Furthermore

Letter to Rep. Steve Hilgenberg re: Assembly Bill 287

2009-10-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Steve -

Chris Staples from Spring Green here. In addition to being a resident of the River Valley area for fifteen years, I am the owner of Furthermore Beer (and in the interest of full disclosure, contributed to your last campaign.)

I write to you to express my dismay at Assembly Bill 287, aka "The Beer Tax". I assume you are aware that Wisconsin craft brewers operate on a razor-thin margin, which is ever-threatened by sky-rocketing raw materials cost (i.e. the change in hops prices over the last five years.) I'm sure you also know that roughly 40% of the retail price of craft-brewed beer is already paid as a tax of one form or another (existing federal and state beer tax, sales tax, payroll tax, etc.) And most importantly, I trust you can see how plainly this proposed increase in tax (from $1/barrel to $10/barrel) is intended simply as a revenue-generator for the General Fund masquerading as a social behavior/public welfare issue. Which, until more proactive measures to inhibit, enforce and penalize drunk-driving are undertaken, I find a bit rich.

Because Furthermore Beer is so small, the likely net effect of the tax on our business is this: our prices will go up and our customers either will or will not continue to pay for our product. If they do continue to pay, congratulations! You've just succeeded in enacting a regressive tax that disproportionately effects the middle-class folks in our community who could desperately use a break. If our customers cease buying our products because of the increase in price, congratulations! You will have succeed in putting a local craft brewery out-of-business. Were we a larger company, the tax increase would CERTAINLY mean layoffs at our brewery. While this doesn't effect Furthermore Beer directly, please consider how this would effect Lake Louie in Arena. Or Tyrenena in Lake Mills. Or Lakefront in Milwaukee. Or Sand Creek in Black River Falls. Or Ale Asylum in Madison.

Help me out here, Steve. Please don't support Assembly Bill 287. It's industry-crippling and has dubious merit and potential as a social-behavior initiative.

Best Regards -

Chris Staples, Spring Green

So says Joe:

2009-06-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

"Furthermore Oscura. Keeps babies asleep. Keeps daddies awake."

(your mileage may vary)

Releases, March Events and Promises to be Broken

2009-03-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

RELEASES:

Fatty Boombalatty is back! We're celebrating it's third birthday. Come wish the little tyke a good year at The Come Back Inn in Madison on Thursday, March 5 from 8 to 10 pm. Geez, Fatty is growing up so fast! Before you know it, we'll have an obnoxious teenager on our hands....

Thermo Refur is out of the box and on a high quality singles shelf near you. Well, only if you live in Madison, Milwuakee or Spring Green.

MARCH EVENTS:

3/5 - Come Back Inn, Madison - Fatty Release - 8 to 10

3/7- High Noon Saloon, Madison - Festivale Beer Fest Thingy - 1 to 4

3/18 - Turner Hall, MKE - Bonnie Prince Billy (sponsoring the show!) - evening

3/21 - Happy Gnome, St. Paul - freak the firk out at Firkin Fest - afternoon

PROMISES TO BE BROKEN:

In the near future, I shall blog on the following subjects: 1) Beer Dinner all-star menu, and 2) Furthermore's Spring Green plans.

xxoo - FmB

January/February 2009 FmB event schedule

2009-01-20T06:29:00.000-08:00

1/16 - MKE - Milwaukee Art Museum (Calatrava) Tasting - evening

1/24 - WOODBURY, MN - Top Ten Liquors Tasting - 12 to 4

2/3 - MKE - Comet Cafe "Beer School" - evening

2/19 - MAD - Cork & Bottle Tasting - 4 to 6

2/21 - MKE - Milwaukee Public Museum "Food & Froth" - evening

2/22 - MKE - Milwaukee Ale House "Mid-Winter Brewfest" - 1 to 5

2/24 - ST. PAUL - Happy Gnome Beer Dinner - evening

2/26 - MKE - Milwaukee Public Market Beer & Cheese Tasting - 7 to 9

2/27 - MKE - Blatz Liquors Tasting (Boombalatty is back!) - 5 to 7

2/28 - MKE - Whole Foods Tasting (Boombalatty is still back!) - 5 to 7

Gastro Non Grata (attn: Minneapolitans & St. Paulinos)

2008-11-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

BEER. FOOD. MEAT RAFFLE. ROCK&ROLL. COFFEE. BETTER BOWEL MOVEMENTS.

