More Information Regarding Kate Day 2012

Good afternoon,

Most of you know by now that Kate Day, the day we release our highly regarded Russian Imperial Stout, will take place at the Portsmouth Brewery on Monday, March 5, 2012. Up till now we haven't posted many details because, frankly, we hadn't worked them all out. I'm writing today to provide more information about this popular annual gathering, pointing out similarities and differences between the upcoming Kate Day and previous years' events. As in the past, I'll use a Q&A format (which will allow me to cut and paste shamelessly from my last year's post):

• When will Kate Day take Place in 2012?
Kate Day will take place on Monday, March 5, 2012.

• How much Kate the Great will be brewed?
Tod and Brian have brewed a somewhat larger batch than in years past: fourteen barrels, divided more or less equally between draught and bottles.

• I heard a rumor that you’ll be using different bottles this year. Is that true?
You heard right. We have decided to abandon the familiar 22-ounce “bomber” bottle and have chosen instead to use the classic “Steini,” a  bottle most commonly associated these days with beers such as Duvel and Piraat.

• But don't Steini bottles hold less beer than bombers?
I'm glad you asked. Yes they do - 11.16 ounces versus 22, to be precise.

• Does that mean you’ll be offering more bottles for sale?
Another great question! Yes. This year we will make 2,000 bottles available for sale. More than double the number from years past. (Yes, sometimes less truly is more.)

• How much will these new, smaller bottles of Kate cost?
Last year we raised the price of 22 ounce bottles to $15. This year we have pro-rated the price to account for the smaller bottle and will charge $8 apiece.

• Will growlers of Kate be available?
No.

• Last year you switched from using calendar pages to a lottery system using scratch tickets as a means of distributing bottled Kate. Do you plan to use scratch tickets again this year?
Understanding that no system is perfect, we really like the way the scratch tickets worked last year. It is an equitable way to distribute a limited number of bottles where demand greatly exceeds supply; it reduces the crowds forming on our doorstep and down the block on Kate Day, which keeps our neighbors and the local constabulary happy; and it enables us to raise a significant amount of money for local non-profits. Consequently, we WILL be using scratch tickets this year, as well. Here's how it will work:

- 15,000 tickets will be available, with 2,000 “winners” mixed randomly among them.
- These tickets will be sold at the Portsmouth Brewery for $2 apiece starting ABOUT three weeks prior to Kate Day, until they run out.
- 100% of the revenue generated by the sale of these scratch tickets will benefit five non-profits, including the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire. (For the curious, the Portsmouth Brewery does not take a tax deduction for these funds.)
- Sale of scratch tickets will be limited to ten per person per day.
- Scratch tickets must be purchased in person at the Brewery. None will be sold by mail.

• If I don’t live near Portsmouth, how will I be able to purchase a ticket?
This is where you become resourceful and ask your Aunt Tillie in Kittery or your BA trading partners to help out and buy tickets for you.

• So I've got a winning scratch ticket, now what to I do?
A WINNING SCRATCH TICKET HAS NO CASH VALUE - it merely entitles the bearer to purchase a single bottle of Kate at his or her convenience any time from March 5 through April 15, 2012. An individual can purchase as many bottles of Kate as he or she has winning scratch tickets. Winning scratch tickets become invalid after April 15, 2012.  Any bottles of Kate remaining unsold after that date will be made available to the general public in our retail store.

• When and how will people be notified when scratch tickets go on sale?
We'll post on our Facebook page and send out a tweet the morning they go on sale, ABOUT three weeks before Kate Day.

• How is draft Kate going to be released?
We plan to use the system we employed last year: the Portsmouth Brewery will open its doors for business at 11:00 am on Kate Day. We will let people into the building in groups of 50, spaced 15 minutes apart, until the restaurant is fully seated. This is to assure that service (and beer) flows smoothly, enabling us to provide the best hospitality throughout the day. The official tapping of Kate will take place around 11:30 am.

• If I come with a large group of friends, will we all be able to sit together?
We'll do our very best to accommodate groups of all sizes on Kate Day, but we can't make any promises.

