Whew. One more day to wrap up our local kickstarter through Funding Charleston.   I can really say it’s been an awesome experience.  Working on new designs with Fuzzco and being able to talk to folks about who we are and where we’re going.  While we didn’t reach our full goal, a lofty $40,000 we did hit 50%! The taproom will be that much better because of the 200 or so folks who believed in us.

Here’s a look back at the 10 reasons we thought you might like to support:

Reason #1: Reason #1: because you want a 1-of-a-kind growler that shows the love!

Reason #2 to support: Fully funded, the COAST taproom will be awesome. Pints (law allowing), books, music & a REAL bar! Craft beer culture at it’s best.

Reason #3 to support: Maybe your not that into beer but I bet you have friends that are. Our rewards make great gifts!

Reason #4 to support our local kickstarter: We are 100% family owned (my husband David (bearded dude in pic below and myself, Jaime).

Reason #5 to support our local kickstarter: Our 11 year old son says “you get cool stuff” like one of these shirts (but he really wants a skateboard with the pirate

Reason # 6 to support is a “BIG” one: Because someone out there really wants their name proudly displayed on a new, shiny, 60bbl tank. This would also work great for a local business (there is a few I can think of that I would personally LOVE to have their name on our tank). This is Bill Murray admiring the beautiful plaque of a generous someone on our tank!!

Reason #8 to support: We use certified organic grains because it’s important to us…and hopefully to you too! So your also supporting organic agriculture, for the people and the planet. Your the best!

Reason #9 to support: Because it’s Friday! And we are so grateful to have come this far….and $20K is right around the corner

Final reason, #10, to support our local kickstarter. We hope you make friends, have a pick me up after a long day, enjoy that meal a bit more, celebrate a milestone; ……….all over a well made, locally produced craft beer. Or just beer- as we like to call it.

And now I see that I forgot #7…and shoot, that’s our lucky number

Well that’s one for the memory books. Now that the mud in my ears is washed away……

YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME! Simple as that. You came with an incredible go get ‘em attitude (and most of you were prepared with rain gear Y’all are what made this mudfest the incredibly fun time it was. Thanks for that. Scratch that, every single one of you were awesome EXCEPT for that one guy. You know who you are- not cool.

It took a village to pull this off, especially with all the last minute changes due to the rain. I’ve got a whole roll call of thank yous :

Nathan Durfee- incredible artist and apparent fortune teller. With the ark and floating beer on posters and glassware, obviously he knew what was in store. Next year sunshine and rainbows!

Charleston Coffee Roasters- the fuel to keep going

Elite Security- because everyone was awesome except for that one guy and you took care of it. The best!

City Of North Charleston- for supporting what we do.

Every brewery in attendance. Your there because your the best of the best. Especially Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head. And all the other owners and brewers who actually attend in person. It makes a world of difference and is a lot of fun for attendees (and me

Fisher Recycling- yeah for recycling!

Moving Water- good water and no waste

 Chrys Rynearson Charleston Beer and Timmons Pettigrew

Robert Donovan- Official Photographer

Merritt Brokerage- our water and ice connection

Stage Presence- tents!

Access Toilets- they were a plenty!

City Paper ticketing expertise and pretty brochures

Food Slingers: Roti Rolls, Diggity Doughnuts, AutoBahn, Big Boned BBQ, Coleman Public House, Ted’s ButcherBlock, D’Allesandro’s, Kudu Coffee

Music to our ears: James Justin & Co., Graham Whorley, The Kingston Springs and Big Hair Productions so it all sounded it’s best.

Our family and friends. You bring it every year and bust ass in so many ways. You guys and y’all are awesome!

Free Beer for Everyone!

Kidding, but I do mean MORE beer for Everyone!

We’re so excited to be part of a new local kickstarter of sorts…..Funding Charleston. Launching today, February 1 2013. Most of you know our story but if not, head on over to Funding Charleston for all the details as well as the fun rewards we’ve come up with.  It’s been a long road with lots of obstacle to overcome but we’re so happy to finally announce expansion plans for COAST. We are anticipating the pint law passing this summer so we’ll need a proper taproom. We are also moving forward with a bigger brewhouse- and by bigger, we  mean wicked expensive! We also mean North American made and non-Chinese sourced- y’all know we’re quite outspoken on that.  And that’s where you all come in. The majority of the funds raised this way will go to outfitting the tasting room and renovations, like energy efficient lighting. The building we are in was part of last months land swap so we are no longer being forced to leave for the railyard and are in negotiations to find a way to expand right here! It’s been stressful and exciting and we’re ready to take COAST to the next level.

We could not have gotten to this point with out each and everyone of you. We hope you’ll check out the crowd source site.  Sending thanks to all y’all.

We’ve also added a FAQ page to the site. We get lots of questions and sometimes I’m not always able to answer all of  them. But I have now: FAQ.

My 10th and final post of the year 2012? Too fast I say and where the heck is my Jetson’s aerocar (coming 2062!)? We celebrated (by working, go figure) our 5th Anniversary this year. It’s like 5 minutes and 50 years all rolled into one. Whew.

Brewvival the 4th is right around the corner on February 23, so it’s stress time for us to ensure it’s the best ever. And no I have no idea what we’ll be pouring, ask me February 22

We do our best to keep up, honestly we do, but you just can’t make a man work more than oh about 70 hours a week.  It’s physically impossible. I can’t believe David’s beard isn’t grey yet.  We hear nasty little rumors or get sad phone calls from time to time regarding distribution. That we’re mean or picky.  Of course this is true    (not at all). Seriously though, we are at max capacity and have been for years. This means we can’t take any new accounts. It’s so hard for us because there are so many restaurants (many of them friends of ours) that we simply don’t have beer for. I could  take beer from an established account so they run out but that would be ….mean (see what I did there?)! I could go on and on but, let’s remain positive…..

