Ah, summer.  We’ve spent the last few days out and about with customers and colleagues and have been having a ball.  Last weekend, we spent Saturday pouring beer at the first ever Shirley Fest in Shirley, Massachusetts.  About 400 people turned out for a terrific outdoor festival in support of Habitat for Humanity.  Great weather, beer, BBQ and bands made for a fabulous time.  We also participated in the 5th Annual Hophead Throwdown at The Publick House in Brookline, another charitable event supporting The Multiple Sclerosis Society.  We donated a keg of Mayflower IPA that we infused with extra hops (Marynka).  We hope everyone enjoyed it alongside the many other scrumptious offerings from our fellow brewers.

On Sunday, it was on to the 4th Annual Pig Out at Grover’s House, a Beer Advocate event hosted by our friend Michael Saklad from Stone Brewing. Our Mayflower Porter stood up to Michael’s 50 lbs. of pulled pork and ribs.  There was enough food to feed a small army, and we did our best.  Other great draft we enjoyed included Stone IPA, Southern Tier Uber Sun (donated by O’Brian from Sierra Grille) and homebrewed Wit by the infamous Longstaff.

And on Tuesday night, we poured our full line-up of Mayflower ales at the 2008 Best of Boston Awards party held at the Conley Terminal on Boston Harbor.  You wouldn’t think that it would be fun to have a party on a dock filled with shipping containers, but nice weather (finally no thunderstorms), good food, fun music and a festive crowd made for a  terrific evening.  Hats off to Boston Magazine and this year’s Best of Boston Award winners!

And this coming weekend, Matthew is off to New York for Belgium Comes to Cooperstown.  OK, so we’re not from Belgium, and we don’t brew Belgian ales, but Matt needs to get in his annual camping trip and couldn’t say no to Belgian waffles, a pig roast and a chance to show off our beer.

Meanwhile, it’s back to work.  Hope your summer is fun too. 

One thing about starting a new business is … you don’t necessarily know how much product your customers will want.  Well, lucky for us our customers are proving to want alot of our fine fresh beers.  We figured.. let’s start with 4 single batch fermenters and we should be good for at least a year.  NOT!  Today I called Rob Stoltys of Premiere Stainless in San Marcos, California to order more tanks.  We expect to have our two 40BBL (Double Batch) fermenters in place by the fall and also we will have a double batch Bright Beer Tank to go with them.  This will allow us to brew plenty more beers for all our loyal comsumers. 

 What an exciting time this is.  Barely 6 months into our 1st year of operations and we already are adding equipment.  No fear though, we have plenty more space to grow… stay tuned and thanks so much for your support.

But first… I must take a weeks vacation.  Starting……… Now!