• Will we be seated with people we don’t know?
Perhaps. In order to make sure that all of our guests are seated and served as expeditiously as possible, a certain amount of communal seating is required. Kate Day is probably not ideally suited for a romantic date, but it is a great opportunity to make new friends!

We will provide more details over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Please keep in mind, the purpose of Kate Day is to have fun, to celebrate good beer and gather with friends, old and new. At the Brewery we try to do our best to deliver on that. We look forward to serving you. 

Cheers,

Peter Egelston
Proprietor

More Kate News, Not So Big This Time

It probably could go without saying, but before yesterday's post gets amplified and distorted (and separated in people's recollection from the 4/1/11 date of the post), let's set the record straight:

Happy April Fool's Day!

Most of you spotted the joke right away.  (Was it the image of Tod Mott hand stamping over seventy thousand labels, perhaps? Or Robby's Italian “people” leaning on hapless EU bureaucrats?)

A few of you took the bait, absurd as it was.  Don't feel too bad - I was awakened early yesterday morning by a call from the Eliot PD saying they'd found my truck, which I'd parked in my barn the night before, abandoned by the side of Route 236.  And yes, I swallowed it hook, line and sinker (though at that moment I was too sleepy to really care that much).  So there you have it.

Cheers,

P-

Big Kate the Great News!

For Immediate Release:  1 April 2011

Portsmouth Brewery Passes Kate the Great Production to Smuttynose;
Brews More but Only for Belgian Sales.

_________________________________________

The Portsmouth Brewery is excited to announce that 200 barrels of its popular Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout is currently aging at sister company Smuttynose Brewing Company and will be released one year from today, exclusively through the Struise Yeast Shop in West Flanders, Belgium.  All purchases must be made in person and buyers must complete a questionnaire before being allowed to buy the beer.

Head Brewer Tod Mott was exuberant that ownership finally capitulated to years of him begging for a break from brewing Kate.  “That beer ties up so much tank space in our small submarine of a brewery.   Now that it’s been contracted out, I can get back to brewing Cream Ale the way it should be brewed, with ale yeast and lager yeast.”  Mott also cited a desire to have Kate named the #1 Beer in the Planet in BeerAdvocate magazine as a prime motivation behind the decision.

Owner Peter Egelston said the decision came naturally after reflecting upon the 2011 Kate release.  “Everything ran so smoothly with the scratch ticket system; lines were well behaved and the beer ran out around 6pm like it always does.   We also need more tank space and have no good way to expand the brewery space at Portsmouth Brewery. This was clearly the best option.”  The growing European popularity of American craft beer was also a driver in the decision.

Brewing the Russian Imperial Stout at Smuttynose for export to Belgium was no small feat  Portsmouth Brewery had to file alternating premise paperwork with the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) who handles all licensing for alcoholic beverage production.   The beer’s prestige and acclaim made it easy to find a European importer (Mott had previously worked with Struise on the Kabert collaborations beer), but working through European Union paperwork proved very difficult until Egelston remembered Smuttynose’s National Accounts Manager, Robby Brondolo is from Italy and “knew a few people.”  After a few phone calls, everything was smooth sailing.

The beer will be packaged in 11.2 ounce bottles and the labels have all been hand-stamped by Mott himself.  While no small feat, it was worth it to the brewing legend who said he was just happy to get back to brewing “normal beers” again.

Kate the Great Scratch Tickets Are Sold Out!

They went on sale at 2:00 PM Saturday afternoon and by 6:30 Sunday evening all ten thousand tickets were sold. We're stunned.

Thanks to all of you who made the trip and bought tickets. Congratulations to those of you who scratched winners!

What Kate thinks about Kate Day

Enjoy the latest Kate Day video from our friends Nancy and Brian at Atlantic Media Productions.

Regarding the Sale of Kate the Great Scratch Tickets

"Sometimes you win.  Sometimes you lose.  Sometimes it rains."


A lot of you have been asking when Kate the Great scratch tickets will be available for purchase. We still do not have a date set!

How can that be, you ask? We are waiting for the tickets to be delivered by the printer and expect to receive them late next week or early the following week. We plan to put them on sale shortly thereafter.

