Big Taste Delivered in Small Bottles

The People’s Republic of Flying Dog is now in session. It’s happy hour at Flying Dog Brewery, so here is your latest dose of irreverence.

Sometimes The Smallest Dogs Have The Loudest Bark

One of the fun things about our brewing facility in Maryland is that our bottling line previously ran some pretty interesting bottle sizes. Out of those old package sizes, a new revolution in craft beer has been born. We took the old Little Kings concept of small bottles and made one of the most unique packages available anywhere.

Introducing the Canis Major Mixed 8-pack of 7-ounce bottles. High-gravity beers pack quite a punch, and you might not want to drink an entire 11.5% ABV beer in one shot. These little puppies might be small, but they deliver all the awesomeness that our Canis Major series of beers has to offer. Plus, with two of each Canis Major style, these beers are perfect for sharing with friends. The Canis Major Mixed 8-pack is now available; bug your favorite retailer about availability.

It’s Cold In The Winter, But Our Beer And Soup Event Will Warm The Cockles Of Your Heart

It’s that time of the month again. No, not “that” time of the month. It’s the time of the month when we let you know about the Flying Dog Beer and Food Night at our brewery in Frederick. This month, we’re co-hosting it with a.k.a. Friscos and the theme is Beer and Soup. We are using a lottery-style system, so go to the event page on our website for details. Get your emails in by Jan 15. Which is tomorrow.

Gonzo Motivation

Let’s face it. After a few weeks of holiday parties and a bunch of days off, your motivation to get work done isn’t what it is supposed to be. But I’m guessing that the main motivator for any of you who watch the news these days is the horror of a soft economy and trying to find jobs during a shit-storm of corporate bailouts and dwindling corporate budgets while times are tough. Alas, you have forgotten one of the most motivating things of all time: the Corporate Motivational Poster.

We’ve all probably had those jobs where, in the break room, there are a few posters with the picturesque scenery and a bullshit motivational phrase underneath. And I’m sure that most of you have seen the joke version of these posters (make your own with flickr photos here).

But what you might not have seen is the Gonzo version of these generally terrible posters. Check out SloshSpot for a bunch of Hunter S. Thompson versions of these. Or you can click on the image below.

Which one is your favorite? Leave a comment on our blog version of this newsletter to vote.

We Kicked Ass At The Vail Big Beers, Belgians, And Barleywines Festival

For some of you who were lucky enough to be with us in Vail, Colorado last weekend, this is just a recap of the weekend. If you weren’t there, you completely missed out. The gods looked kindly upon us, and the Colorado mountains got hit with about 20 inches of the fresh snow a few days before we got there. So we had that going for us, which was nice. Our VP of Brewing Operations Matt Brophy flew into town from Frederick for the weekend, which was a special treat.

Friday night, we hosted a Beer Dinner at Centre V, and poured our Canis Major beers along side the spectacular beers of Russian River Brewing Company. Check out the menu at beerdinners.com. A hungry crowd of 120 people were with us and the whole night went swimmingly. My favorite course was the Shrimp & Scallops with Green Curry & White Beans, Arugula & Tomatoes, Paired with Russian River’s Beatification and our Double Dog Double Pale Ale. The spiciness of the Green Curry contrasted wonderfully with the hoppiness of Double Dog. We’ll have more on this at flyingdognews.com in the coming weeks.

The consumer tasting on Saturday was amazing, too. Six hours of people drinking beers no lower than 7% ABV made for some interesting people milling around our table. We poured all of our Canis Major beers, and even had a few bottles of the Dog Schwarz on hand to sample. We met a ton of wonderful people who were stoked on our beers, especially Kerberos Tripel. Check out more photos of the festival here.

Our Tweetup in Denver Was Ultra Bad-Ass Last Night

We held a tweetup last night at the Blake Street Tavern. A tweetup is a gathering of people who use Twitter. If the last year of talking about it hasn’t swayed you to use twitter, then perhaps the allure of free beer in the future might sway you over to the tweetosphere. Well, we promoted it on twitter and flyingdognews.com and 50 lucky people showed up to share in some free beer, appetizers and fun. Check out what people were saying about the tweetup here.

We will definitely be doing these in the future. So if you’re interested, join twitter and follow @flyingdog. We’ll be tweeting about future events, so keep an eye on our page. Questions on how to set up twitter? Email us at bullshit@flyingdogales.com.

Obamarama

We don’t generally tend to get super political here. But next Tuesday is a very big day for the United States. January 20th is a day that some of you have been waiting for, some potentially for the last 8 years. The historical significance of Barack Obama being installed as the 44th President of our US of A is huge.

We the People’s Republic of Flying Dog salute the President-elect. For one, he’s broken the mold of your traditional politician. By that, we mean that he doesn’t appear to be snarky. He’s also broken the mold of what you’d expect a politician to be like. At Flying Dog, we’ve also broken the mold of what you expect from a craft brewery, and we expect to keep it up in ‘09. We’re both mavericks. Wait, that was another guy. Our bad.

We’ll be raising a glass to our newest leader on Tuesday, and we’d love it if you toasted him on Tuesday with a pint of Flying Dog, too. If you toast Barack Obama on Tuesday, take a photo and email us at bullshit@flyingdogales.com and we’ll post it to our blog.