Last night’s keg rollout party at the Barley Pub was amazing in so many ways, I feel a bit at a loss for words. (For those of you that know me will know that that is very unusual 
)! Let me just mention a few of the higlights:
- Having about 150 people show up at the Barley Pub on a Tuesday night.
- Kicking all 7 of the 5.4 gallon kegs in 2 hours and 15 minutes.
- Seeing so many friends (old and new) show up to support us, including some good friends (Jill, Kyle, Tasha) who drove up from Boston just to see our first few kegs being rolled out. That is the type of support that just makes us feel very loved!
- Being so warmly supported by the Smuttynose family (Peter, Dave, Charlie) and also by several of the great, local beer bloggers, writers, and press — Rachel Forrest, Scott Kaplan from Yankee Brew News, Dan Kochakian from Ale Street News, Doreen a.k.a BeerZenGirl, Brian a.k.a SeacoastBevLab, and Sean a.k.a 2Beerguys.
For those of you that weren’t able to make it, here is a bit of a recap. Annette and I showed up a bit early to drop off two extra kegs, since we thought (hoped?) the five kegs the Barley Pub bought might go pretty quickly. I was very excited to see the chalkboard up front with our logo on it! Someone at the Barley Pub has mad talent, cause that is a pretty great rendition of our logo!
Hoping the Barley Pub artist will come by and draw this on our chalkboard
We then grabbed a piece of pizza with my dad and his wife (Pat) before the big event started. Here is us post pizza, pre event. I think this picture is hysterical because we both look drunk already, but we aren’t. Frankly, it is probably pure exhaustion from working 7 days a week and crazy hours for the past 10 months.
No, we are not hammered
At 7 o’clock, Dustin put our taps and kegs on, and tested the lines.
Dustin checks the taps, while Liz plays peek-a-boo
We then got to pour the first beers! Here is Annette showing off her bartending abilities:
Annette nervously pulls her first pint
As I mentioned above, we had lots of great support from the community. We were especially pleased that our Smuttynose neighbors showed up! Here is a shot of me and Annette with Peter Egleston (founder of Smuttynose and Portsmouth Brewery) and David Yarrington (Executive Brewer / Director of Brewing Operations at Smutty). David is on the left, then Peter, me, and Annette. David continues to be a great mentor for Annette, and, for that, we are very thankful. Peter mentioned the possibility of having some of our beer on the guest tap at the Portsmouth Brewery, which would be a dream come true.
Big and Little Brewers
By 7:30 pm, the place was already very packed.
It's getting hot in here!
8:00 pm Ladies Night started, and we got up about 20 or so minutes later to give a little speech about Throwback Brewery and our beers. By that point, the Maple-Kissed Wheat Porter was already kicked!
Kicking off ladies night!
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Annette enjoying Nicole's little speech
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By about 8:30 or so (I think), the Hopstruck was kicked. Since we brought two kegs each of Dippity-do and Love me Long Time, they were the last to go.
By 9:15, all the beer was gone, and it was time to reward (with a Throwback t-shirt) the one brave and very pretty soul who dared to dress in drag!
Hot, hot, hot!
All in all, it was a super night, and we thank everyone who came out to support us! We really enjoyed catching up with some old friends, and meeting a whole bunch of new friends. All in all, based on last night, we feel pretty good about continuing to brew the beers that we love, because it seems like many of you love the beers that we brew!
–nicole
