As you may know, last March Matt, Scott and I went to Chico, CA to take part in the very awesome Sierra Nevada Beer Camp.  The result of that unforgetable weekend is the one-time batch of Sierra Nevada Knightro- a very classically done ESB, nitrogenated just to keep you on your toes!  Well, the beer has finally made it to Vermont, we’ll get our first few kegs of it in Wednesday, and Friday, May 28 we’ll be on full-trottle throw-down mode with a super special Knightro kick-off bash that you won’t want to miss!  Only the half-dozen or so bars that took part in Beer Camp that weekend in March will have this one, so unless you’re in Mamouth Lake, CA, Phoenix, AZ, Tampa, FL, Boise, ID, or North Jersey, we are the place you’ll wanna come to try this super special brew!  Cheers!!!

Don’t forget folks- tonight (Monday, May 24) we’re very excited to welcome Bill Covaleski, founder and CEO of Victory Brewing Company, to Three Penny Taproom.  Be sure to stop over and say ‘hi’ to Bill, ask him some questions, and drink some of Victory’s amazing beers!

The sun is out and the temps are nearly conducive of growing food in the ground- which means it’s springtime in Central Vermont!  Here at Three Penny, that means I’ve got a few reminders/news bulletins for you:

-Our kitchen duo of Joey and Jake have been working the past couple of weeks to refine our food offerings and bring you the best menu there can be- we’re all really excited about offering a full menu, 7 days a week, without a stove!  OK, so they do make good use of a sandwich press, but otherwise, I dare you to came in for some eats and not be blown away at how amazing your meal was- and know it came from a kitchen without flames!  Among other simply delicious offerings, we’re now in full-swing with Mexican Fridays (the best Mexican food in VT!), sushi Saturdays (the best Sushi in VT!), and oyster Sundays (the freshest oysters in VT!).  Plus, Matt and Joey have been getting their hands dirty planting a vegetable garden up at Matt’s house- which means super-fresh, Three Penny grown veggies will be part of you meal in the coming weeks!

-We’re really grateful to Ratebeer.com writer Steve Koenemann for writing this simply great piece about us and our First Annual Montbeerlier Anniversary Festival.  Cheers Steve!

-Beer?  Right, we’ve got beer and you probably came to this site looking for news about beer.  In the coming weeks we’ll be revamping our bottle list, bringing in some new Trappist beers.  We’re also flying through kegs of Vermont’s two newest breweries, Trapp Family Brewery (making really authentic German and Austrian-style lagers) and Hill Farmstead Brewery (so far we’ve seen WBC gold-winning brewer Sean Hill’s awesome IPA and Double IPA, with the fun and creative stuff coming down the line).  In addition, our website has a list of what’s on tap that gets updated at least once a week (I’ll try to stay on top of getting it updated a bit more, since our draft list is known to change much more frequently than that).

-And speaking of beer, this week, or maybe next, we expect to finally get our delivery of Sierra Nevada Knightro- a nitrogenated ESB that we created and brewed last March as part of Sierra Nevada’s super cool Beer Camp.  Be sure to stop in to try this one- we’ll be one of about 6 places in the world carrying it!

-Finally, not really related to much of anything (except Three Penny and springtime), the Three Penny Pirates, our team in the Montpelier Men’s Softball League, opens the season this Thursday, May 20 at 6:00.  Come on down to Dog River Field to cheer us on!  Our full schedule, and team stats, will be posted here.

Whew.  Well, that was one hell of a party on Saturday.  There’s little more that could be said about our Anniversary party/First Annual Montbeerlier Festival other than we went through 12 casks and 6 kegs (that we brought out just to keep beer in people’s cups during the band!) in less than 4 hours!  Now that that’s all said and done, things are slowly getting back to normal.  Well, ‘normal’ I guess being a relative term.  We’ve got a 2007 Stone Old Guardian, 2008 Smuttynose Gravitation, and 2008 Gouden Carolous Cuvee Van de Keiser Rood all on draght right now, and this Friday we’ll have Sean Hill of the new Greensboro, VT Hill Farmstead Brewery stopping in with a pin (5 gallon cask) of his Edward IPA, as well as the premier of his Abner Double IPA.

On top of all that, Joey has brought his buddy Jake in to give a hand in the kitchen, and the menu just keeps getting better, and bigger, and better.  Stop in and grab a bite.  ‘Till next time….

This coming Thursday, April 22 is Earth Day.  Personally, I subscribe to the idea that every day is Earth Day (I’ve never experienced a day in my life where I wasn’t on earth, dependant on the health of earth, and that I didn’t find it necessary to be kind to the earth)- but I’m digressing.  We thought it would be cool to do something special in celebration of the one and only planet that offers us the exact and perfect conditions to live, and so next Thursday a bunch of our great fans and supporters will be joining us as we fan-out across the city to do our small little piece to pick up the trash and junk that some of our neighbors think it’s OK to just throw around into the streets, rivers, and parks.

And in order to give ourselves a big ol’ pat on the back for being such thoughtful, responsible citizens, we’ll come back to the Taproom when we’re done and enjoy a little present from our good friend Sean Lawson of Lawson’s Finest Liquids in Warren, VT: a fresh cask of his Blonde Bombshell, dry-hopped with Cascades and primed-up with some pure Vermont maple syrup!  Of course, you don’t need to join us for the Earth Day activities in order to come in and enjoy the cask- but I assure you, it will taste 100 times hoppier, sweeter, and bombshellierwith the contentment of an afternoon’s worth of do-gooderism (jeez, I’m making up words left and right here!).

And a quick aside here: super big congrats to Sean Lawson, who just won a Bronze Medal at the World Beer Cupin the Specialty Beer category for his Maple Tripple!  Rad!!!

So anyway, if you want to help of clean up Montpelier, meet us at Three Penny at noon on the 22nd.  See you then!