It's that time of year again.  The holidays are in the rear view, it's all gray an clady ahtside, and everything around you has a damp chill about it.  (Including the beer, thank goodness.)  But we're here for you in your time of need, to help you fully embrace your Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), with a downright dazzling array of DARK BEERS.

Here's a sneak preview of what this will look like: 

Pretty cool, eh? (Yeah, that's just a black box.)

Check out this year's lineup for the brewery location... including some year-round favorites, a couple of seasonals, some session ales, and of course a few bottled specialties.  All of these are available in draft form only, unless otherwise noted:

• Black Strap Stout
• Fat Gary Nut Brown Ale
• Snow Melt Winter Ale
• First (the very first beer brewed on our new brewhouse)
• Steelcut Oatmeal Stout
• Old Nebby (draft only at first, 750ml bottles later)
• Homewood Reserve 2012* (draft and 750ml bottles)
• Coffee Porter - the beer we still can't call "EyeOpener" (draft and 750ml bottles)

...Plus one more dark session ale that's not confirmed yet, as we're waiting to hear back about availability of a special ingredient.  I'll update this when we know for sure.  We may even have a few bottles of our Smokestack Heritage Porter left if they survive the weeks running up to this, but we'll see.

Also, as a special bonus on this day only, we're also tapping some long lost kegs of our 2012 Gratitude Barleywine for Growler fills.  We've been holding these kegs in hopes that some of the 1500 bottles we filled last year will start to develop some carbonation.  Or maybe that the re-brewed batch of ANOTHER 1500 bottles might carbonate... but we've given up the wait, and I'd rather just get this much Gratitude out there for you.  Luckily, we're able to force carbonate these kegs and get them properly dispensed into your waiting Growlers.  But as for the bottles of FLATTITUDE 2011 and 2011A, I suppose we'll just keep waiting on those.  And make the risky move of brewing yet another batch for bottling - the brew day is already booked for later this month!

* Homewood Reserve is our Black Strap Stout that's been aged in bourbon barrels, and this time around, we used Makers Mark barrels.  As is our practice in years part, we blend this aged stock with a portion of fresh Black Strap Stout, so that we get flavor contributions from both young and old.

This will all happen during our Regular Growler Hours at the brewery, 12-5pm on Saturday, January 26th.  And our Growler Shop will have both bottled FOD beers starting at 9am that day too, along with 4 Dark/Non-Dark draft offerings for fills.  I'm hoping this will be enough to carry you through the long, dark, cold days ahead.

See you then, if I don't see you sooner!

Cheers - Scott