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.

Something Old, Something New. Something Borrowed, Something Blue.

We’re heading into wedding season, people. People getting married left and right, with about half of those happy people realizing the horrible error in their reasoning and backing out of that train wreck of a relationship (much to the delight of their lawyers). To offset the fact that you’ve got a monkey suit on, make sure your engaged couple are stocking up on Flying Dog brews for the open bar reception.

Flying Dog Brewery has a present for everyone, not just those folks who are registered at AsSeenOnTV.com.

Something Old: Our old website was getting a little dated looking.
Something New: Check out our new website at flyingdogales.com.

Something Borrowed: We borrowed your car last weekend; probably should have told you beforehand. Our bad.
Something Blue: Oh yeah, that blue scratch on the side of your Gremlin? Um, it was like that when I borrowed it. Seriously. Yeah, it was definitely scratched before I went joyriding to every establishment within the city limits where lovely ladies take off their clothes for money.

We’d love for you to check out our new website. We’ve added a lot more of our social media activity directly into our homepage. You can now just check out our homepage to see what we’re tweeting and blogging about. We want to give you a more full picture about what we’re up to. As always, we still have information about our award-winning ales, along with upcoming events, contests, videos, and all other things related to Flying Dog.

Have feedback? Click on the feedback button on the left of our site to let us know what you like, or how we can do better. We want to hear from you.

Get To Know Gonzo #4: Ralph Steadman = Total Bad Ass

One of the reasons we are where we are today is because of our amazing label artist, Ralph Steadman. Ralph is a world-renowned artist whose collaboration with Hunter S. Thompson is the stuff of legend. Ralph is so awesome, that his art was even (lovingly) ripped off by a certain animated sitcom.

So go check out Ralph’s website at RalphSteadman.com and see what he’s up to. Notably, Ralph just wrote and illustrated a children’s book called Garibaldi’s Biscuits. We’ll have more on our favorite artist in the next newsletter. But for now, read what you can about Ralph, one of the most influential artists of the last 50 years.

Don’t forget to look at Ralph’s Art of the Week (at the bottom), this week features something he recently sent us.

We’ll be bringing you something Gonzo-themed from the world each time the newsletter comes out. Have a link to send us? Email it to joshm {at} flyingdogales {dot} com.

Show Your Patriotism During American Craft Beer Week By Drinking Our Beer

America: The brewing revolution needs your help. Flying Dog Brewery and you, our scores of citizens of the People’s Republic of Flying Dog, can make a difference in the brewing world. You can do this by promoting the concept of drinking beer owned by Americans and produced in the good ol’ US of A. There is no better time to show your friends that you’re an American Craft Beer drinker than during American Craft Beer Week (May 11-17, 2009).

We will be showing our support in a variety of ways. First, each day that week, we’ll be asking our Twitter followers about what American Craft Beer they’re drinking (and using the hashtag #craftbeer). Everyone who replies to us with the beer they’re drinking (and the #craftbeer hashtag) will be entered into a contest to win some free Flying Dog shit.

If you’re around Frederick, MD on May 16th, we’ll pick someone randomly from our Saturday tour as the big winner of some free shit from our store. It’s always a good idea to come to our 50,000 square foot brewery for a tour, but winning free shit always makes things better, no?

Become a fan of American Craft Beer Week on Facebook to show your support for an industry that we’ll never be outsourcing.

We Twitter Tasted Live, Did You?

The Flying Dog edition of Twitter Taste Live happened last Saturday. Were you one of the people who drank our Canis Major series of beers with us? We had a wonderful turnout, with lots of people tweeting about how awesome our beers are. CEO Jim Caruso and VP of Brewing Matt Brophy were on hand to drink beer with our fans who tweet.

Interested in seeing what you missed? Scroll through 15 pages of tweets about what people have to say about our Canis Major brews. We had fun and are looking forward to doing something like this in the future for those of you who missed out.

