Kate the Great Day!

I got in Line around 6 also so it sounds like we were right behind your group. There 4 people in my group 2 girls and 2 guys and we had chairs in front of the store. Great times and nice chatting up people in line. Kate was great and food was top notch too.
Cheers

 

Same glasses Kate was served in.

 

That is a hell of a deal for those glasses!

 

They were not exactly what the Brewery wanted with them. Something was not right about the logo so they were selling them pretty damn cheap. It was even listed on my check as "slightly flawed," which I thought was pretty funny.

I grabbed one and it is definitely a pretty sturdy glass. I like it a lot.

 

I would have grabbed a bunch for 2 bucks if I was there. There aren't many things better in life than cheap awesome glassware!

 

I went back a 2nd time before she was kicked and tried to get another snifter but they were out of them. Glasses kicked before the beer. Server said they were getting more the next day, so maybe there are more floating around the brewery now you can buy, not sure. Also possible that the new glasses they got it weren't flawed, so they'd be more.

 

What a good idea putting on the limited Smutty beers! It's not like Smutty and PBrew is owned by the same person or anything. Star Island is such an awful beer. I vote getting rid of that for Schmutzig or a barrel aged something every now and then.

 

Yum,schmutzig....love that brew.I don't care for Star Island myself,according to what I was told on a brewery tour not long ago,Star Island sells well enough to keep around.I miss Smutty's retired Portsmouth Lager too!
On another note,I scored some great smutty vintages and one offs around town in local bars such as 2007 Wheatwine,Cabernet Oak Barrel Aged Robust Porter,and 2007 Scotch Ale.

Cheers

 

You mean like when they no longer offered a lager on tap?

If they are using the "IPA sells off too fast" as the excuse not to brew them , then its sounds like to me that the average patron is an IPA drinker....you don't need to be a beer geek to into hoppy beer. Until you factor in cost of making the IPA (which sells at the same price as their crossover beers, thus lower profit), your logic doesn't make sense.

 

I was there in December sitting right in front of the tap handles at the bar for three hours on a busy afternoon. I can confirm that Star Island was certainly getting poured frequently.

 

Yeah,I believe it.On kate day I saw a cook come out from the kitchen and fill a pitcher up w/ star island.I'm not surprised it sells,just not really my cup o' tea......Smutt-a-Roni is another 1 of my favs that I wish I saw more often.

Cheers

 

Yep, that was us. You guys were by the trash which wasnt supposed to have been put out yet. Thank you for allowing my two friends to move up and join us.

 

Yo, LS, according to a FB post, after the Chat Noir cask kicks, they are going to have four consecutive casks of Bottle Rocket on, all dry hopped with something different.

 

At the point of beating a dead horse, I didn't say they dont have the capacity to have an IPA on tap at all times, they dont have the capacity to do a blonde and IPA at the same time. Lets take beer drinkers out of it, they are also a restaurant in down town Portsmouth. If you honestly believe that a larger majority of all tourists, shoppers, families, etc. prefer IPA's over an american blonde ale, you dont understand the AVERAGE customer that goes into that place. The majority of the customers that prefer an easy drinking golden ale, or are used to drinking domestics, aren't going to say "hmmmm nothing like Bud Light, yeah let me try a Belgian Tripel ". You have to have a go-to option for these type of people. Same thing with Star Island, I believe they sell a lot more of that than Smutty IPA or Brown Dog.

 

I would be in favor of just having Star Island Single instead of that and Dirty Blonde. You mention that they have them both for the same reason and they are really similar. You can then have a house brewed IPA on tap at all times and an easy drinking blonde all for those who are used to domestic lagers. Seems to make everyone happy.

 

I don't understand this way of thinking. There's the Shoal's, Star Island Single, Murphy's Red, and the Blonde on right now. How many more lighter drinking beers do you really need on tap? If they wanted to cater to the average drinker then what do they need a brewpub for?

If you don't see a beer you'd like then you have a full bar and wine to choose from. If you can't find something after that then maybe it's time to take the stick out your ass and move outside your comfort zone.

 

I bought a snifter and think it's great, but I'm not buying the "slightly flawed" story. Sure, it looks like Kate is eating a carrot, but what other regular beers are they gonna serve in such a small glass, with Kate the Great on it and the word "ass"? I think their plan was to sell these all along to recoup costs for a one-day use.

 

I could be wrong, but I think his point was that they were originally planning to sell the glasses for more, but dropped the price due to some flaw. I don't know what the price is now, but I bought a couple plain P-Brew snifters a few years back for somewhere in the $4 range (each), so reasonably priced glassware certainly isn't something new there.

Honestly, though, I don't get all the comments about them pulling one over on people--making up a "slightly flawed" story to recoup the cost of one-day use glassware, or dropping the IPA for cost reasons. In the first case, they could have easily used regular P-Brew snifters (as I believe they have in the past), or sold the Kate glasses at a higher price (perhaps over a longer period of time) if they really can't use them again. And in the case of the IPA, sure it costs more to make than the blonde, but so do so many other beers they brew. For $4.50 or $5, most of their beer is a very good deal in my book, and if they were really just concerned about the cost of the IPA, they could simply charge more for it (or other higher cost beers) as others have already suggested. I don't get this trend of looking for an ulterior (purely profit) motive behind everything Portsmouth Brewery does.

As far as what BearsOnAcid said, I largely agree:

Maybe they can't do the IPA all the time, and I think the blonde is pretty solid for the style, but I'd like to see either the Star Island or the some other lighter drinking beer go in favor of something a little different. It is a brewpub, and while they do need to offering something the average drinker (especially in a such a tourist-heavy area), I don't think they need to cater quite as much to them. I think offering one average drinker-targeted (but still good) beer on-tap is sufficient--then offer the liquor, wine and maybe some bottles (Star Island Single, perhaps) to supplement it. The remaining beers don't all have to be crazy, geek-centric offerings, and I'm glad that they aren't, but I'd like to see more room for some other P-Brew or Smuttynose beers--why not have Smutty specially brew a beer for them like they do for the Common Man and the Barley Pub, for instance?

 

The "flaw" is the green line passing through the H in the portsmouth ... the owner also didn't like how small the logo was ... hence the $2 pricetag ... in case anyone wanted to know.

 

They could have used the standard P-Brew glasses but with only 8 ounce pours this year it would have appeared that there was very little beer contained in the large glasses. Bringing in the smaller glasses for the smaller pours was a very nice move from a business perspective as they still poured 8 ounces but visually it appeared like you were getting a full glass and probably cut down on the "small pour" complaints. Also much easier for the bartenders to just fill a 8 ounce glass rather then try to measure 8 ounces to some line in the standard glasses. I was wondering if they were planning on selling them at a higher price to recoup some of the cost of the "one day" glasses but then the logo came out poorly so they wanted to be sure people bought them. I bought one for $2 but if it had cost $5 I probably wouldn't have sprung for it since Kate really did look a lot like Andy Dick from Old School.

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