Why the delay? That's a long story - here's the thumbnail version: we actually started this process the day after last year's Kate Day, when I asked Brewery staff to relay feedback and provide suggestions for this year's release. After several meetings and much lively discussion about what went well and what we could improve on, the form of 2011's Kate release began to take shape. The suggestion of some sort of lottery evolved into the scratch ticket proposal.

Once we worked out the details internally, we went down the bureaucratic rabbit hole: our plan had to pass muster at three different state agencies, each of which had veto power, but all of which ended up being enthusiastically supportive of our idea. But, as you can imagine, this took time, as did getting just right the legal mumbo-jumbo that appears on the back of the tickets and drawing up contracts up between the various stakeholders. Then, once approved, the tickets had to be designed & laid out, printers' proofs approved and the order placed.

And so a project I innocently believed would take a couple of months at the most actually ended up taking over five months to complete. In these circumstances, we were reluctant to set a fixed date for the start of ticket sales, knowing that we might have been forced to change it at the last minute, or worse yet, abandon the idea altogether and shift to some unknown Plan B at the last moment. But as of this moment, Plan A is still in effect. Hooray!

For those of you who were were hoping to queue up our doorstep overnight in order to be first in line to buy tickets on January 24th, precisely six weeks before Kate Day, I apologize.  Bear with us. We are committed to making this year's Kate release the best yet.

Cheers,

Peter

New 2011 Kate Day Information

Howdy, folks. Peter E. here. A lot of people have written us with questions and suggestions for 2011's Kate Day, the day we release our famous Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout. This year, we'll be managing the release differently than in years past, especially our procedure for bottle sales. 


Here are the highlights, in Q & A format:

• When will Kate Day take Place in 2011?
Kate Day will take place on Monday, March 7, 2011.

• How much Kate the Great will be brewed?
We will brew the same quantity as in years past: ten barrels, divided equally between draught and bottles. Approximately 900 bottles will be available for purchase.

• How much do bottles of Kate cost?
After holding the line on price for the last four years, in 2011 the price of 22-ounce bottles of Kate will increase to $15 apiece.

• Will growlers of Kate be available?
No.

• What time are you going to start passing out calendar pages to people who wish to purchase bottles?
We are not going to use calendar pages this year!

• WHAT? If you're not going to use calendar pages, how are you going to handle bottle sales?
We're glad you asked! This year, we are going to organize bottle sales using custom-printed scratch tickets. Ten thousand tickets will be available, with nine hundred "winners" mixed randomly among them. These tickets will be sold at the Portsmouth Brewery for $2 apiece starting six weeks prior to Kate Day, until they run out. All of the revenue generated by the sale of these scratch tickets will be donated to a non-profit of our choice. Sale of scratch tickets will be limited to ten per person per day. Scratch tickets must be purchased in person at the Brewery. None will be sold by mail.

• If I don't live near Portsmouth, how will I be able to purchase a ticket?
This is where you become resourceful and ask your Aunt Tillie in Kittery or your BA trading partners to help out and buy tickets for you.

• So I've bought a winning scratch ticket, now what to I do?
A winning scratch ticket has no cash value - it merely entitles the bearer to purchase a single bottle of Kate at his or her convenience any time from March 7 through April 15, 2011. An individual can purchase as many bottles of Kate as he or she has winning scratch tickets. Winning scratch tickets become invalid after April 15, 2011.  Any bottles of Kate remaining unsold after that date will be made available to the general public in our retail store.

• So no camping out on the sidewalk in front of the Brewery the night before?
Not for people wishing to buy bottles of Kate - that will no longer be necessary.

• How is draft Kate going to be released?
We've made some changes here, too, compared to years past. The Portsmouth Brewery will open its doors for business at eleven on Kate Day. We will let people into the building in groups of 50, spaced 15 minutes apart, until the restaurant is fully seated. This is to assure that service (and beer) flows smoothly, enabling us to provide the best hospitality throughout the day. The official tapping of Kate will take place around 12:30-ish.

