The Full Pint 11th Anniversary Tour Comes to a Close
Jonny and I came up with an insane idea a year ago, to celebrate our 11th Anniversary of existence in the beer world by embarking on an 11 beer collab tour, which would involve 22 trips in and out of California. We were burned out by planning our usually small rare beer festival, and thought this would be easier and more fun. HA. While it was more fun, it definitely wasn’t easier. Lining up 11 collabs with our dearest brewer friends was awesome, but also super challenging. Many of the participating brewers said yes, then went on with their hectic schedules, and had to scramble with us to find a date and time to make this work. Myself, Jonny and the brewers all have family lives, and scheduling a time to do a collab brew or collab release often times conflicted with that. Still, we pulled it off and had a great time doing it. Watching our friend Kyle of Horus Aged Ales doing over 50 collabs a year made us think this would be a breeze, let me tell you, traveling every weekend, drinking and eating rich food starts to wear on you, and my waist proves it.
We would like to look back and thank our 11 participating breweries for being so kind in letting us into their home, taking time out of their production schedule, and taking on a project they may or may not have made fiscal sense to a small brewery. This project definitely allowed us to extend our reach to beer drinkers who may not have heard of our publication, and raise our profile. It is our hope that in turn, we raised awareness to beer drinkers of the participating breweries, and helped bring in new customers.
Fieldwork Brewing / Mount Sierra Double IPA
There might not be a sweeter man in craft beer than Mr. Alex Tweet. People that don’t know him might think he’s a punk, especially with some of the news he made in 2017. Make it your 2018 goal to meet Alex. Alex, along with Director of Brewing operations John Gaugler and owner Barry Braden were the first to blindly say yes to our crazy idea of doing a canned collab. For those who don’t know, which should be all of you, the name Mount Sierra was a joke. Jonny and I went to a technical college called Mount Sierra, and we thought it would be hilarious to do the Fieldwork style can with the faded landscape of the dang school in the background. We literally made a joke beer for an audience of two. The joke ended when Alex and I drafted up the beer recipe and absolutely nailed it. It was a creamy, juicy, pungent double IPA that I hope they make again.
Pizza Port Brewing / Executive Member IIPA
A huge thanks to Jillian Davidson, Joe Arguello, Mike Aubuchon and Blake Masoner for entertaining our vision. Two years ago, Mike from Pizza Port Carlsbad brewed a Southern Hemisphere IIPA, and we named it Executive Member for our love of Costco. We turned that joke into a small can run that almost saw a label paying homage to a Costco membership card. Smarter heads prevailed and we wrapped the beer in a sexy black label. The beer sold out, and we checked off our second collab with one of our favorite, if not favorite breweries of all time.
El Segundo Brewing / Brut AF
There was no way we were going to do this tour without including our great friends over at El Segundo Brewing. We also knew that it would be over owner Rob Croxall’s dead body that we’d do anything other than a crispy hoppy, clear beer. Brut IPAs were just taking off thanks to Northern California’s Social Kitchen and Brewery, and El Segundo was up for the challenge. After having a round table with Rob, head brewer Logan, and The Full Pint, we decided on what we wanted and what hops we should use. As we suspected, El Segundo knocked it out of the park. To play on the previous year’s collab, Clear AF, we named this beer Brut AF. While El Segundo doesn’t have a resident canning line, they pleased us by renting the mobile canner and made magic just for this occasion. Special shout out to our boy Eli, for bringing the fire to the release party with tuxedo t-shirts.
Faction Brewing / FTH IPA
We’ve always heard that our dear friend Rodger Davis knows how to have a good time, but we never really experienced it first hand. While we were wrapping up our beer with Fieldwork, we did our collab with Rodger Davis at Faction Brewing. And by collabbing, we mean drinking beer for hours on end. Closer to the end of our drinking session, Rodger looked at me and asked what should we do for our collab? Straight faced, I told Rodger, let’s do a hazie. Without skipping a beat, Rodger belted out “FUCK THE HAZE!” That lead to the release and subsequent best label over of FTH IPA. A huge thanks to both Rodger and Claudia for the hospitality.
Untitled Art / NEAPA
Jonny and I fell in love with Wisconsin a few years ago when we did those commercials for Pick n Save. They have no shame in their drinking and cheese game in that state. The people are straight forward, and it’s just a nice change of pace from California. Longtime friend Levi Funk is killing the American Wild Ale game, and we wanted to add him to the collab tour. What we didn’t want to do is bastardize his prestigious sour program with a gimmicky beer at Funk Factory. He immediately suggested we do a collab under the Untitled Art brand in nearby Waunkee. After touring the state of the art facility Octopi Brewing and breaking bread with owner Isaac Showaki, we felt like family. Special shout out to our dear friends Bernie Wire, Mark and Kelly Kohagura for surprising us on that day and showing up as a surprise.
