Erik Lars Myers's Blog, page 3

Stopping Seasonal Creep

Let me show you a picture that was posted today on the Facebook page of one of our favorite local bottle shops, Sam’s Quick Shop, featuring beer that they’ve just had arrive.

I have one word for this: gross.

Amazingly, that doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the fact that I think that pumpkin beer is vaguely disgusting. I know a lot of people like it and they should be saying “gross” too. The date today, in case you don’t feel like looking at the byline,...

On Petty Theft and Supporting Small Businesses

This past weekend, while we were running our little temporary taproom experiment over at Mystery, somebody – one of the fine patrons that came and joined us that evening – stole a poster from the bathroom of our office.



It was a kind of a cheap poster, but it was fun – the Awdrey-Gore Legacy poster by Edward Gorey. It’s a little murder-mystery poster, a little macabre and a little funny. Moreover, it was my wife’s poster and we’d had it hanging in our hous...

How to Open a Brewery Using Kickstarter

I am writing this post because I get an e-mail or a phone call almost every single day from a person asking me how to do this and so this is partly to help people and partly to slow the deluge of e-mail and phone calls.



As anybody who has viewed this blog for any length of time is probably aware, I am the guy behind Mystery Brewing Company. I originally launched the brewery as a Kickstarter campaign. The original idea was to do alternating proprietorship – a form of contract brewing –...

An informal poll: What would you want to see/hear at a beer book event?

My book, North Carolina Beer and Breweries is officially released today.



Neat.

And before the book was even officially out, I'd already had at least one AMAZING, humbling review.

Now comes the hard part – the the book tour. In this, I need help.

I'm a nerd. I've been to a lot of book signings and releases, and in each and every one of them the author generally gets up, reads a bit from the book, answers some questions, and then shmoozes and signs books for a while. I've also been to a ...

Why rewarding round numbers on social media is stupid.

I'm going to diverge from beer for a moment because everybody on the internet needs to hear – read… whatever – this. This tweet, or Facebook posting. I see it every day:



OMG! Just 10 more followers and we have 1,000! We're like totally going to give away a SOMETHING AWESOME to our 1,000th follower! Tell your friends! Will you be the lucky one!?!?!?11?3FCtrl-H

No. I won't. You know why? Because I already follow you. And thank you so much for acknowledging that by giving a SOMETHING...

Me, a Book Tour, and a Brewery

There are a couple of reasons that I've been so quiet here this spring. One of which, given my most recent posts, should be obvious: this brewery that I started up. As it turns out, those take a whole lot of your time. It's a little insane. It's fun, but it doesn't leave much time for public musing.

The other reason that I've been so busy is because of this book that I wrote. You can buy it online or at many bookstores, bottleshops, or breweries around North Carolina.

Well, now that...

The problem with wow.

Herein lies one of the things that keeps me up at night.

Now that Mystery lays on the cusp of opening, I find myself faced with an interesting new challenge: the words "highly anticipated" that I keep on seeing pop up in articles and on social media.



On one hand – holy shit that's awesome. It's mind-blowingly flattering to know that people are looking forward to the opening of Mystery and to know that people are excited about the beer that we're going to make. I can't help but think that...

Announcing the 2nd Mystery Beer Class/Cicerone Prep Course

Last year about this time I held a beer class – it began as the idea to make a Certified CiceroneTM study group for an upcoming exam, but others wanted to take it to just learn about beer, and it sounded like a great idea. Now, by popular demand, it's back.

This time, we'll have the advantage of experience under our belt, and we'll have a much more focused class. If enough people in the class are interested in the Certified CiceroneTM exam, we will arrange to have an exam offered at the...

Mystery Brewing Company: The Final Push.

This article is a followup to The Long Winding Path to Startup; call it part of the Mystery Brewing startup series, if you will.

So, here it comes. We're entering the last month before we finally, finally, should be opening our doors. In the next 2 – 3 weeks, according to every vendor and government agent that I've spoken to, we're going to see all of our equipment arrive AND our federal licensing. From there, I'm hoping that the rest of installation is a snap and that state and local...

Thoughts about the 6 million barrel craft definition.

I just wrote a small piece in my book about what defines a craft brewer, and I was faced at having to put down this ridiculous statistic, here, directly from the Brewers Association.

Microbrewery: A brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels (17,600 hectoliters) of beer per year with 75% or more of its beer sold off site.

Regional Brewery: A brewery with an annual beer production of between 15,000 and 6,000,000 barrels.

As a small brewer who will, with any luck, make 500 – 1000 bbls o...