Deron just sent me a link to an article on beernews.org announcing that North American Brewers (NAB) is just days away from closing a deal to purchase Independent Brewers United (IBU), who merged Magic Hat and Pyramid breweries back in 2008. In 2009, IBU was the 8th largest of all regional breweries and made up 3.8% of all craft beer sales.

Who is NAB? They’re owners of High Falls Brewing Company, which includes lines like Genesee and Dundee Ales & Lagers, and also the exclusive seller of Labatt beer and Seagram’s Coolers in the US.

What does this mean for craft beer lovers and drinkers of Magic Hat and Pyramid? Well, only time will tell, but many are concerned that quality will suffer, once they’re being produced on a larger scale.

What do you think?

TAGS [ MAGIC HAT | PYRAMID | NORTH AMERICAN BREWERS | INDEPENDENT BREWERS UNITED ]

Hopefully you have been grilling this summer at least as much as I have. During the summer it’s my turn to cook, most of the time. Outside. Fire roaring. Giant sharp pointy objects to stab and turn meat and vegetables to roast to their impending doom …errrr, cooked to perfection. It’s a great time to enjoy the fresh air, provide for my family and have a beer from time to time.

I know some of you guys claim to leave on a bit of the last BBQ for "flavor," but come on. We all know. Without the right tool, it’s a pain to clean the grill. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll "pre-heat" the grill to loosen up what’s left, but in the end I have a pumice brick to easily take off the excess… whatever it was… left on the grill.

Pumice is from volcanoes, lava to be specific, and if there isn’t a tougher force in nature made to specifically clean my grill, I don’t want it. I frequently use Lava soap when I work on projects outside and it’s taken pretty much everything off my hands including roofing tar, so I have a lot of confidence in molten lava, cooling to a rough pumice stone, to be able to make cleaning my grill grates easier.

So give up the excuse of extra flavor and just get one of these. Make it easier on yourself and the meal you are cooking might even taste the way you planned it in the first place.

TAGS [ GRILLING | GRILL CLEANING ]

Love BrewDog beer? Head to Aberdeen on the opening night of their pub (coming soon!) and get the BrewDog logo tattooed somewhere on your body. You’ll get free BrewDog beer for life, or at least as much as is allowed by law, according to BrewDog.

Now, there’s a number of people and groups that are "appalled" by the idea of this promotion. I just don’t get that. I think that BrewDog’s beers and marketing schemes are plain genius.

Cheers to James Watt and the entire BrewDog team.

TAGS [ BREWDOG | BREWDOG TATTOO | ABERDEEN | BREWDOG PUB | FREE BEER FOR LIFE ]

Look at me, I’m riding a horse, now look at your kegerator, it’s stainless steel, just like all the other ones. Now look at this one, it’s diamond plated!

Everyone has seen the Old Spice Guy commercials with the gentleman who is obviously manlier than you and everyone loves it! Get into Mad Men and the old fashioned "men were men" attitude appears as well. Is this a resurgence of men being allowed to be men? To actually be ok with asserting themselves as having testosterone and in turn the general populace being ok with this?

Well gentlemen, embrace it while you can! Be the manliest SOB you can be! Drink dark beer and flout that Journey tattoo that you’ve been hiding since the early 80’s, (well maybe you should keep that one hidden). Stake claim of your man cave! Put up your favorite sports team sign! Get that diamond plated badass kegerator you’ve always thought would look great in your garage! Be less civilized by drinking a glass of beer right out of a bottle (sounds weird, but check it out). If history shows us nothing else it shows that climates are fleeting. Enjoy being a man before you miss out!

TAGS [ MEN | OLD SPICE GUY | KEGERATOR ]

Image credit: Demitri’s on Facebook

Congratulations are in order to Demitri’s, makers of award-winning Bloody Mary mixes that will knock your socks off!

Did I really just say "knock your socks off"? Sorry about that one.

Anyway, Demitri’s won gold medals for their Classic Bloody Mary mix, and silver medals for both their Extra Horseradish Bloody Mary mix and Chilies and Peppers Bloody Mary mix at the Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition. In my opinion, the awards couldn’t have gone to a better tasting Bloody Mary seasoning - Demitri’s is second to none.

Cheers to Demitri’s and great Bloody Marys! Thanks to J2 for sending me the link, too.

TAGS [ DEMITRI'S | BLOODY MARY MIX | BLOODY MARY RECIPES | COCKTAIL RECIPES ]

We’ve got a KegWorks Facebook page and not too long ago, we decided to do some advertising on Facebook. We thought it would make it easier for people who are into good beer, draft beer and awesome cocktails to find us and learn about our site. We created some ads and they’ve done really well so far – we’ve gained new fans, some new customers and we’re having a whole lot of fun interacting with everyone.

Seeing as I’m the one who manages this kind of stuff, I’m on Facebook throughout the day responding to questions and keeping in touch. I get the sponsored ads just like everyone else and I can’t help but laugh at most of the ones I see.

The targeting capabilities are pretty intense, so the ads are supposed to be relevant. Sometimes they are. For example, after Lebron James had announced his next move, I changed my status to ‎"First the cast of Jersey Shore goes to Miami, then the Kardashians and now LeBron James? The next thing coming Miami’s way? A meteor."

Now, I’m bombarded with these Kardashian ads (the second of which spelled Kardashian wrong):

Long before that, I’d posted about how I’d spent hours cleaning the interior of my car before going out to dinner. On the way home leftover hearty chicken stew sloshed out of the container and ended up all over my passenger seat. That was about 3 or 4 months ago but don’t worry, this ad started showing up:

Some of the other ads, aren’t so relevant. I’m not really into fishing, so I don’t know why this ad appears. Also, I’ve witnessed a lot of people fishing but they’ve never looked like that or crouched down that way. Maybe fishing has changed?

This image just scares me.

I am a marketer, but this is just an embarrassment to our kind.

#1. Who are these dudes and why are they smiling like that? What makes them warriors? What does a marketing warrior do?
#2. "Rarest" is not really a desirable quality, in my opinion.
#3. The capitalization is wild!
#4. "Limited Time. Act Now!" proves you market the same way as everyone else.
#5. Why didn’t a top producer write this ad?

That being said, our Facebook ads (like this one) are looking pretty good.

TAGS [ FACEBOOK ADS | FB | KEGWORKS ]

BrewDog has come up with a beer that is not only served from the mouth of a (hopefully dead) squirrel or stoat, but its also 55% ABV which is probably the strongest beer ever made (alcohol content, not muscle mass). "The End of History" is also the most expensive beer…ever? Each of the 4 Grey Squirrel bottles sold for £700.00 and the 7 Stoat’s went for £500.00 each (which translates to roughly $1390 and $993 dollars US, respectively). This blond Belgian ale is infused with nettles from the Scottish Highlands and fresh juniper berries. The packaging was created by a very talented taxidermist and all the animals used were road kill.

I’ve never drank beer out of taxidermied road kill before…but it’s been on my list of "things to do eventually" since I was a kid. I was hoping to cross that one off my list in the near future with "The End of History"…but with only 12 bottles in existence, that’s probably not going to happen this time around. Lets hope BrewDog decides to serve up its Tactical Nuclear Penguin in an actual Penguin at some point. Sounds delicious!

TAGS [ BREWDOG | THE END OF HISTORY | CRAFT BEER ]