Danktoberfest Debut

Männer and frauen…put on your lederhosen and dirndls because Danktoberfest celebrations have officially begun here at the SüßWasser brewery. This is a biggin’ folks. As our first true lager ever brewed, Danktoberfest is the latest creative brain-child to come from the heady minds of our brewers, debuting from our infamous Dank Tank series…and this one promises to straighten your schnitzel.

The high gravity Oktoberfest-style brew hit our bottling line this morning. Get in on the action and check out the pics below (or by thumbing through our Flickr account).

Danktoberfest promises to deliver a malty taste and bready aroma, packed with zesty hops and huge amounts of heat. Weighing in at a whopping 8.5% ABV, this bad boy is brewed with German malts and hops to include: Pilsner, Munich, Cara Munich, Aromatic, Dark Munich malts; and German Perle and Hallertau Mittelfruh hops.

Be on the lookout for Mr. Dankenschnitzel to hit shelves the first week of October. He’s tall, blonde and bottled in a 22-ouncer. You’ll also have the chance to meet him in person at SweetWater’s Tasting Room on select tour dates. Remember Mr. Dankenschnitzel isn’t a native, so be sure to act fast and save some for your cellar.

More on Dankenschnitzel’s story:

LowRYEder Rye IPA Launch Party and Car Show: Video & Photos

A little rain couldn’t stop us at Saturday’s LowRYEder Launch Party & Car Show as folks flocked to the brewery in full on fiesta mode. We celebrated the only way we knew how to with Lucha Libre wrestling, mariachi music, a lowrider car show and hop contest, and of course loads of our LowRYEder rye IPA flowing from our taps.

Our parking lot was droppin’ and poppin’ with some of the sickest lowriders around,  hosted from the guys at Obsession Car Club. Their rides got real high during their epic hop off exhibition. Check out this video (courtesy of COTOWORKS):

We turned up the heat with Luche Libre wresting matches, where the female wrestlers got down ‘n dirty in the first match, and dudes were flying all over the ring in the second – mad props to the guys from Platinum Championship Wrestling. Even had our amigos from Ormsby’s, African Sky pretzels, King of Pops and Meanie Weenies out dishin’ up some bites for all the vatos around.

In case you missed this legendary booty-hoppin’ madness, be sure to check out the photos we captured. You can find the full lineup in our Flickr album and Facebook page (thanks Rank Studios and Dennis Tudor). Take a look, tag what ya see and get ready to be jealous if ya missed out.

Thanks to all who braved the wet weather to celebrate the launch of LowRYEder, we hope you managed to stay dRYE (see what we did there). Cheers to the newest heady hombre of our year-round lineup, and look for the LowRYEder six packs on your shelves soon!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Introducing Food Truck Thursdays

We’re glad to give y’all another reason to raise ‘em high with us on Thursdays here at the brewery. Our heady tour team has reached out to some of the tastiest food trucks around town to help us kick off a new tradition  - Food Truck Thursdays.

Every first Thursday of  the month, tour-goers will be able to throw back some mighty fine bites to go along with your SweetWater samples. Trucks will be servin’ during normal tour hours, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Better yet, you don’t have to wait ’til next month to get in on the action. We’ll be firing up our our first food truck fiesta tomorrow Thursday, Sept. 6, where y’all can feast on food from Sweet Auburn BBQ, The Pickle, African Sky Pretzels and King of Pops.

Keep an eye on our Facebook page/Atlanta Twitter account for future food truck lineups.

LowRYEder Bottles Arrive & A Fiesta Teaser

We’ve got grande news for y’all about the official launch of LowRYEder. If ya haven’t already heard the word about the newest addition to our year-round lineup, you should know it’s a flame-throwin’ IPA that we’ve ignited with a 25% shot of rye malt and dry-hopped with Centennial and Mt. Hood hops to give that booty a little extra bounce.

We let it creep out on draft around the Atlanta area over the past couple months so y’all could wet your whistles, but are excited to let you fine folks know that we officially bottled our first batch of the brew yesterday, so Atlanta locals should see it in six-packs on shelves at your local bodegas startin’ next week, and our other Southeastern brothers and sisters will see it parked on shelves by mid-October.

Check out some the video below to relive some of the action as our guys popped the ol’ LowRYEder bottle line cherry.

LowRYEder cruises on to the bottling line from SweetWater Brewery on Vimeo.

And what’s a beer birth without a party? We’re hosting a fiesta not to forget Sept. 8 from 1 – 4:30 p.m. here at the brewery in honor of the launch. We’ll have a lowrider car show featuring dozens of chromed out and tricked up lowriders around town, Luche Libre wrestling, a mariachi band (of course they will be playing a cover of “Lowrider”), food trucks, brewery tours, a pinata, souvenir glasses with admission, specialty LowRYEder cask samples and more…all for the same cost as our regular tours, $10.

We’ll have plenty of space to spread out this shindig with brews flowing in our Tasting Room bar and patio, parking lot, and at our Reel Room private event bar and balcony too. We’ll be capping the event at 2,000 amigos to keep it comfy. You can find updates and details on our LowRYEder Launch Party & Car Show event page.

Last night, we hosted a private mini-LowRYEder-launch-party for our friends from United Distributors to get them acquainted with our new brew and the madness. We wanted to share some of those pictures with y’all as a samplin’ of the fiesta festivities to come.

