To say that Hooligans was packed that evening would be an understatement. Do you realize we went through the equivalent of one half barrel keg of Phoenix within the first 30 minutes? That’s almost 150 glasses of beer. The tap literally did not shut off during the first 30 minutes. What a night! The Bay City Times ran a cover story on the event the following day. The Midland Daily News also ran a nice feature story. We have copies of both articles posted on our web site. Follow this link to read them.

In the weeks that followed, we steadily added bars and restaurants to our list of clients. Within the first month of the release we shipped 230 kegs of Phoenix. At the end of February, we had 31 bars and restaurants that had Phoenix available on draft. We will keep an updated list of places that are serving Phoenix on our website. To see the current list, simply follow this link. Many bars and restaurants are running out of Phoenix during the week, so it is always best to phone ahead if you want to be sure a place has Phoenix available.

We have been very happy with the fantastic way local bars and restaurants have been selling Phoenix. These places clearly take great pride in selling our beer. However, we have noticed that not everyplace presents Phoenix the same. We have noticed that most places serve Phoenix at just the right temperature, while others serve it very cold and a few a little too warm. Some serve Phoenix in a frosted glass, some in room temperature glasses, and others even serve it in plastic mugs!

As with anything in life, there have been a few bumps along the way. One of the more frustrating things for us is when we notice how under carbonated the beer has been at a couple of places. To be sure, this is a minority of places. The vast majority of places have been serving Phoenix well carbonated. Drinking an under carbonated beer is not a pleasant beer drinking experience, nor is it a pleasant experience for us the brewer! We are working hard to get to the bottom of all of this, and we promise you that your Phoenix drinking experience will be top notch!

A number of events have taken place within the last month that we were proud to be a part of. The first was the Dow Corning Tennis Tournament in Midland. We were proud to be one of the sponsors of the tournament and to have Phoenix as one of two beers available on draft in the VIP lounge. We received many, many compliments from those that attended the tournament and tried Phoenix for the first time. Thank you to everyone that tried Phoenix … and loved it!

The other event that we were part of was the Imbibe 2007 event at The Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth on Saturday, February 3, 2007. This event featured 11 German beers from Michigan Microbreweries, including Phoenix Golden Ale. Phoenix, you’ll recall, is a German Alt Bier. The event was very well attended and we received many, many compliments for Phoenix. Thank you again!

That’s it for now. We will try and keep in touch with you every month or so. Please let us know what you think of Phoenix Golden Ale by emailing us your comments at kpeil@tricitybrewing.com. Also, please take a look at our web store. We have several different shirts for men and women as well as sweatshirts, a hat and 16 oz glasses. The glasses are very popular. We sell them for only $5 a piece. Very soon we will be introducing our line of Phoenix branded merchandise. We will let you know when all of this comes available. Visit our store by clicking on this link.

If you do not wish to continue to receive our newsletter or any other mailing from us, simply reply to this newsletter with the following subject heading in your note: “remove from distribution list”. We thank you all again for your support. We will be back in touch soon. Prost!