All available at lautering.com/store

We mentioned before that we took a break between Christmas and New Years, but we weren’t sitting around drinking beer (though we did a lot of that too).  We were hard at work expanding the Lautering Store, which we hope you find pretty cool.

First of all, we’ve added shirts and stickers with the classic hombrewer adage “Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew” right here:  shirt, sticker.

Second, we’ve teamed up with Amazon to offer a long list of beer books, homebrewing books, and homebrewing equipment, including everything from starter kits to hops to wort chillers.  You’ll get the customer service, security, and efficiency through Amazon, and we’ll keep things organized and useful.

Everything you purchase helps us keep the Lautering servers up and running — so if you’re thinking about buying a new beer book or if you’re looking for a new brewing apron, check us out.

From flickr user frankgumola

How popular is Great Lakes Brewery’s Christmas Ale?  So popular that Cleveland’s NBC affiliate did a whole story on it’s upcoming November 1 release date.

You might not know how many days are left until Christmas, but fans of the Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Christmas Ale know there is less than a week until the freshest batch in the region makes its way into the hands of adoring customers.

On Tuesday, bottling was in full swing at the Ohio City location. Fresh bottles of the Ale were stickered and boxed to be ready for shelves on Nov. 1.

In all, 20,250 barrels will be produced this year. That’s about 40,000 kegs.

Though many people associated the honey, ginger cinnamon taste with the Christmas season, folks at the Brewery say people crave it all year long, even people who don’t like beer.

Don’t miss the video on the page, where one brewer tells the story of a man who charged thousands of dollars so he could take home a whole pallet full of the beer.

Budweiser

USA Today reports on the latest ad strategy for faltering Budweiser: giving their beer away and hoping people buy it later.

To appeal to the under-30 set that has ignored the brand — but is a prime consumer group for beer — Budweiser will unleash its biggest-ever national free-sample effort in trendy bars and eateries. The campaign begins Monday, with the slogan “Grab some Buds.”

The hype culminates on Sept. 29, when the brand hosts the “Budweiser National Happy Hour,” a bid by Bud to nudge folks to at least try a free brewski. The free samples for those 21 and up range from 6 ounces to 12 ounces, depending on state and local rules.

They know how things have changed in the last 10 years, and craft beer is a major problem for them.

The promotion comes as upscale consumers are turning to craft beers, the price-conscious are trading down, and others switched to light beers. “It’s a triple whammy,” says Michael Bellas, CEO at Beverage Marketing.

Executives at Anheuser-Busch, a wholly owned subsidiary of Belgium-based Anheuser–Busch InBev, insist they can reignite interest from younger drinkers with an image upgrade and a reintroduction via sampling.

I’m not sure which “trendy bars” they’re referring to, but trendy has meant craft beer or high-end cocktails.  I’m not sure how Budweiser fits with any of that.

From Flickr user Matt Niemi

The Brewers Association released the 2009 craft beer sales figures today, and if you’re reading this site, you shouldn’t be surprised.

The Brewers Association, the trade association that tabulates production statistics for US breweries, today released 2009 data on the U.S. craft brewing industry. In a year when other brewers saw a slowdown in sales, small and independent craft brewers saw sales dollars increase 10.3 percent and volume increase 7.2 percent over 2008, representing a growth of 613,992 barrels equal to roughly 8.5 million cases.

Great news.  The more it sells, the easier it’ll be to find and enjoy.

After the American Olympic hockey team surprisingly upset the home-ice favorite Canada yesterday, many Canadians did what many Americans do after a shocking athletic defeat (or victory, for that matter): they got drunk.  Really drunk.  So drunk that beer sales were stopped in Vancouver.

How big a deal was yesterday’s Team USA-Canada men’s hockey game?

Well, can you remember the last time Canadians cut off the beer?

With a crowd anticipated at perhaps 200,000 roaming the city’s streets, some of them fans of the archrival Americans, officials here ordered downtown beer and liquor stores to close early.

They had done the same on Saturday night when the hordes drawn here by the Olympics and the unseasonably warm weather made passage impossible on some sidewalks and clogged most available transportation options.

Officials said that “an unprecedented number of intoxicated people” forced the decision, which is amazing.  Canadians tend to be polite and kind, and they’ve had far more success these games than when they last hosted.  But don’t mess with their hockey, or a whole city will drink itself stupid out of disappointment.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Suman Chakrabarti under a Creative Commons license.