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8/19/2016

Cans, Cans...everywhere there are cans! 

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One of those good weeks.  I tried to do this in fewer words but was unsuccessful.  Reading time 8 minutes.  Fast readers should finish in 5 minutes.  Make sure to read the caption below the picture! 
 
But first of all since I have your attention, we are open the Sunday (Sept. 4th) of Labor Day weekend from 12 to 7 pm!!!  Tell your friends.  Meanwhile…back at the brewery…
 
We didn’t quite know what to expect on Tuesday when we opened our doors.  Our first canning excursion with our Flagship American Brown was sure to be good but how good and how many people would show up was the big question.  We put quite a lofty Gold medal goal out there and if we sold out the first day we promised to discount our already incredibly fairly priced $5.00 imperial pints to $4.00 for the remainder of the week and even vowed to do my best to find our tv for the closing Olympics ceremony.   
 
We didn’t sell all the beer and have about 125 cases left (8.99 to go. 9.75 inc. tax), which means you can head down soon to pick up a 6 pack or more.  It still is hard to guarantee when we will sell it out but it is our hope to try and have 6 packs available here going forward.  We will at times sell out and some of the times we even hope to have 2 beers here.
 
We did however that day experience something that really made me proud to know that so many people out there really believe in the beers we make.  People from far away lands called Bloomsdale, Wentzville and O’Fallon believe in our beers enough to drive the distance to be here to support us on our first canning day.  (Side note: none of these places are really that far especially in an inter-galactic sense and all offer great craft beer choices now.) People left work early to get 6 packs (or cases!) for their significant others who love our beer.  We received a massive amount of support from all the local breweries as they popped in to buy a 6 packs and cases.  The kind brewers from UCBC brought over their Dissolved Oxygen meter as ours hadn’t arrived yet and confirmed we were hitting great numbers for our cans.  By great we mean low in this case.  
 
All of this was followed by seeing the American Brown released into the wild as photo’s from fridge’s (Thanks Anne!...not sure if you wanted me to re-tweet the inside of your healthy and well-balanced fridge with Civil Life American Brown now prominently displayed to thousands of people but cheers on good food choices), homes and gatherings came in through our twitter feed.  One picture had 4 paparazzi snapping photos of the can. I “can” assure you there has been no better day for the Civil Life.  My cousin, Nick, Bloomsdale, Missouri's top bee-keeper sent in a picture showing that it was a proper beer to consume while beekeeping.  Who would have thought? 
 
When the first can came off the line and I handed it to Dylan for the first ceremonial opening.  Our team here was super happy to be part of this long awaited milestone. No doubt as the day rolled on our happiness shot through the roof when the line formed and suddenly cases seemed to jump out of the cold room while long lines formed in our pub.  Sorry about that, it’s hard to staff for something like this and unfortunately 2 of our hardest workers here are our esteemed kitchen employees Dave and Tony and as mighty as they are only one of them can fit in the kitchen at a time.
 
The outpouring of support will always be remembered.  For a guy like me that loves the never-ending marathon of running a business this was definitely a day for our Civil history.  To our regulars, our fans and the many local breweries that stopped by to get a 6 pack or more we say thanks from the bottom of our over worked hearts. 
 
ONE MORE REMINDER:  OPEN SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4th of LABOR DAY WEEKEND AND ALL SUNDAYS IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW.
 
IMPORTANT CAN DETAILS:  WE STILL HAVE 125 CASES!
 

  1. The beer should remain cold.  At this time, we do not own a filter or a centri-fuge so there is a small amount of  live yeast in the can.  This is draft beer in a can.  As the can suggests, keep cold and close at hand.  Best when consumed!  The can says that too!
  2. As soon as this batch sells out we will can the brown again!
  3. On October 2, (Sunday) we will be releasing a brand new canned beer at our Anniversary Party.
  4. We hope to always have 1 beer in cans available at the Civil Life.  We hope at times to have 2 options down the road but sometimes we will have 0 as we get used to the number of cans sold per month. 
  5. These cans sure are tasty.  Store prominently in your fridge and consume at will.  We can and will make more.
  6. Due to the cost to bring in a mobile canner we are unable to sell our cans in grocery, retail and restaurants at this time.   In order for us to make any money and maintain profit margins for our wholesaler and retailer on our beer (I heard once that accountants think this is essential to running a business) we would have to be at $11.99 in the market and quite frankly I feel that is way to high for a sessionable brown beer.  We have always had fair prices and will always continue that philosophy. It is our sincere hope to someday grow our business enough to add onto our building and own our own canning line.  We are working hard now to see how soon that "can" be a possibility.  har dee. har. har.
Thanks for being our customer!  (don't forget warm fuzzy caption below the picture)
Picture
Meet Brian, Lindsay and that's me!  Brian (far left) is our can designer (now local celebrity) and no doubt we are eternally thankful for his tremendous skill in crafting the perfect can.  Brian and I go back to the days when I owned 33 as he was a great regular there as well. We've got more cans in the future so you will be seeing more of his excellent work. The guy in the middle is the kindest of chaps, Lindsay (Celebrating his 75th Birthday Saturday, August 20th), a Civil gentleman who can be found in our pub a couple times a week.  He had Brian sign one of the Civil Life cans!  Chat him up sometime, you'll be glad you did.  And as for me, I am just glad to be in the picture and to have the support of so many people that make this place the best of places. 