Sunday November 9 @ Triple Rock 6-9pm
Music: Private Dancer, The Wapsipinicon, Tuesday's Robot, Hojas Rojas
Food: Mike Phillips from The Craftsman Restaurant grinds on-stage
Beer: Furthermore Beer of Spring Green, WI pours some unique and tasty beers
Coffee: Andrew Kopplin of Kopplin's Coffee in St Paul sobers you up.

"It's not as easy as it should be, but you don't have to live your life out of a package. Sure a frozen pizza at two in the morning it great, but if you're sober enough to at least cut up a roma tomato and and some olive oil on top, it's less cardboardish. The purpose of Gastro Non Grata is to welcome you to the world of good eating and drinking, you have to look for it because "they" are trying to hide it from you. The Olive Garden's and TGIStupids of the world want you to think their food doesn't come out of a frozen bag. We want to tell you about the few food and drink warriors in town that are fighting the good fight,Idealists with a purpose,People that actually give a crap about what they do and how they're recieved by real people. Better consumption means better bowel movements for all."

We give you everything we have. What more do you want?

EFG kicks booty.

2008-10-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

Our partner in graphic crime, Erin Fuller, is again being honored by Print Magazine for her work with Furthermore Beer. Last year it was the label designs for Knot Stock, Proper and Three Feet Deep. This year it is for her six-pack design.

Congratulations, Erin! And thank you for bustin' your ass on our behalf for the last three years. We're proud of you, but not in that icky way John McCain is "proud" of Sarah Palin. Because that whole thing is just kind of gross.

Where we'll be in September

2008-09-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

9/5 - Josh Harty cd release party Cafe Montmartre (Chris)

9/6 - Clearwater Beer Fest - Eau Claire (Chris & Aran)

9/13 - Great Lakes Brew Fest - Racine (Chris)

9/13 - Grumpy Troll Brew Fest - Mt. Horeb (Aran)

9/27 - Quivey's Grove Brew Fest - Fitchburg (Aran)

9/27 - Autumn Brew Review - Minneapolis, MN (Chris)

Save Your Hands!

2008-07-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

They aren't twist-off anymore.

We're Coming to Play With You, Twin Cities!

2008-07-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

(And now for what has become the sadly habitual once-a-month post to tell you about cool beer-related stuff:)

Hey all you Beer Geeks in the Twin Cities, have I got treats for you! Forgetting for a moment about how incredibly awesome it will be to hang out with ME, I've got beer, new beer and ridiculously cool rock & roll music for you. Check it out:

Thursday, 7/17, 5 pm - Zipps tasting w/ a backing band. No shit, can you believe it? A backing band for a tasting. And a damn good one at that: www.myspace.com/purecountrygold - yah, asses will be kicked what with the delicious FREE BEER and rock & roll.

Thursday, 7/17, 7 pm - Mackenzie Pub. This is a Furthermore Beer re-release party in a general sense. In a very particular sense, this is a release party for our new beer, Oscura - a dark Mexican coffee lager that is oh so freakishly delicious. Read about it here: www.madisonbeerreview.com/2008/07/furthermores-got-new-beer.html

Fri, Sat, Sun, 7/18, 19, 20 - Deep Blues Festival in Lake Elmo. C'mon! 40+ dirty blues bands? A film festival? Bargain at four times the price? Go, dammit! We'll be there, pouring beer backstage and drinkin' in some kick-booty music. You might even see Aran there, in a rare appearance by FmB's over-burdened brewer. www.deepbluesfestival.com

Well, we hopes to sees ya'.

xxoo FmB

Evolution of the Happy Hour Revolution!

2008-06-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

Hey, all y'all Madison folk-

Remember when you were a kid, spending all your lawn-mowin' dough on record albums at the local House o' Wax? Remember when, every once in a while a real cool band would set up shop and play a few tunes in the corner? Remember how cool that was? Well, tomorrow you're fourteen all over again, only this time it's Happy Hour too:

Join Aran, Chris, Dane101 and The Deep Blues Festival at Revolution Bikes between 5-7 pm on Wednesday, June 18th (that's tomorrow, yo!) for some very fluid social time and a brief performance by The Black Diamond Heavies (who are also gonna tear sh*t up at the High Noon later in the night.)

Check 'em out:

http://www.myspace.com/blackdiamondheavies

Be there or be rectangular.