Until then, we’re lookin’ forward to sharing in some debut debauchery with you all in the upcoming weeks. Just remember, our LowRYEder gets a little higher, so get ready to bounce!

We Got Tanked, With Photos to Prove It

As we keep huffing and puffing towards the last phase of the expansion, our gang was getting tanked all last week. Some of our lucky Friday and Saturday tour-goers even got to sneak a peek of it all going down (see what we did there!), while other Atlantans might of caught a glimpse of what looked like massive missiles rollin’ down I-75/85 during rush hour traffic Friday afternoon (whoops).

We’re happy to let y’all know that as of this past weekend, all 14 of our new 1,000-bbl fermentation and brite tanks (10 fermenters and 4 brites) are up and in place in our new tank farm…going out on a limb here and saying this might just be the coolest farm in midtown Atlanta!

We captured lots of photos and some footage during the process. Feel free to browse on through our Flickr album to see it all in action, or click any of the pics in this post to link over. Special shout out to Chris Rank with Rank Studios for some of these awesome shots.

Now for some dank  facts about the tanks: Each of those tanks can hold up to 2,000 kegs which is nearly 13,780 cases and 330,720 bottles of beer. Multiply that by 14 tanks and that’s 28,000 kegs, 192,920 cases and 4,63,080 bottles of beer folks…just about enough sweet SweetWater nectar to fill an Olympic swimming pool.  Wonder if Michael Phelps wants to swim through it to check for us since he’s now retired (and we all know how much he loves the 420)!

Hoping to get the finishing touches on the brew house done this fall, got some grand brews in store to christen the new girl.  Lean back, turn up some Phish and enjoy the visuals.

Photo by Katie LeVan

Photo by Chris Rank, Rank Studios

Photo by Chris Rank, Rank Studios

Motor Boat Update

You Motor Boatin’ sons of…

Today we made the announcement that Motor Boat is returning to shelves in August, and teased more info leading up to the official launch of LowRYEder. In our press release we made mention of Motor Boat “sailing off into the sunset this October,” as it is a limited-time brew and part of our Catch and Release lineup.

We got a little liberal with the nautical references, so we wanted to go head and clear up some confusion. Motor Boat is most definitely still a part of our Catch and Release lineup, and won’t be gone for good. It’ll hit shelves as usual, during it’s couple-month-stretch and return next year. LowRYEder will be debuting in bottles this September, not to replace Motor Boat, but just to launch as the newest addition to our year-round lineup making its debut in 12-ounce bottles.  See below for more details from today’s announcement:

SWEETWATER BREWERY ANNOUNCES RETURN OF MOTOR BOAT AND UPDATE ON LOWRYEDER

Award-winning seasonal back on shelves while new annual gets ready to make its debut

 

ATLANTA (August 6, 2012) – Motor Boat is cruising on back into SweetWater’s Catch and Release lineup, dropping anchor this August. The slap-you-silly brew is SweetWater’s titillating version of an Extra Special Bitter (ESB), naturally built for speed and comfort…for the old sailor in everyone.

 

Motor Boat is brewed with Cascade, Sterling and US Golding hops, and dry-hopped with Cascade for a little extra action. Big in body, this unfiltered beer boasts complex malt character and finishes with 42 IBUs and 5.6% ABV.

 

The brew will hit shelves throughout the Southeast in mid-August. It will be featured in six-packs of 12-ounce bottles and will be flowing on tap at bars and restaurants.

 

This decorated brew has a proven track record with back-to-back silver medal wins at the Great American Beer Festival. So batten down the hatches, prepare your party barges and drink up while you can, ‘cause Motor Boat will be sailing off into the sunset this October.

 

Sad to see it go? Don’t fret. SweetWater’s got your back with the debut of its newest addition to the year- round lineup, a rye India Pale Ale (IPA) just around the corner. LowRYEder has been creeping out on select draft taps throughout the summer, but this flame-throwin’ IPA will make its official debut in six-packs on shelves throughout the Southeast early this fall. Stay tuned for more info on the brew and details about how the SweetWater folks are hopped up on hydraulics to make this brew’s launch party larger than life.

 

For more information on Motor Boat, LowRYEder and SweetWater Brewing Company, visitwww.sweetwaterbrew.com.  Hang out with your social media thang out and follow SweetWater on Twitter @sweetwaterbrew or Facebook under SweetWater Brewing Company.

#IPAday Love with Photos

Hopefully you’re not sufferin’ from a hop-induced hangover this Friday morning, post #IPAday celebrations.

Here at the brewery, we had a great turnout of folks beatin’ down the doors to raise some cold ones in honor of the one of the headiest holidays of season. We ran our taps dry and had our tour staff sweatin’ through their t-shirts doin’ their best to take good care of all the hop heads here at the fiesta. From dry-hopped specialty casks to IPA foodie specials, it was definitely another good time for the history books.

We’ve got a ton of photos from the shindig uploaded to our Flickr album to jog the memory, and also posted them to Facebook so feel free to tag ‘em as ya see ‘em. 

Thanks to all who made it out to help us celebrate in style, cheers to those who raised their pints offsite, and big ups to the folks who started the IPA Day movement…giving us craft beer lovers another reason to celebrate. Only 364 days ’til we can do it all again. Cheers!