Monkish Brewing / The Stars are Inside
Many people are familiar with Monkish Brewing present day. Makers of the best NEIPA in the country, daily long lines filled with beer market prospectors. We’ve known them since the beginning, when it was merely a literal mom and pop shop making world class beer out of Torrance. When we approached co-owner Henry Nguyen if he’d work with us on this project, we expected a quick no. Monkish is at megastar status, and at that point, if you followed Monkish or Henry on Instagram, he was traveling the country doing tons of collabs. Not only did Henry and his wife Adrianna say yes to us, they welcomed us into their home with the utmost hospitality. All things considered, this was the most generous gift to The Full Pint, as there was no reason other than friendship for Monkish to take time out of their hectic schedule for a collab that would have no benefit besides money they would have already made that day. The beer was fantastic, and I drank way too many of them, leading to a bigger belly.
Highland Park Brewery / Franbo Pils
We were stoked that our favorite local brewery said yes to a canned collab release. The year prior, Highland Park did a riff on their famous Timbo Pils by brewing a draft only Danbo Pils. To keep the theme going, I pitched the idea to Bob Kunz that we should brew Franbo Pils in honor of our very own Franny Fullpint. The rest is history.
Wren House Brewing / Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Doppelbock
We became friends with Wren House Brewing after having co-owner Drew Pool on our weekly podcast. We’ve tried many of their beers and were very impressed with the creativity in the recipies and packaging. We were honored when they signed on, and we begin the creative process remotely. At first, I pitched an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Stout. When we got closer to collab time, Drew pitched a Doppelbock instead. While the world is not clamoring for a pastry lager, I thought it was a brilliant idea. The doppel bock would be the the grain / bready part of the oatmeal cookie gimmick. After hanging out with Luke, their brewer for a day, putting the finishing touches on the beer, I knew we’d have a hit. The beer was toasty, super drinkable, but resembled the familiar flavors of an oatmeal cookie. It was magic. The entire crew at Wren House are such likeable, fun guys, we need to find more excuses to hop the quick flight to Phoenix.
Bottle Logic Brewing / Mega Powers Cookie Stout
We’ve been friends with Bottle Logic since they opened. Our main man has been co-owner Brandon Buckner. We’ve watched them rise to super rockstar status due to their wildly popular Stasis series of barrel aged stouts. We were honored that they accepted our plan to brew a collaboration beer. They originally pitched a hazy IPA, but I thought the bes tbang for our buck would be a canned adjunct stout. After a flavor and drinking session with owners Brandon and Wes, we nailed down a holiday spiced stout as well as a can that paid homage to the tag team of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, known as the Mega Powers. With all the traveling Brandon and Wes do, we were super floored by their generosity to make this beer and release a reality.
Great Notion Brewing / Sticky Bun
We’ve been chatting for an entire year with Great Notion Brewing about doing a collab. They are very collab friendly, as are we. What really made us feel good about this partnership is that owner Pauly comes from Philly, I come from the Philly area, and we hit it off immediately with our love of all things Philly. I drafted the concept over email for Sticky Bun, as Great Notion really has a great handle on the rich dessert beers. I flew up for the weekend, and we played around with ingredients and tasted some of their other similar beers to make sure we didn’t overlap too much. Brewer/Owner Andy blessed it and within a few weeks, we had cans of Sticky Bun. These guys are some of the coolest folks you’ll ever meet in beer, and they have a great thing going in such an old beer city.
Horus Aged Ales / Modern Times / The Eleventh Hour
At the beginning of 2017, I consulted with Kyle Harrop of Horus Aged Ales on this entire project we were about to undertake. Of course, we wanted to do one of our collabs with Kyle, and the trick with that is, he doesn’t have a physical brewery, but does has a warehouse with barrel aged sour ale stock. We hemmed and hawed as to how we could make this work. Kyle roped in Modern Times out of San Diego, and we decided on a barleywine that would be boiled for 11 hours and aged in various oak barrels. Jonny and Moises went down and brewed this beer with Kyle and the fine folks at Modern Times, and along the way, the beer took a few twists and turns, as most barrel aged beers do. Macadamia nuts and coffee was added to this super thick beer and because there was such a small yield, it was sold to the League of Party Goers and Elegant People. A huge thanks to Andrew, Jacob at Modern Times and of course, or friend Kyle.
And that’s a wrap!
We are most definitely not going to top this, so we aren’t going to try. We’ll come up with something fun for our 12th Anniversary, so stay tuned for that. We really appreciate all of those that followed this project, and those that showed up for our release parties. It meant a lot to us. If you want to support us and this endeavor, that cost us more money than we had to spend, please visit our online shop and get an 11th anniversary glass or tshirt while supplies are available. https://thefullpint.com/shop.