So that's the general shape of our next Kate Day. We will provide more details over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

More Kate Day Information

Over the last few weeks we've been following with interest the online chatter regarding our upcoming Kate Day, such as this one on Beer Advocate. We've resisted the temptation to weigh in, until now. There are a couple of items I wish to address here: one is a misconception that I need to correct before it grows into an Urban Legend worthy of Snopes; the other is in response to a concern that a growing number of people have written to us about.

First, the misconception. The Portsmouth Brewery does not have a two-drink limit on Kate Day, or any other day for that matter. The number of beers we serve is dictated by our longstanding practice of responsible alcohol service. In other words, we will not serve a single drink to an individual if in the opinion of our staff that person has been drinking elsewhere and has already had enough. On the other hand, we may serve a customer more than two if he or she is drinking responsibly and is not approaching a state of intoxication. That said, it would be nice if those who participate in Kate Day are respectful of the people waiting in line behind them and voluntarily place limits on themselves so that everyone has a chance to come in and enjoy some beer.

On a related note, a number of people have written asking us how we plan to deal with individuals who intend to cut in line or hold places for other people who are not in line. While it is not up to us to police people's bad behavior or rude manners outside of our own premises, we do want to make sure Kate Day is a fun event for everyone who attends. (We are in the hospitality business, after all.) The only way I can see addressing this is to change the time when we start handing out the calendar pages that people use to hold their places in line. We have let people know that we'll start handing out pages at seven in the morning. That is no longer the case.

We will start handing out calendar pages much earlier in the morning, possibly as soon as people begin to assemble outside. We will only give out one page per person, and if someone is not present when we pass out a page, they will not get one until they are. We will also stamp people's hands when they get a page in order to prevent people from going to the back of the line to collect an additional page. I will not say here what time we'll begin to pass out pages. We'll make that determination on the spot. There will always be those individuals who try to game the system, and frankly, we can't put too much energy into obsessing about them. It's good enough to know that life has a way of sorting that stuff out in the end.

We believe that the best thing about Kate Day isn't the beer; it is a friendly, sociable event that draws people from all over who share a common interest and discover new ones. When it ceases to be that, we will not host it anymore. Let's all do our part to keep Kate Day is fun, safe and sociable.

Cheers,

Peter Egelston, Proprietor

The Portsmouth Brewery

Good News Bad News

First, the good news: Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout is making a brief appearance at the Portsmouth Brewery today.

The bad news is that we've only got three gallons, which we'll be pouring in 8-ounce servings on a first-come-first-served basis, starting at 11:30 today, when we open our doors.

Here's the deal. Tod had squirreled away a sixtel (5.17 gallon keg) of last February's Kate. Yesterday, he racked off a dozen bottles to serve at an upcoming event (more on that in a later post). Not wanting to have a partial keg sloshing around, we decided to put it on tap and have a teensy-weensy impromptu Kate Day, right in the middle of July. (It's going to go very fast - even with 8-ounce pours, 3 gallons only yields 50 glasses.)

So if you're in the neighborhood and have a minute, stop in for a taste of Tod's famous ebony elixir, while it lasts!

Cheers,

P-

Additional Kate Day Details...

Howdy all:

A couple of weeks ago I posted a countdown clock on the Portsmouth Brewery's Brewers Notes Page, marking time till next year's Kate Day: Monday, March 1. Since then, I've read a good deal of commentary on Beer Advocate and elsewhere, so I thought I'd take a few minutes and provide some additional details.

Here at the Brewery, thinking about last Kate Day, we concluded that the biggest matter we needed to address was the long line and hours-long wait that many people had to endure.

When we opened our doors at eleven-thirty that day, the restaurant immediately filled to capacity (about 300 people, give or take), and there was no turnover due to the fact that those who had gotten seats remained there till after Kate was tapped at 1:14. Of course, this meant that anyone who had not entered our doors in the first wave was forced to stand in line until seats in the restaurant began opening up, hours later.

How can we address this, we asked ourselves? The most obvious thing is to move the tapping time closer to when we open our doors, so people are not required to wait (inside or outside) for hours. That was an easy decision: we've set the tapping for 11:37 am, shortly after we "officially"open for business. People will be able to stop in, enjoy a Kate and a bite to eat, and get on with their days. Tables will turn over more rapidly, and there will be less of a wait outside. We hope.