Cheers! Until next time,
     -Josh

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.

The People’s Republic Of Flying Dog Lands At Philly Beer Week

We’re right in the thick of Philly Beer Week (which is actually ten days long - I guess that’s just how Philly rolls). Flying Dog Brewery is there, and we’re doing a ton of events throughout this week. For a look at everything we’ve done and are continuing to do, check out our schedule over at flyingdognews.com.


We’re owning Philly Beer Week as only we can. That pretty much means huge parties, great beer, and great people at great bars.





Monday night, Mid-Atlantic Market Manager Joe Gomez was on hand at the Pub on Passyunk East - or the P.O.P.E., to use the parlance of our times. Joe was joined by VP of Brewing Operations (and all-around bad ass) Matt Brophy for “The Gonzo Art of Drinking” at P.O.P.E., which was a tribute to Ralph Steadman. At the end of the night, Joe and Matt gave away a Ralph Steadman print, along with a gift certificate for a free frame to boot. The print was a totally bad-ass version of the White Rabbit from Ralph’s version of Alice in Wonderland, as only Ralph should draw it. Incidentally, this isn’t the first time Ralph has been involved with the Pope - read about Ralph’s time with Hunter S. Thompson at the America’s Cup and how this fits here (if you’re a slacker, just search for pope).


Here’s what Joe had to say about Monday night’s event:

“I don’t have enough adjectives to describe how great the event at P.O.P.E. was! Dennis Hewlett, the owner of the P.O.P.E, went all out for us. The only place I have EVER been that was more Flying Dog-friendly is our own tasting room. A few hundred people came through to try out our Nitro and Barrel-Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter. When I left, Horn Dog was the lone surviving tap; we kicked everything else.”


Wednesday night (aka tonight), Flying Dog CEO Jim Caruso will be on hand at both of our events: “PAWS” Benefit from 5-8PM at the Bishops Collar (2349 Fairmount Ave) and then at a Flying Dog Promo Night, starting at 7:30PM at The Good Dog (224 S 15th Street). Stop in and say hey to our fearless leader!


And then our Head Brewer Bob Malone will attend our Philly Beer Week events  Thursday-Saturday, so stop by and say hey to the man who helps make your Flying Dog beer taste so damn good.

Get to Know Gonzo

Get to know the cultural icons who play an integral role in the history of Flying Dog. Of course, we’re talking about Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman. We had a huge response to our newsletter last time (which reflected on the passing of Hunter four years ago), so based on your feedback we’re going to run with it. This is the first in this series, a video segment that the BBC World News put out back in June. The BBC interviewed Alex Gibney, director of “Gonzo” about the film.

We’ll be bringing you something Gonzo-themed from the world each time the newsletter comes out. Have a link to send us? Email it to joshm [at] flyingdogales [dot] com with a link.

Dogs Don’t Generally Tweet, But What About Flying Dogs?

If you have a dog that’s making tweeting noises, you probably need to go see a veterinarian. But if you’re a Flying Dog, it’s very much plausible. Birds fly and flying dogs fly. Seems plausible enough to me.

Flying Dog has a Twitter page, as we’re sure you know. And we’re recognized as one of the top 25 brands using Twitter. We’ve also just amassed over 3,000 followers, and we’re growing by leaps and bounds every day. We can’t do this sort of “World Adult Beverage Domination” that we’re achieving without you fine folks, so keep talking about us to your friends. We certainly talk about you to our friends, just so you know.

What you might not know is that a growing number of Flying Dog employees are using Twitter, too. If you’re interested in what they do, you might want to consider following them, too:


Jim Caruso - Flying Dog CEO. Jim is all over the country almost every week, checking in and posting photos along the way.

Matt Brophy - VP of Brewing Operations - Matt’s a total brewing genius, and a really amazingly nice guy to boot. If you’re a brewer or aspiring brewer or just a fan of our brews, he’s your man.


