It's Black Friday! Check out this new stuff in the store

We've added some new items to our online store. If your in the gift-giving mood, we will direct ship your item to the recipient for you OR if your feeling extra "grinchy" just buy stuff for yourself, we don't judge.

Above is just a taste of all the Coppertail swag you can get your paws on. Check out the full range of items here and find something for every beer drinker on your list.

FYI: Items purchased online throughout the weekends will always be shipped on the following Monday.

-Teri

Sneak Peek: Take a look at our tap handle designs

When you walk into a bar; whether it be your favorite spot on 7th Ave in Ybor or a new place you haven’t tried yet, usually the first thing after you grab a seat and say hello to the bartender is the eye scan of what’s on tap.

Some tap handles are elaborate with intricate details and ornate additions while some are simple with no frills at all.  No matter what they are each handle is a symbol of art, all representative of the brewery and the beer. We like to think that our handles fall somewhere in the middle… something pleasing to the eye with whimsical details but overall nothing too elaborate.  After all, we want the beer to do the talking not the handle.

Here’s what we have on order.  We can’t wait to get them in.

We hope you notice our handles as you glance around a bar near you – dark grainy wood, a thirsty shark, waves with coppery details. Hopefully curiosity strikes and ask your bartender “who is Coppertail?”   We can’t wait to get a glass of beer in your hand.  Our handles should start sprouting up around town later next month.  We’ll keep you posted.

– TRex

Label Sneak Peek – Night Swim Porter and Wheat Stroke Wheat Ale

We just got a couple more label drafts back from our artist, Evan B. Harris.  As I mentioned in the last article on this topic, working with Evan has been really fun.  It’s always exciting to see what he comes back with as a visual after we’ve communicated the idea behind a beer to him.  He never draws it the way we imagined it, but his way always turns out better.  (I guess that’s why he’s the artist and we just make beer.)

We told him that our porter is called Night Swim because something about it feels like a dip in the warm gulf waters at night.  I’m not sure why, but it works in our heads.  We hoped it would work in Evan’s too. Here’s what he came back with for a label:

A couple caressing a miniature boat in the water at night while smoking a hobbit pipe and pouring beer down a shark’s throat.  Makes perfect sense!   Somehow, it does seem to capture the right feeling.

And, finally, we asked him to work up something for our wheat ale, Wheat Stroke.  We mentioned to him that we thought it would be a great outdoors in the heat beer – the kind of beer you’d want after going running on the beach, or hanging out in the sun.

Evan’s interpretation:

One runner guy being refreshed by a conch shell wielding mermaid while a pelican with headphones serves as an impromptu ice chest.  Again, we loved it.  I’m not sure if that runner guy is going to sell any beer, but the illustration is fun for us to look at.

So that’s what our bottled beer will look like.  We’re working hard to try to get them on shelves near you this fall.  We hope you’ll recognize it when you see it.

On the brewing front, we are officially brewing on the big system now.  There’s a brew going on in the back as I type.  There have been quite a few hiccups (a leaky vessel here, a faulty part there) but it seems that we’re getting all the kinks ironed out of the system as we go along.  We still think we’ll have some kegged beer made on the big system out in the market by the end of July.

In the coming days we should have a pretty good idea of what our tap handles will look like, too.  We’ll get sneak peeks of those out to you soon.

Cheers, and, as always,  we appreciate you checking in on us.

– Kent

Label Sneak Peek – Unholy Trippel and Free Dive IPA

We’re on track for a first brew on the new equipment by the end of this week.  And we’re moving full steam ahead with bottle label development.  We just got two label drafts back from our artist and we’d love to share them with you.

We aim to create labels that stand out from the others on the shelf.  We really don’t care if they appeal to everyone’s artistic taste as long as they look unique and distinctive.  We wanted to find an independent artist who could create artwork that would complement the hand-crafted and off-beat nature of the liquid inside.  We found exactly what we were looking for and more when we linked up with artist, Evan B. Harris.

Instead of just illustrating what we’ve dictated to him, Evan has become a true collaborator on the visual identity of our beer.  Plus, he’s been great fun to work with.  We contact him with an idea like, “Our Trippel is a little too easy to drink and high alcohol, so we call it Unholy Trippel.  Can you create something for that?”  Then he comes back with illustrations like the one below:

Blammo!  One unholy looking monk-like figure complete with totally unrequested stowaway rat band and Coppertail sea-monster.  We love it and we can’t wait to get these on the shelf.  (We already put this one on T-shirts)

Our IPA clocks in at just under 6% alcohol with low bitterness and huge amounts of hop aroma.  It’s our hot day, out on the water IPA.  We call it Free Dive.  Here’s what Evan came up with:

One free diver with a lobster on his head sitting in front of an underwater TV, eating octopus, while a partying fish and puking seahorse hang out nearby.  Makes perfect sense, right?  Not sure why, but somehow, it feels right.

We should have early drafts of a couple more bottle labels by the end of the week.  Stay tuned for more sneak previews.  We look forward to getting these bottles on a shelf near you this fall.  Thanks for checking in on us.

Cheers!

-Kent