Moreover, after, giving it further thought, we concluded that Kate Day consists of not one but two related activities: the celebration & socializing surrounding the actual tapping, and the purchase of bottles. Why did they have to take place simultaneously, we asked? Would things run smoother if we took care of bottle sales first thing in the morning, hours before the tapping? We think they will.

So, in short, here is how Kate Day will shape up next March 1.

1.) Bottle sales will commence at 9:00 AM and will be conducted on a first-come, first-served basis. We will start to issue calendar pages at seven in the morning, to reduce the amount of time people have to wait in line. Bottle sales will be conducted in our downstairs bar, but no drinks will be served there during this time. Once bottles are purchased, people will be asked to go outside so we can clear the room prior to tapping.

2.) The tapping itself will take place at 11:37 AM, in both our upstairs and downstairs bars. We'll open our doors a bit earlier than usual, eleven instead of eleven-thirty, to give everyone a chance to settle in.

We're confident that these changes will help make the next Kate Day more enjoyable for all. As always, we welcome your feedback.

Cheers,

P-

By the way, regarding rumors of larger batches of Kate being brewed at Smuttynose ...

... no comment.

Kate Day is Coming Up

Howdy all. With Kate Day a little more than a month away (February 9, to be precise), we thought we’d provide some information about how it will shape up. We'll be doing a couple of things differently this time around. The biggest change is that we will limit bottle sales to two per customer, without any additional allotment for Imperial Pint Clubbers. This was a tough call to make, but we figured it was the fairest way to spread the love around. We're also running a contest in which you can win an entire case of Kate. Here are the details:

• Approximately ten barrels of Kate were brewed, which will be divided evenly between bottles and draft. Bottles will be made available at the same time as the tapping, and not a moment sooner.
• Due to the high demand and limited quantity (about 900 bottles), we are limiting bottle purchases to two per person. Last June, we sold out our entire stock of bottles the first day, and we're hoping to stretch things out a bit this time.
• No Growlers of Kate will be filled.
• Same as last time, we will issue numbers to people in the order in which they arrive. Your number holds your place in line, freeing you up to wander about freely until 1:14.
• If you're just coming in for a glass of Kate and aren't interested in purchasing bottles, don't worry about arriving early or getting a number - we should have plenty of draft Kate, at least for a couple of days.

We all had a terrific time on Kate Day last June. Folks were waiting on our doorstep by eight in the morning, and by the time we started issuing numbers around nine, the line stretched down the block. Here's a video our friends Nancy and Brian from Atlantic Media shot that day. We're thinking that perhaps things might be a little more low-key in February, but we have no way of knowing for sure. One thiing we do know is that we'll have a great time again in February. We're looking forward to serving you that day.

Flex Your Literary Muscles & Win a Case of Kate!
You can win an entire case of our hard-to-get Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout, but you're going to have to show you really want it. None of this random entry stuff - any nincompoop can have his or her name pulled out of a hat! In order to win a case of Kate, you must impress us and your fellow beer lovers with your literary prowess by authoring a beer-related poem, essay or short story.
• Works must be original and can be either about beer, inspired by beer or otherwise relating to beer.
• Seven First Prizes, single bottles of Kate, will be awarded to winners in the following categories:

• Poems: sonnet, haiku, limerick, ballad or free verse
  
• Essays: between 500 and 2,000 words
  
• Short fiction: between 500 and 2,000 words
  

• A Grand Prize of a case of Kate will be selected from among the First Prize winners.
• Entries will be read by a panel of local literary luminaries and barflies and will be judged for originality, adherence to form, and how much the panel likes them.
• Entries must be submitted by email, regular mail or in person by midnight on February 2, 2009.
• Winners will be announced on Kate Day. Winning entries will be posted on our website and displayed in our front window.
• Winners do not have to be present on Kate Day, but must pick up their prize in person by the end of February.
• Entries must have sufficient merit in order to receive a prize. In other words, if yours is the only sonnet submitted, you may not win simply by default; we reserve the right to withold prizes if no entries in any given category are deserving.