Get ready for Unafraid of the Dark VI!
Every year around September, our team has a recurring conversation that goes something like this… One of us: “Hey, do you think we have enough ideas to come up with new beers for our Unafraid of the Dark beer series? I mean, we’ve done 30 unique dark beers over the past five years. Could we come up new beers we are excited about?” And, inevitably, the response from our team has been a resounding ‘Yes’!
For those of you not familiar with Unafraid of the Dark, it’s a limited edition dark beer series that we have been offering for the past 5 years. The way it works is that we come out with six new, tasty dark beers – one every two weeks- starting at the beginning of January, and running through the end of March. Each beer features an ingredient that is either grown at a local NH farm, malted by a New England maltster, lovingly raised in a local NH garden, foraged in local woods, or made (or recycled!) by a local business.
We sell Unafraid of the Dark cards right after Thanksgiving through the end of the year, which entitles the holders to fill a growler or growlette with each of the six limited edition dark beers. Some of our beers that you may know and love – like our Chai Porter, Coffee Milk Stout, Fennel Flower Stout, Honey Oatmeal Stout, and El ChupBREWcabra Mexican Chocolate Porter – all started as one-off Unafraid of the Dark beers!
Just like the past few years, we will be selling Unafraid of the Dark VI ‘punch’ cards starting the Saturday of Thanksgiving week, which this year is November 26th. We’ll sell the cards through the end of the year (or until we sell out). Even though we have no lack of great new beer ideas, we thought we would mix it up a bit this year, and brew three brand new beers, plus brew three beers that represent the best of the past five years of Unafraid of the Dark!
In addition to the benefit of guaranteed growler fills of each of these six beers at discounted prices, Unafraid cardholders will now also get to vote on which of the three Unafraid beers we make again! Pretty cool, right? Ok, so here is what we are planning on for Unafraid of the Dark VI:
New Beers
— Chocolate Pretzel – a bready, chocolatey double brown ale
— Hammer Thyme – a baltic porter delicately enhanced with local thyme
— Mallow Grande – a Mexican dark lager made with roasted corn (which has this great marshmallow aroma!)
And, three of the following Best of Unafraid beers–
– Vanilla Irish Stout (Unafraid 2015)
– Salted Caramel Milk Stout (Unafraid 2014)
– Chipotle Porter (Unafraid 2013)
– Sledding Through the Forrest – Cascadian Dark Ale with Balsam and Juniper (Unafraid 2016)
– Oh Snap! Ginger Molasses Porter (Unafraid 2015)
Again, those buying into the Unafraid of the Dark program (or receiving it as a gift) will be sent a link during the last week of December (after Christmas) to vote on their top 3 picks. We will then brew the winning three!
- For those of you thinking, “YUMMY! Sign me up!” or “Oh, I need to get this as a gift for XXX!!”, here is what you need to know:
When are the Cards Sold?: We will start selling Unafraid of the Dark VI “beer cards” starting Saturday, November 26th running through December 31st (or until we sell out). - Types of Cards?: We’ll sell subscriptions in two sizes – growler and growlette. For each size, you get fills of each of the six beers when they are released – the difference is in how much you bring home. A Growler subscription is equivalent to a full growler (or two growlettes). The half subscription is one growlette.
- Price?: A Growler subscription card is $86 and the Growlette subscription is $45. The Growler subscription is over a 12% discount compared to buying each beer individually. The Growlette subscription is over a 6% discount. Please note that the cards do not include the cost of the growler or growlettes.
- How to buy: To order your card, stop by the brewery during our open hours . If you want us to take your credit card details over the phone and mail you the card, we can do that, but we will add 2 dollars to the price of the card to cover some of the extra fees we have to pay for manually entering in a card. If that works for you, give us a call at (603) 379-2317. Have questions about the Unafraid of the Dark VI card? Hopefully the following FAQs will help…
- This program sounds awesome, why do I need to sign up for a card, can’t I just stop by every two weeks and get each of the beers? Yes you could try and do that. But, as a heads up, these are limited edition beers. Some of the beers might be quite popular, and we will end up only being able to serve it to Unafraid customers, or we might only make a small amount, so we can’t guarantee that you will be able to buy all of the beers in the program. Also, cardholders get a discount on all the beers, and they get to have input in which three Best Of Unafraid beers we brew.
- What is a growler and how big are they? A growler is a large, reusable bottle used to transport draft beer. Our full size growlers are 2 liters, which is about 68 ounces, or just slightly over 4 pints of beer. A half growler (growlette) is about about 2 pints (32 oz.). Since our growlers have flip top closures, unopened they will keep carbonated and tasty for at least several weeks. Once opened, the carbonation level will depend on how much of the beer you leave in the bottle. If you slowly drink a growler over a week or two, you might find the fourth and final pint to be not so carbonated, but we find the beer usually doesn’t stick around that long!
- Is the cost of the growler included in the price of the card? Since so many of our customers already have a Throwback Brewery growler (or two!), we decided not to include them in the price of the card. If you would like to purchase one, a glass growler is $13, a half glass growler (growlette) is $6, and a stainless steel growlette is $18.
- What if I don’t think I will like one of the six beers, could I swap it for another one? If for some reason you don’t like a beer, you can swap out one of the beers for another beer we have on tap (that is the same price or less) as an even exchange. If you would like to swap for a more expensive beer, then you will just have to pay the difference. For example, if the Chocolate Prestzel beers costs 8 dollars to fill a growlette, and you for some reason don’t want that beer, but you do want Donkey-Hote, you can fill up on Donkey-Hote (which is priced at 9/growlette) – you would just owe us 1 dollar.
- I already know I am not going to be around / I will be out of the area for one of the beers, will you put it aside for me? If you know that you can’t pick up on of the beers during the 2 week period, please call us to let us know, and we will put it aside for you. When you come in, give us your empty growler / growlette, and we will give you the full one. If you don’t have an empty growler, we will charge you for the glass, too. Think of this as a deposit— if you know you don’t want to own an extra growler / growlette glass, let us know and we will give you your money back once you give us the cleaned glass back.
- Can I get more than one growler fill of a specific Unafraid of the Dark beer? You are welcome to purchase additional fills if you really like one of the beers. That being said, these are small, limited release batches, which tend to run out pretty fast. So you can purchase additional fills until we run out and / or need to save the remaining for the cardholders that haven’t filled up yet.
- Do I really need to bring my card in each time I get a fill? No. Most folks let us keep their card in a little box right here at the brewery. A few folks preferred to hang on to their own card. If you do prefer to hang on to it, you will need to bring it with you, as it helps both of us keep track of what beers you have filled, and what beers remain.
- Can I buy the card as a gift for someone else? Yes! We think that is a wonderful idea! If you want to buy more than one for yourself, we won’t judge. 🙂
- It is May 2017, and I have x punches on the card I didn’t use, can I come in and fill up on other beers? In order for this program to be manageable for us, the cards are only valid through the end of March 2017. As noted above, if you can’t make it in, or you can’t send one of your friends / family in to get your beers filled during the allotted time period, then please give us a call and we will put the beer aside for you.
- When do I get the first Unafraid Beer? We will email everyone that signed up sometime after Christmas but before New Year’s to let you know all the details about the first beer (including details on where the ingredients came from, how we brewed the beer, and other key stats (ABV, IBU, etc.) and when you can pick it up. If you don’t hear from us, then give us a call – we might have your email wrong, or the email ended up in your spam!