We have good news to share for 2013, we’re just not quite ready to share it yet. Soon enough. And hopefully come Juneish, some better beer law in SC.

We want to thank you for your continued support, without which COAST would simply not exist.

We wish you and yours a wonderful 2013.

-jaime

I’m happy with the way the Blanton’s barrel Blackbeerd release went on Saturday. A little busier than normal but nothing crazy…no one camped for too long …..We really try to keep it like any other day. We like to have time to talk to folks about the beers. We like to have some left over for other days and not just one. We sold almost 3/4 of the 70 or so cases which means we have some for this weeks tastings on Thursday and Saturday!! Thanks for the support and for enjoying our beer.

Is finally here. Yeah I know what your thinking ….what the heck? Why so long? Lots of reasons (too much work, not enough time) but in the end, who cares. He’s here. And I think worth the wait.

11 months in Blanton’s Bourbon barrels !!! (a favorite of David’s. If you have not had the pleasure of enjoying Blanton’s….do yourself the favor).

Saturday, December 1st,  beginning 11 am at the brewery. $15/22 ounce waxed bottle. No limit aside from state law of one case total beer per person per day. Tours and tastings 11-2.

This batch was the largest amount of barrel aged Blackbeerd ever made (in years past the batch was split half barrels/ half straight up. This time an entire batch was barreled). Therefore, this is the biggest release, which means more to go around. And yes some will go to a few accounts around town too (starting next week)! Sweet.

Wow. It’s November already, 2013 used to seem like a long ways off…..

The biggest news we have is a huge THANK YOU to all who donated to our Sandy supply relief drive. We didn’t give you a lot of time but you all really came through! The 16′ box truck was brought directly to the Point Pleasant/Bay Head jersey shore area by our very own Mikey (brewer and cousin, we are both from this area of NJ). His mom was helping coordinate what was needed so it was nice to have a direct line. Some supplies like dog food, clothes and baby items were desperately needed elsewhere so were redirected. The rest were set up at the make shift need station at the recycling center. It is a 24 hour station that feeds anyone who needs it and especially the workers who are on 24 hour shifts. Many Many Thank yous to those that donated. On a side note, I’ll be stoked to see the 50+ shirts we gave away around town
On to beer news. Blackbeerd really is coming. No, really it is. We even brewed it early this year. So, last years Blanton’s barrel aged version and this years straight up version (I’d say end of November but we’ll see when the beer decides).

Possibly may refill emptied Blantons’ barrels with this current Blackbeerd. Ack, who knows. The Blantons’ form last year is coming for realz.

We are working away on the next beer law, hopefully to be introduced in the 2013 session come January. You’ll hear when the time is right so have those emails and phone calls ready.

I’m sure you all have heard through the grapevine that we are moving. Yes, our lease runs out next year and we are in dire need of an expansion. All that takes a lot of $$$$$$ and we’re not quite there ….yet! In the meantime, if you see a cool building that screams “that would make a cool brewery” that is affordable and preferably upper peninsula- holler at us.

We have an amazing beer dinner planned for January. More details on that soon.

Cheers and thank yous all around!

-jaime

Special thanks to some of the businesses who donated goods: Palmetto Brewery, Charleston Coffee Roasters, Residence Inn by Marriott Charleston , the Charleston Beer Exchange, Liquid Culture…..

I love September. It just sounds cooler than August….cool weather’s a comin’. We were honored to be one of the City Paper’s Freshman 15 , along with some other very cool folks. Plus, we look so much younger and certainly “FRESH” faced
Happy Birthday CP!
Next week (Thursday tastings 4-7) will see one more return for the year of the Boy King Double IPA. Also, another round of Dead Arm Pale near the end of the month. After that, our first real fall beer will be back…Rye Knot Brown!!
Alas, we did not win the $250K grant from Chase, in fact no brewery did. Bummer.

One more bit of bad news….we are not attending Brewgrass this year We are trying to put 100% of time and money into an expansion so have had to reign in the fun stuff. Hopefully it’s all for good reason.

Can’t say I’m sad to see summer go. This brewery is so much more pleasant when it’s not 100F!
One more Boy King coming out before we’re ready to move on, mid Septemberish.
Unfortunately I still don’t have a definite word on this years Blackbeerd in Blanton’s barrels. We are wanting to brew right into the freshly emptied barrels and it hasn’t been possible yet. Sorry for the delay.
As far as any beer legislation for the upcoming session, we are working on a new beer bill. Cross your fingers for it’s introduction come January 2013.

We will be closed Saturday, September 1. Consolation prize: we’ll be open Friday, August 31 (4-7p) instead!

So there are so many contests, “vote for me”, etc…we hate to be a pain. BUT, $250,000 is a lot of money and COAST could really use it. Chase bank is giving away these grants in a program called Mission: Small Business and we need it! We would buy a larger, less physically demanding brewhouse (with a few bells and whistles!!), an additional fermentor and some taproom upgrades (hello beautiful, cool fans).  Simple as pie. And we thank you!!

Go to missionsmallbusiness.com and log in using Facebook.
Search for our “COAST” and “South Carolina”.
Click on the blue Vote button next to our business name to show your support for our business.”