Great Notion

This weeks version of the weekly newsletter, with interesting news (more so than normal I would say).

Happy Friday, Everyone! Welcome to our 3 Notion Friday’s newsletter, fresh for 5.25.18. Here we go:

1. We are sad. The federal government’s TTB division just shut down our new NW facility until further notice. The primary issue has to do with a missing wall on NW 28th Ave. We are under construction for our taproom / restaurant and instead have a barbed wire fence and security guard..but that doesn’t count in their eyes. Therefore, we cannot brew here right now which means aside from tomorrow - our Saturday 16 oz can sales will be on hold. Oh, and we have to dump a couple of batches of beer that aren’t done yet..again we cry .
2. Can Release Tomorrow, Saturday May 26th. We are still on for our can release!! We have Passion Fruit Mochi IPA cans tomorrow. $20/4 pack. More info here
3. Alberta St. Brewpub Beers. We have some dope new beers on tap at our Alberta brewpub! Come on out and enjoy this amazing weather in our beer garden! Try a Bubbly (Brut IPA), Passionfruit Mochi IPA, Orange Creamsicle (just tapped and tasting amazing!), or the dank and lovely Return to Space!

 

A bit later than normal, but here's this week's version of the Friday newsletter:

Welcome to our 3 Notion Friday’s newsletter, fresh for June. Damn it's June already!!! Wow time flies. 3 Notions comin' at ya!:

1. TTB: We are still not able to brew at NW 28th due to the TTB’s concern with our building structure and security. We are making headway on our wall, however, and if you’ve been watching our Instagram Stories (click on our logo for those who don't know how to check the 24-hrs-and-then-gone-Stories), you will see that we are 95% there with having a wall up! The plan is to submit an amendment to our Brewer’s Notice and hopefully be back up and running shortly. The problem we’ll need to overcome though is that they are currently 63 days on average from submission to approval right now . The goal is to expedite this as fast as possible though from a myriad of angles (like Dilated Peoples). Ideally we cut 2 months down to 2 weeks, but we might be dreaming...
2. Beer: We have some cool new beers on the horizon at Alberta for you, including Juice Invader, heavily dry-hopped with Mosaic and Galaxy. We also have Sunroom, a tart and refreshing Sour Ale fermented in stainless with our house culture and a Saison yeast for only 4 months. We're experimenting with packaging this beer at different ages, because older is not always better! On the horizon after that, we have a new batch of Mandela, as well as new Luminous and Mochi flavors!
3. Alberta Beer Shanty: We have a new beer shanty opening roughly mid-June in our Alberta Beer Garden. We will have a few beers on draft there to help ease lines at the bar. It will be a nice way for people that don’t want to wait for a table to just easily grab a beer and chill outside!
   
   
   
   Enjoy your weekend. Thank you for your support!!

 

Time for the current Friday afternoon update:

1. Beers: We’ve got some hotness coming at ya’ next week! Look out for Papaya Mochi IPA, the latest batch of Luminous with strawberries, apricots and guava, and then cross your fingers if they’ll be ready or not, but potentially also Mandella and Vanilla Latte! We also have a keg of the hazy IPA we did with Cloudburst on in the Beer Shanty as well as lots of other dope beers still on tap.
2. TTB Issues: You readers need your Great Notion fix. We know this. So, instead of waiting a few months for some folks to shuffle some papers around, we built a wall in 2.5 days and then called a guy. See, we know a know a guy who knows a guy, if you know what I mean. A little magic here, a little pixie dust there, yada yada yada and we’re back up and running. It was actually significantly harder and stressful than that, but what’s done is done and by the time you read this, we may have already made 3 batches of beer at NW 28th, including Peanut Brother and a couple of delectable, juicy IPAs. Please stay tuned for more info in the coming weeks, but we are trying our best to reinstate our can releases before the end of the month.
3. Events: You can catch some Great Notion’s hazy IPA’s and culinary-inspired sours and stouts at the following events this month:
   1. Portland Fruit Beer Festival this weekend at Burnside Brewing
   2. Masters of IPA at Ecliptic Brewing in Portland on June 15
   3. Dope & Dank @ Federal Bar in Los Angeles on June 21
   4. Weldwerks Invitational in Greely, CO on Sat., June 23

Other Half Green City festival in Brooklyn, NY on Sat., June 23

 

As far as I know, they still post the information on their website (on the current tap list page). The problem is that they almost never have any "available" crowlers for sale at the pub, as crowlers tend to sell out so quickly. That's largely a function of a very limited supply (200 crowlers per release is still fairly typical at this point I believe), and extremely high demand. As a result, unless they have an unannounced release (which happens sometimes), crowlers typically sell out in a few hours (or less).

As far as publicized releases, I think someone mentioned earlier in the thread that they'll sometimes provide crowler release information on instagram.

At this point it's really hard to keep track, as they seem to keep on changing their policy regarding crowler releases. At one time they had regular releases a couple times a week, and the information was posted on their Facebook page. More recently, they've sometimes posted the information in their weekly Friday newsletters, and as mentioned, apparently sometimes on instagram as well. Or sometimes they'll simply decide to do a crowler release at the pub and if you happen to be there when that happens, you can grab one (that's how I obtained the last crowler I got from them).

At this point your best bet is to contact the pub to find out if there are any crowlers available, and/or if there are any scheduled upcoming crowler releases.

good luck.

 

Was out of town on Friday and missed the weekly update. The only thing I saw in the newsletter that I thought would be of interest to folks is the following:

3) Can Releases: We are still aiming to have our first reinstated can release at NW 28th by the end of the month, on the 30th most likely. Peanut Brother will definitely be one of the beers dropped, though we are trying to also add a second can to the same release, either Blueberry Muffin, Juice Invader or Ripe.

 

From past experince, I think you're basically correct with all your assumptions. As @ChugChugPass mentioned, in the past the line has not lasted very long, and in fact cans have generally been available for a few days after the release. Crowlers are hit and miss, and I'm not sure if crowler releases are being posted on IG any more. Please see the post from @paulypringles above, who works at GN. I would rely on anything he posts on BA.

Good luck.