Karback has been out for about a year and a half, already one of the big boys. I love it. Great idea, and great name BeanBone.
I'm happy for JK they did a collab with Mikeller but I would like to see the Texas brewery's do something together. Kinda like when SA did Homefront. Come up with a brew recipe and trial it and have it out in time for next year breast cancer awareness season. Beer for boobs!
For me, they're 50/50. Generally they don't make anything that's astoundingly better than their normal lineup beers, but sometimes you can get something unique (see: Stone Mint Chocolate or Alpine/NB Super IPA). I'm a BIG fan of the De Molen's Brewmaster Collaboration Series.
Couldn't agree more with Lutter, OMG the world has ended . Collabs are cool in theory but rarely seem to pan out.
I would love to see a TX collab between all 32 breweries in the state. It would be a brown-hefe-ipa-gueuze aged in crude oil barrels with pixie sticks, grated cheese, and moonpies
St. Arnold's will never do a collab. I asked Brock about it in a tour and he pretty much yelled at me. He said its the stupidest gimmick ever, "What is a collaboration? I don't understand what these breweries are doing and saying it is a collaboration, it is just a marketing thing. I will never understand these collaborations and I will not partake in one. The only real collaboration was the one by Russian River and Avery when they got into a dispute over a name."
I can understand Saint Arnold's point on that... oh... and don't forget our State Fair staple that went bigtime nation wide... Corn Dogs
I'm going down there in the next month or so. Given our mutual friends, I'm thinking they would be interested.
Awesome, Chase! Really want to see your stuff in TX, but I know the damn licensing fees are going to preclude that for the time being.
Collaboration can be quite beneficial for us. Think Sierra Nevada and Russian River. Or New Belgium and Alpine. Big breweries with huge distro pairing up with smaller local breweries. And I don't know if there's some sort of legal issue in Texas, but if say Jester King and Freetail teamed up and used Jester Kings distribution, now a lot of people in Texas can drink Freetail without driving 12 hours from El Paso.
To be honest, the fees aren't the issue as the brewery I use is licensed to sell down there. I just need to talk to a broker that might be interested. I could ship 3000 cases of saisons by March. Who would be a good one to contact?
Life & Limb (DFH/SN) was a fantastic collaboration. I've seen some that suck, too, but with the right breweries, collabs can really work well
While he may come off as just being a snob, Brock does have a point. Collabs tend to be more of a marketing tool, a way around distribution laws(hit two markets at once), and a way to move beer off the shelves by marketing to the fans of two breweries. Saint Arnolds is a "flagship" brewery, they don't need to do a collab. Would be nice to see more brewers do collabs with neighboring breweries just for the artform of the beer, but it does defy why most breweries seem to do collaborations. I could think of so many breweries I would rather see Karbach work with than St. Arnold's. I just want St. Arnold's to come out with a hard root beer as good as their regular root beer. lol
Favorite Brands is killing it right now...pushstart13 would be the guy to contact...after having some of your stuff at my boy mattisloco 's house tasting, I WANT MORE!!!
I'm not sure they are in Texas, Mikkeller beers that land in Texas is due to De Proef, that's why you only see some of his beers.
I believe we get other Shelton Bros stuff. Its either Favorite Brands or Mexcore... I'm pretty sure its Mexcore. I know one of their reps pretty well. I'll get you the proper contact info.
Bring on Realtail! Oh wait they do that already. Gimmick or not, some of these turn out to be amazing beers. Stone More Brown than Black is the best Black IPA in existence.
