Clown Shoes Beer–CANS Coming Soon & State Of The Shoenion

(Clown Shoes—14 July 2012/mbb)Half way through, 2012 has been a strong year for Clown Shoes.

Georgia came on board a few months ago. The Peach State has devoured several truckloads of beer.

Connecticut picked up an initial order at the start of June, yet they are about to receive their fifth shipment.

Philadelphia is establishing itself, through the hard work of the team at Bella Vista Beer, as a premium Clown Shoes market. The Bella Vista guys remind me of obsessed, well trained baseball infielders like David Eckstein or Dustin Pedroia, gritty men who outperform their physical forms.

Texas, New York, Illinois, Maine, Virginia, Vermont, Rhode Island and The Shelton Brothers (who have sent several loads of beer to Europe), all keep ordering on a regular basis.

We now have eighteen beers. To my amazement, some stores around here keep up to fifteen in stock, yet it is time to admit, we need to add some structure to our production.

I am thinking of making eight different beers a month. Six of these will be made from the core of Hoppy Feet, Clementine, Tramp Stamp, Muffin Top, Brown Angel, Miracle, Let My People Go, Eagle Claw Fist and Vampire Slayer. The other two monthly releases will be one offs, collaborations, barrel aged beers, and experimental brews.

Nothing is being taken for granted. We know how lucky we are to be here doing what we do and how hard it is going to be to maintain relevance. Yet…

We are working on a contract for 20,000 barrels of production at Mercury in 2013. This will include Brash, just launched by my friend from Texas Ben Fullelove. I should also be getting two other project off the ground if things go well. But Clown Shoes will need to account for the bulk of that barrelage.

20,000 barrels is 300,000 case equivalents of beer. That’s millions of bombers and pints that need to be sold and consumed while fresh.

Ummmmm. Holy Shit!

To attempt to tackle this large amount of volume we will be adding cans to our lineup, hopefully in the fourth quarter of the year.

We will also be opening as many new markets as we need to. To that extent we just sent a first shipment to Louisiana. On Monday a truck will grab over a dozen pallets, heading to Alabama. Minnesota is not far behind. We also expect to open New Hampshire and Ohio this year.

Clown Shoes continues to be a polarizing brand. There are those who deeply dislike us, dismiss us, ridicule and reject us. On the other side of that coin there are those who genuinely love us, embrace us, and who loyally drink our beers and share them with others.

We have no problem accepting this.

We know who we are: Clown Shoes.