Joe Gomez - Mid-Atlantic Sales - Joe (yeah, the same guy from the Philly Beer Week article) has been tweeting about the Mid-Atlantic for a while and is definitely getting the hang of it. If you live around the Philly area, Joe is the go-to guy for you.


J.T. Smith - Frederick/Baltimore/DC Beer Guy - J.T.’s job title is “Local Beer Guy” which makes sense if you live in the Frederick/Baltimore/DC area. J.T. posts about our activity in the area as well as about lots of cool music.


Tabitha Kim - Purchasing Specialist - Tabitha is a relatively new hire who is very serious about Flying Dog. Just look at this tweet from Tabitha yesterday.


Steph Kerchner - Marketing & PR Coordinator - Steph is a jack of all trades. She’s our festival go-to gal, but also hits the streets of Colorado, spreading the good word abut Flying Dog.


Neal Stewart - Prime Minister of Marketing - Neal is a really big deal. Aside from overseeing the direction of the Brewery’s marketing, he’s usually the voice of Flying Dog’s twitter account. He writes lots of blogs, and even has a personal blog about Turkey Sandwiches.


Justin Livengood - Purchasing, inventory specialist and all-around brewery bad ass - To call Justin just an inventory/purchasing guy would be the biggest understatement we can think of. Justin keeps this company running through his invaluable insights. He’s newly married, a new homeowner and also the 2008 Flying Dog Alpha Bitch (employee of the year). Justin is just getting started on twitter, but welcome him all the same.


Lori Maykowski - Accounting Manager - Lori is our 2007 Alpha Bitch who tackles a bunch of our accounting necessities. Lori is into traveling, and is really into seeing live music. She is even chummy with Dave Navarro and Perry Farrell - OK, well, she’s met them at least. And Elvira.


Josh Mishell (expletive-filled posts, be warned) - Creative Manager - The easiest way to explain his job is that Flying Dog pays Josh to design beer labels. His job encompasses more than that, from shooting and editing video to other stuff, including the writing of this newsletter (recently).

But Wait, There’s More Tech and Beer Shit To Talk About!

We’ve got more to talk about when it comes to beer and tech convergence. No, we can’t email a beer yet (but we have an entire team devoted to bringing that to you). But we can collectively talk about beer online at a new social networking site devoted to beer. 97 Bottles is new, and we think they’re onto a pretty cool concept.

I met Keith Robinson, one of the creators of 97bottles.com a few weeks ago and I asked him to talk a little more about what they’re trying to do.


“97 Bottles is a web site that lets you keep track of beers you’ve tasted, rank them, review them and share what you’ve learned. Ever since the launch of Cork’d, which is similar for wine, I’ve wanted to have the same thing for beer. I love beer, but have found the “beer geek” community to be a bit hard to crack. I knew quite a few people who felt the same.

“I wanted a place where I could indulge my love for beer and learn in a way that was accessible and open. 97 Bottles was created to be very easy to use and accessible, while having an advanced feature set that appeals to hardcore beer geeks.


“We’re working on a really nice mobile version that will allow people to review/rate on the go. An iPhone app is also in the works. We plan on doing quite a bit with the location data we’re collecting, so we can break down reviews by region, for example, or allow people to easily hook up with drinking buddies in their area.


“I’m a huge fan of porters and stouts; those are my favorites for sure. Your Gonzo Imperial Porter is on my to-drink list and I hope to get to that soon. I’ve also got a fondness for the German Weissbiers.


“We are going to be all over SXSW. On Friday the 13th we’re doing a 97 Bottles happy hour at the Gingerman, on Saturday we’re providing some beer to the Bikehugger folks and their Urban Ride, and on Monday we’re doing our 4th annual SXNW party at the Iron Cactus. And we’ve got a few other small things sprinkled in between.”


If you’re interested in rating and reviewing our beers, just sign up for free at 97bottles.com and search the beers for us. We also have an account at 97bottles.com, so please add us as your friend!