The boys were off to Calgary this morning to rock the Calgary Beer Fest with our tasty libations. If you're in Cowtown and reading this, make sure you say Hi to Chris, Jarrod, Kevin and Zach. They'll be right beside the Big Rock booth, and you can drink Big Rock anytime... the choice is pretty obvious.


They'll be driving there in our schnazzy, newly decaled vehicle. Special thanks goes out the the folks at ATD Graphics on Dugald Rd. (right down the street from the maltsters!). You can see our truck and car from a mile away now, which helps for a prairie brewery.


On the way back from ATD last week we passed Mountain Equipment Co-Op and caught a few of you staring! I never was a head turner, so thanks for making me blush.





New merch now in!


We just received a top up order of new merch for the summer:

• Hoodies are back in stock (A.K.A. Bunny hugs if you're from Saskatchewan).


• All sizes of t's are refilled.


• New green t's with no slogan on the back are in for the less militant Half Pints lovers. This begs the question: is there really a less militant Half Pints lover?

T-shirt prices are still dirt cheap at $10 plus taxes, so you can afford to look like you know what the hell you're talking about when you scold your frienemies like idiots for actually trading down because they want to wear the free shirts that come in the cases of crap beer from multi-national brewing conglomerates.

Photo Contest in Full Swing

The "Show Us Your Half Pints" photo contest is up and running over on our Facebook fan page. Send us a photo of you, your friends, your horse, whatever, enjoying Half Pints and at the end of the Summer we'll pick a winner from the bunch to receive glorious prizes.

W.E.C.C. Celebration Ale

This week's Winnipeg Free Press ran a story about the re-vamped West End Cultural Center and there was a few lines about how we brewed up a special beer for their opening. The first night, it was a Hibiscus Pale Ale we (brewer Chris Young) did as a special cask for them, so if you weren't there, sorry, it was real good (so says Mr. Mathers).

Since we're the exclusive beer on tap at the WECC, we also did up 4 kegs of a dryhopped and oaked Bulldog Amber. You'll find this on tap there until it runs out. Which after tonight's show with the Farrell Bros. and the SubCity Dwellers, I doubt you'll see again. Enjoy it while you can and we'll have to whip up something in the near future for the folks at the WECC.

Running Back to Saskatoon...

We know our friends and fans in Saskatchewan will be proud of this one... Half Pints will soon be a regularly available listing at the SLGA stores throughout Saskatchewan. After seeing the line-ups at our Festiv Ale booth and trying our beers at the Beer Bros. in Regina, the powers that be in their infinite wisdom have decided to give our Bulldog Amber Ale and our Stir Stick Stout a spot on the shelves at their stores.

To that end, we'll be supporting the beer with a Saskatchewan sales team, "the army of one" also known as Jarrod Schoenau. When Jarrod's wife Marietta is finished her Occupational Therapy program here in the province, they'll be moving home to SK. We'll still be heading out for fun beer events and to visit friends so lets all raise a glass to SK.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We can now stand on the roof of the brewery and see all the places where Half Pints is available (if it wasn't for those pesky Rocky Mountains). Not too shabby for the tiny brewery from Winnipeg.

None of this would be possible without support in the form of "hey try this beer" from our accounts across western Canada or from people like you. Thank you. We look forward to giving you your next beery permasmile.

Labels: Alberta, Calgary, Saskatchewan

Check out the schnazzy new van decals. That's right, it's a giant St. James logo on the back.

We can now deliver in style.

Stay tuned to our facebook fan page next week and we'll run a "find the van, win the schwag" contest.

Labels: St. James Pale, The Van

May long weekend is slowly becoming the weekend of snow. Hell, it's almost too chilly for me to run out and throw something on the grill, never mind my usual May long practice of firing up my smoker for a whole day. Looks like it's gonna be a strong beer weekend for me with multiple sippers under a cozy blanket.

Regardless, last weekend we cleaned up the neighborhood with our singular volunteer - Miles! Thanks Miles for being a stand-up guy. Miles took the prizes for being the only volunteer to show up. It was bloody cold then, too - so I can't exactly blame the neighbors for not showing up. Our guys in the brewery were there to help out so thanks to them for putting up with being bolonteered (volonteered by your boss) to do the job. If you drive down Ellice from Ferry Road to Barry, you'll see the difference in the north side of the street from the south side. Sweet!

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago:
On the brewery/music front, we've got some cool events coming up that we've been asked to sponsor - like a Transistor 66 show at the Lo on June 13th. More info to come...

The guys at AM Glory will be enjoying some Half Pints in their video for Dance All Night.

We heard through the grapevine that nomeansno enjoyed the hell out of our brews when they played Winnipeg a couple weeks ago. I shot them an e-mail to say thanks and received one back professing their love for any well crafted beer.

We'll be sponsoring the Winnipeg Ska and Reggae Festival in August. Check out their website for details. Suffice to say, Greg Crowe will be involved and I can only hold the threat of releasing our kindergarten picture over his head so far, given that I'm in the photo, too. I don't think Greg's glasses have changed. How cool is that? The kid had (has) style!

New accounts:
Tom has been busy and we've seen a jump in draught accounts around the city. Carlos & Murphy's picked up the St. James and it quickly jumped to their top three spot and is still climbing.

We also started on tap at The Belgian Club - which should make the guys at the bike club happy as they've been wanting our beer on tap for at least a year.

Stella's on Grant (the one across from the Superstore) just started with our St. James on draught and we've lent them a fridge until theirs shows up.

We're the beer of choice at the new and improved West End Cultural Center. For those of you who don't know, Nicole and I met because of the WECC (at a Gob show!) and it holds a special place in our hearts. We've seen many a fine show there - I've even played a few of those myself! Ask me sometime to see my collection of early to mid nineties (mostly punk) bands on VHS. I should do a greatest hits on DVD.

The Albert added St. James Pale to their roster of draught brews as well as our beer in bottles for their vendor. While at the Lo last week, we (Lynne, Jack and I) were lamenting the loss of past Thursdays that were Draught night. Social responsibility aside, the craziest stories all seem to start with "So I was standing there with my pitcher on draught night..."

J. Fox's on Academy has our bottles for those of you who love our Stout, IPA and so on, or our St. James Pale on draught. They'll be playing their own brand of Little Scrapper as they take on the city to have their patio approved. Politics aside, I'd have to say that drinking and driving issues could really be curbed if we had more mom & pop style neighbourhood pubs like this.

The University Club at the University of Manitoba now has four Half Pints beers on tap for the membership. There's something to be said for a board of directors and a chef who give a damn about good beer. Thanks to Derek and Josh for choosing better beers and making an impression on the members.

Festival Fun

We'll see our Alberta fans in Calgary at the end of the month for the Calgary Beer Fest. We hope you're prepared to love our beer even more than you already do. Kevin, Chris, Jarrod and Zach (who's in town for a family wedding that weekend) will be there to rock your world.

That it!

Na-nu Na-nu. Mork out.