Love Ya -

FmB

Time Machine

2008-04-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

Every time we go to Milwuakee on "business", either Chris or Aran treats it as a license to act like a 23-year old. One of these days we're going to spend eight hours there and not abuse anyone's shrubbery. Thank the Lord for taxi cabs.

In other news, we'll be at Village Liquors in Cottage Grove on Friday, April 4th pouring samples, in Appleton April 5th for a beer fest thingy, in the Twin Cities from April 13th-April 17th for various and sundry debauchery and in LaCrosse on April 19th for a beer fest thingy. Come say "hi" if you're in one of these neighborhoods. Shoot us an email for details.

Fatty Boombalatty will Daze & Confuse!

2008-02-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

Come on out and fatten up at an impromptu Fatty Boombalatty release party at The Majestic Theatre in Madison!

Saturday, March 1st, Doors at 6 pm.

Viewing of "Dazed & Confused" followed up with music by The Schwag

Check the poster here.

Be amongst the first to enjoy 2008's Fatty!

Fe-Brew-ary News!

2008-02-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

Uno:

The first batch of Fatty Boombalatty is ready to bottle. The second batch is in the fermenter. Barring an explosion involving the bottling line, it should start hitting shelves in the first week of March.

And because you need to update your wardrobe, fancy new Fatty t-shirts will be available in mid-March. Hope I can fit into one...

Dos:

On the TMI front, Madison Beer Review has conducted a tell-all interview with FmB. Find out about Aran's secret shame and Chris' love of poetry. Part one is available at:

www.madisonbeerreview.com/2008/02/brewery-profile-furthermore-beer-part-i.html

Part two will be posted on Monday, February 25th. (Thanks for having us, Jeff!)

Tres:

Furthermore is setting land-speed records for finding new ways to spend money: T-shirts? New tap handles? More land for the brewery? A fermenter? Stay tuned to find out in which direction we hemorrhage.

Quattro:

We are pleased to announce that Frank Beer will begin to distribute our products in Dane and some surrounding counties as of March 1st. We will continue to self-distribute to select Sauk and Dane County accounts until March of 2009. All new accounts will be referred to Frank.

Our decision is based on concerns of geography, economy and planning - as a two-guy operation, we had to take a really hard look at how we were spending our time and what we wanted to accomplish in the next two or three years. We feel a need to really focus on brewing

(schedule and volume) as well as on site planning for a Spring Green facility. The two really go hand-in-hand: we need to ramp up our production to sustain the decision to build a brewery. Frank beer will competently take over where we left off - expanding our reach while honoring our limitations. We are excited to be working with them and, if you are one of our accounts, we hope you will welcome them during the transition.

Cinco:

We'll be attending festivals in OshKosh, Appleton and LaCrosse in the coming weeks. We also have a number of tastings in March. I will post a complete March and a partial April schedule in the next blog entry.

Until next time....

Brew-Ha-Ha-Two-Ha-Ha

2007-12-16T21:55:00.000-08:00

Furthermore Beer, WORT and The Onion proudly present a beer-drinkin', loud-talkin' hard-rockin' bonanza! Check out the flyer.

Madison's Scag 48 kicks off the festivities at 9:30. Ever wonder how a washtub bass functions? No? Well, me neither, but no worries - you'll be having too much fun to give a hoot when this trio tears the rear-end off the stage.

At 10:30 or so, we will tap the inaugural keg of "Makeweight", our 8.5% ABV single-batch Triple Pale. Drink. Enjoy. Repeat.

Decibully, the phenomenal 752-piece pop band from Milwaukee will take the stage by 11:00. When I say "pop band", I mean it in the really good way. The best possible way, in fact. I know you'll agree that all the groveling I did to get them to play this show was well worth it.

If, by 12:00 the Makeweight hasn't torn the flesh from your face and rendered your sobriety useless, The Black-Eyed Snakes sure as fook will. When you witness what has become of Chicken Bone George (Alan Sparhawk from Low) and his merry band of catharsis-wielding gutter-blues freaks, you will reconsider that deal you made with Satan o those many years ago.

High Noon Saloon. Madison, Wisconsin. Saturday, January 5th, 2008. 7 Bones, and by all means show up on the early side - 300 tickets, available at the door. Because it's only fair. Four varieties of Furthermore on tap. $2.75 a pint all night long, yo.