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Dear Saint Arnold's Army:
Tomorrow may be election day,
Go cast your ballot and then,
Seek out a store and enter the fray:
Divine Reserve No. 10.
More on DR10 below, but first...
Ale Dinner at Haven on Wednesday, November 10
Haven specializes in locally sourced food. Saint Arnold is about as local as you can get. Chef Randy Evans has put together a creative menu of dishes paired with Saint Arnold ales. The DR10 pairing is an especially interesting one. So come out and join us for this yummy dinner. All this for just $50 inclusive per person.
As a side note, Haven was named one of the nation's best new restaurants of 2010 by Esquire magazine.
Here is the menu:
Passed Appetizers
Free range deviled eggs, bread-n-butter pickle relish
Wild game terrine with mustard & relish
Piccadillo tostada
with Brown Ale
Baby iceberg, Avery Island dressing, lardoons, cherry tomatoes, fried oysters
with Divine Reserve No. 10
Shrimp, shrimp boudin, andouille, Tex-mati, Worchestershire meuniere
with Amber Ale
Beer braised lamb shoulder, polenta, mushrooms
With Christmas Ale
Root beer cake & sassafras ice cream
Event summary
Event: Ale Dinner at Haven
Address: 2502 Algerian Way (northeast of the Kirby/59 intersection)
Date: Wednesday, November 10
Time: 6:30 PM
Price: $50 inclusive
For reservations, contact the restaurant via either email kathryne@havenhouston.com or phone 713-581-6101.
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North Village Pub Crawl on Friday, November 12
 Our 16th annual Christmas Ale Pub Crawl, Part I,
will be next Friday, Nov 12.
This will be our North Village Pub Crawl with 5 stops. We are utilizing our "open house" schedule for the first 4 stops. This means that we will be signing tickets at all four of the first four stops for three hours so people can split up between the establishments. You will get your ticket at whichever stop you decide to visit first. But, VERY IMPORTANT, we will only be handing out the tickets between 6 PM and 7 PM. Thus, you still need to start between 6 and 7. Then, at 9 PM, everybody will gather at one final stop and that is where we will award the glasses. The prize for making all five stops will be our St. Arnold pub crawl pint glass. We will have a large but limited supply of glasses. And as always, designated drivers are both eligible for the award and encouraged to attend! So here is the layout and our vague directions:
The first four locations (at which we will be simultaneously between 6 PM and 9 PM):
- One will be somewhere on Dunstan between Kelvin and Morningside.
Sounds like a Scottish pub.
- One will be on Kirby between Robinhood and Quemby.
Think of New Orleans nicknames.
- One will be on Quemby between Kirby and Kelvin. Half of Hans and Franz.
- One will be on Bissonnet between Greenbriar and Morningside.
Has a Texas table inside. 'K?
At 9 PM, we will proceed from these four locations to the corner of Morningside and Bissonnet and look for someplace to congregate! There will be bratwurst with sauerkraut available here as well. Think: hot lava.
Now, for our annual tips for maximum enjoyment:
- PRECOATING: Try to eat something before commencing the crawl.
- PACING: Too many Christmas Ales at the first stop is a critical strategic mistake. This is known as "Sprinting Too Early" which is not advisable in this, a distance event. Can have negative repercussions later.
- MANNERS: Be patient with bar staff. Remember, 700 or so people will be descending upon a poor crew. They will be working as fast as they can. Also, it is considered very good manners to tip well everywhere you go. This creates good "beerma".
- CASH: Bring cash! This pleases the bar staff and the people standing behind you. Cash is fast. Credit cards are slow. They cannot run tabs for 700 people.
- BUDDY SYSTEM: Make sure that you are always in contact with a couple of people you know. One of you is bound to notice that the pack is starting to move on to the next stop. This prevents the disoriented feeling of looking around an empty bar and realizing that the only three people still in there are guzzling some inferior malted beverage and may be related to the missing link.
- MAKE NEW FRIENDS: As everyone on this crawl will be intelligent and good looking, this is an excellent place to meet new people. Also, you will note that some people become better looking as the crawl wears on. If this occurs, be sure to consult your Buddy System partner.
- DESIGNATED DRIVER: Yes, we encourage this strongly. You never know when you might decide to run for president. And even the designated drivers on the crawl qualify for the prize. While pregnant wives are perfect for this role, it is known to be poor judgment for a husband to claim that this is the best part of her being pregnant. See "Mood Swings."
- ENJOY ST. ARNOLD'S BEERS: It is in poor taste to be seen quaffing anything else. Ever. See "Curse of Saint Arnold."
This is the North Village Pub Crawl. There will also be a South Village Pub Crawl on December 11, so mark your calendars for that one as well.
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Divine Reserve No. 10 will be released on Tuesday, November 2
 First note: While DR10 will show up in many places on November 2, some accounts will receive it later in the week. A large grocery chain beginning with "K" won't be releasing it until Thursday, November 4 because of an update in their computers.
Divine Reserve No. 10 is an English Barleywine, and an alcoholic one at that! It was inspired by Chris Landis' winning entry in the 2010 Big Batch Brew Bash homebrew competition. This is a beer that not only will age well, but we are recommending aging it. It is clocking in at 11% ABV and could use some cellaring time. When enjoying it, we recommend serving it at around 55°F or warmer. This really brings out the malt and fruit character in the beer (there isn't any actual fruit in the beer). We were concerned that we had overhopped the beer when first tasting it in the fermenter, but the hop bitter has mellowed quite a bit. We recommend decanting the beer so as not to pour the sediment in the bottom of the bottle into your glass. If you must, just swig the last ounce in the bottle but don't pour it into the glass.
This is the first Divine Reserve that we have brewed on our new brewhouse and it provided some technical challenges. Brewhouses are designed for brewing 5% ABV beers and we had to get quite creative in how we moved the wort around in our brewhouse to be able to brew such a high gravity beer. Also, we had hoped to make a much larger batch of DR10 - our goal was to make about 50% more than we did of DR9. Instead we only netted about a 20% increase. Thus, the supply is going to again be tight, and much tighter than we hoped it would be. We apologize for this and are already planning some changes to our brewhouse piping that will facilitate us making larger batches of Divine Reserve in the future.
We ask people to limit their purchases to 2 six packs each. We try to get stores to limit purchases and have met with varied success. We do this so as many people as possible can enjoy it.
Second note: the beer is sold to all accounts at the same price. We have a recommended retail price, but we do not control what price retailers actually sell it for.
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Twitface and DR10
If you are a Twitter user and you are tweeting about DR10 or giving out information on where you found (or didn't find) some, please use the hashtag #DR10 in all of your tweets. This way Twitterers can search for #DR10 and all the relevant posts will come up.
If you are a fan of ours on our Facebook page, please leave tips on where to find some DR10 on our wall or in the comment section.
We kegged a very limited amount of DR10. We will be twitfacing information about when pubs and restaurants will be tapping these kegs as we get it.
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Thanks for all of your support! Our sales are up 30% so far this year.
Cheers!
The Brew Crew
Ann, Brett, Brock, Chris, Chris, Daniel, David, David, Deb, Dennis, Donny, Eric, Felix, Frank, Frank, Gonzo, James, Jim, Josh, Justin, Kathy, Kendra, Lennie, Mark, Mary, Michael, Nicklaus, Pedro, Phil, Robbie, Sam, Stephen and Vince
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 Tours Weekdays at 3 PM and
Saturdays between 11 AM and 2 PM
www.saintarnold.com
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