public lookout for the walking brew.

The Detroit News has the STORY.

WITH THE PRICE OF BEER JUMPING UPWARDS, YOU MIGHT LOOK FOR an alternative.  Namely, home brew.

Now if you go to the wine and brewing supply store you can get yourself a really nice homebrew kit with all the tools and crocks you need for a couple of hundred dollars.  But all that isn’t necessary.  DrinkCraftBeer.com has a great “beginners” lesson you can try out to see if you’ve got the makings of a brewmeister.

They have a complete illustrated guide to making home brew in your kitchen.  And just to show you that it’s possible, they use an apartment kitchen for the photographs.

Cooking the mash

The article gives a list of all the things you need to get going and then they go step-by-step through the entire process, ending up with a bucket of suds.  It includes the bottling step where the beer is aged for a week or two.

Capping the bottles

Go to the Drink Craft Beer website HERE and give it a try.

A BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, MAN celebrated Valentine’s Day by threatening to kill his girlfriend with a baseball bat if she didn’t go out and get him some beer.

She went out, all right.  But she came back with a policeman instead.  Her boyfriend still hasn’t gotten his beer.

The Express Times tells all about it HERE.

THE PATRONS OF THE LEDBURY, U.K., BREWERY INN AREN’T ABOUT to let a bit of smoke and fire pull them away from their pint.

Around 4:25 Monday afternoon the pub’s landlord, Philip Hurrell, tossed a couple more logs into the tap room’s fireplace.  That was just enough to ignite a fire in the crooked, z-shaped chimney and started spouting flames 3 feet out of the top of the chimney pot.

The firefighters didn’t take long to get there - the firehouse is right next door - but they stayed for nearly 3 hours chasing the fire through the hidden twists of the chimney.

The Brewery Inn
The bay door of the firehouse
can be seen just to the right.

All the while, the beer drinkers stayed on their stool, sipping their bitter ale, occasionally taking time out to see what all the firefighters were up to.  Hurrell said: “The customers took no notice and stayed. They expect anything down here, and it was bit of interest for everyone.”

You can read about this true dedication to the brewer’s art in the Ledbury Reporter HERE.

THE ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, FIRE DEPARTMENT IS SPENDING most of Super Bowl Sunday fighting a 4-alarm fire at the site of the original Falstaff Brewing Co.

KTVI image

1999 photo

The building has been vacant for 30 years, but is being offered for sale.  The fire apparently started just outside a doorway and spread into the part of the complex known as the cooling house and all the walls are lined with cork about 12 inches thick.

The fire has gotten into the cork and is slowly spreading throughout the walls.  Getting ahead of it and stripping the cork is long work and the FD expects to be there for several hours yet.

Fox station KTVI has the story and some raw VIDEO.

falstaffbrewing.com

The buildings remaing in the complex were part of the original brewery that was started before prohibition.  Later known as Plant #10, it was shuttered in 1977 and eventually the brewing equipment was sold to a Chinese brewery and shipped there.

For a good history and photo collection, the official Falstaff fan website is HERE.

falstaffbrewing.com

WAREHOUSE-STYLE RETAILER COSTCO HAS JUST recieved permission from the Federal Alcohol Tax and Trade Bureau to market its own private-label beer.

They applied for, and received, a license to market beers under their Kirkland label that is also being used on their proprietary wine products.  They hope to market pale ale, amber ale, hefeweizen and a lager.

They are still a long ways off from putting the first case in the stores, though.  The next step is to come to an agreement with a brewery to make the beers under contract.  Unlike most store brands that tend to be lower-priced bargain beers, COSTCO intends to have their brand brewed by a “craft” brewery and market them as an upscale product.

AdAge discusses the project HERE.

THE SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, BEE IS REPORTING that a man who crashed his car into a tree last night was not buckled in…..but his beer was.

Witnesses told Citrus Heights police that they saw the man driving north on Van Maren Lane in excess of 60 mph before he lost control of his car and slammed into a tree near Garden Gate Drive.

He was found still in the driver’s seat, unrestrained, next to the 12-pack of beer secured by a seatbelt, according to a police summary.

The driver was hospitalized with serious head and body injuries.  The beer was shaken up, but otherwise unscathed.

“The BEER That Made Milwaukee Famous”

Schlitz beer is back on the shelves, but only for a few minutes.  They’re being snapped up by anxious customers just as fast as the stores can stock them.

Pabst Brewing Co. is the current holder of the Schlitz trademark and 25 years after the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. shut down, Pabst is running off some batches of the original formula.  They have found out that “The beer that made Milwaukee famous” is just as popular as ever and are increasing production.  Since January they have been filling store shelves in Chicago, Minneapolis, and of course, Milwaukee.

After carefully recreating the original recipe from the company archives and personally interviewing many of the former brewmasters of the company, Pabst brought the famous brand back with an unexpected success with demand outpacing production.  It has been contracted out to the MillerCoors brewery in Eden, North Carolina.  Yesterday they announced that it will be available starting next week in kegs.  The draft product will be released first to 150 taverns in the three cities.

Channel 6 in Milwaukee did this nice video report of the comeback:

Joseph Schlitz first started in the brewing business in 1856.  After running the Krug brewery for two years, he married the owner’s widow and changed the name to Schlitz Brewing.  Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s Schlitz was the #1 selling beer in America.

But then a rapid series of management blunders crippled the company and sales tumbled through the 70’s until they finally shut down in 1981.  Schlitz had a devoted following of customers who swore by its unique flavor.  But in the mid-1960’s Budweiser, who had been #3 in national sales, began a 2-pronged advertising campaign.  First they went after the non-beer drinking customer.  Knowing that many people weren’t drinking beer because they didn’t like the taste, Budweiser convinced them to drink their beer ice-cold.  Any beer served at a temperature below 45º has no taste to it, so A-B got away with it.  Secondly, they tied in their advertising with a “sex sells” policy showing the youngsters that if you drink Bud, then the bikini babes will pile into your car uninvited.

Schlitz started losing business and instead of concentrating on winning it back, they thought that the secret was to change their recipe to be more like Bud’s.  (Remember New Coke?)  That, along with an ill-chosen plan to save money by accelerating the fermentation process, drove even their loyal drinkers away.  The Schlitz flavor was gone…..and soon the business was gone.

It’s great to see it coming back.

MILLER BREWING CO. ISSUED A PRESS RELEASE YESTERDAY saying that  it plans to test market the Miller Lite Brewers Collection, a trio of low-calorie, craft-style beers, beginning in February 2008.Milwaukee-based Miller will test the products in four markets: Minneapolis; Charlotte, N.C.; San Diego, Calif.; and Baltimore. 

The Miller Lite Brewers Collection will feature Blonde Ale, Amber and Wheat beers, each with fewer calories and carbs than a typical beer for that style, according to the announcement.

You can read then entire press release HERE.

Firegeezer, who never drinks yellow beer, says:  I’ll watch this one from across the street.  Who are they targeting for this campaign?  They don’t say.