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3 Comments
Jeff C.
8/19/2016 09:39:18 pm

Jake, thanks for the post script on a great day and week for the brewery. We live in Maryland Hts (actually we are in the county, not even good enough to be Maryland Hts residents apparently...ha) so, even though it is not an enormous distance, I can't make it down there as much as I would like. But I was happy to be there Tuesday after having a pretty rough day health wise and traveling from Branson to West Plains to St Louis for work that day. I came to Civil after I left my eye doctor after an eye emergency. And it was far and away the highlight of my day. Glad it was so well received.

One quick question, I know the dates are on the cans and it says "should be consumed" but any guesses when the flavor or the freshness starts to decline? Basically beyond the sell by date, is there a "best by" target date for this first run of cans? I will hang up and listen for the answer. Glad you had a nice Birthday and a wonderful week.

Stay Civil,
Jeff C.

Reply
Jake Hafner
8/22/2016 07:58:56 am

Hello Jeff,
Thanks so much for coming down on Tuesday to get the first batch of cans! Glad to hear it was the highlight of your day. Also a very sincere hope for good health in the near future for you.

We do pretty rigorous testing for our cans that involves a dissolved oxygen testing during canning and also a full lab analysis prior to the beer going into cans. The reason these cans need to remain cold is since we do not have a centrifuge or a filter there is still a very very small amount of live yeast in the cans... just as there is in our draft beer.

As a general rule, though cans can live much longer in coolers and on store shelves it is good to have them consumed within 3 months as they will taste the way we intended them during that time. Ours as mentioned should remain cold. There is a good deal of older beer on the market and a lot of breweries are now putting dates on their cans out 4 months or even longer. This may be fine for many, but until we have been canning longer and can track the lifespan of our can we are recommending they be consumed within 3 months. We will have more to buy before then as well.

So the best buy target date is 11/16/16. Thanks for coming down!

Cheers,
Jake

Reply
Jeff Clodi
8/23/2016 06:35:47 pm

Jake,
Thanks so much for the thoughtful get well soon and reply about the freshness expectations. I appreciate you taking a few minutes to respond when you had a minute.

I look forward to coming down very soon again. By the way I took a six pack up to Chicago this weekend to share with a friend of mine as we were seeing Pearl Jam at Wrigley Field Saturday and Wilco in Millenium Park on Sunday. You have a new fan up North of the American Brown. I was not surprised... the beer tastes just as good in the cans as it does on tap there at the bar, good job on the process. It was a great way to start off our concert viewing each night.

Keep up the great work,

Jeff

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    The Civil Blog has returned.  It is predominantly authored by Civil Life Barman, Dr. Patrick Hurley, who can be found tending to our bar patrons on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  He is also responsible for tending to our draft lines, which is recognized as one of our most important tasks. Special guest writers will appear from time to time. We hope reading this blog will give you much insight about the Civil Life and most importantly help you understand a bit more about all of us that work here and the beers we put our hearts into.  

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Hours :
Due to COVID19 our Pub will remain closed until further notice.  We are now selling direct out of our online store at https://civil-life-online.square.site/ Until then, please look for our beer at St. Louis retailers and grocery.   If you have any further questions please use the email link below.  Thank you. 

Pickups are Fridays and Saturdays 2 to 6  & Sundays from 2 to 5 pm.  Orders will be only taken on line and will be paid prior to pick up.  

We appreciate your support. 
                                    Be Civil.    

NO PHONE NUMBER.  
  • Due to our small inside pub space we currently do not feel we could be safe to open for our staff and customers.  We currently are hoping to get our patios re-modeled during this shutdown and are hoping for an outdoor only opening in late September or early October. Hopefully.
  • Until then OUR PUB IS SADLY CLOSED FOR THE TIME BEING DUE TO COVID19.   WE WILL RETURN AND PROSPER.

PLEASE ALSO LOOK FOR OUR BEER AT LOCAL RETAILERS!
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  •  Please access our online store by clicking the link above 
  • ​PLEASE ALSO LOOK FOR OUR BEER AT LOCAL RETAILERS
The Civil Life Brewing Co. 3714 Holt Ave. St. Louis, Mo 63116, USA, Planet Earth 
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