Washington Business Tonight

Last night I appeared on Washington Business Tonight on NewsChannel 8 here in DC for a quick segment. I thought the interview went well, and it was a great opportunity to tell the Hook & Ladder story. Check it out below.

TV Appearence

Tonight I’m scheduled to appear on NewsChannel 8’s Washington Business Tonight at 7pm. As you can probably guess from the title of the show, the show deals with all things business in and around the DC area. I’ll be talking with Rebecca Cooper who not only is the host of the show, but also a national correspondent for ABC7/WJLA-TV.  We’ll be talking about Hook & Ladder and the challenges of promoting and running a business in a down economy.

Be sure to watch the show!

Inauguration Day

Renewing America, the peaceful transition of power from one ideology to another happens today.  It’s a beautiful thing.  I try to stay away from discussion of politics, but whether or not you voted for Obama we all are supporting him and hoping without reservations that he is one of our most successful presidents. 

Obama’s first job as most see it is to get the economy back on track.  Agreed.  According to the experts beer is “recession proof”.  I am not so sure, although we continue to grow at unprecedented rates it’s hard to say what is or what is not affected.  I like people enjoying Hook & Ladder because they are celebrating life with their friends, not because they are worried about the times.

I bet President Obama would love Hook & Ladder.  Our great beer that gives back seems to hit home with his philosophy on life.  I read a story in the Chicago news last week that he couldn’t get his favorite beer from Chicago for a ball tonight.  I got in touch with someone high up in the campaign and offered to provide Hook & Ladder to fill the need.  He said that they could take corporate donations, so I offered to sell it.  No dice.

I am sure that President Obama will run into Hook & Ladder in the store or out in a bar in DC in the next few weeks and months and I am sure that he will love the beer and the story.  As soon as he does I know he will want to get in touch with us to commend us on our vision and mission.  I am sitting at my desk waiting for a phone call from the White House.

Happy New Year

Hook & Ladder is kicking off the new year with a brand new website. Check it out here:  www.hookandladderbeer.com

While it’s great to see a new and improved website with updated features and tools, it’s bittersweet to see the old one go. Every time I looked at  it was a reminder of the early days of Hook & Ladder and a great example of how small businesses find a way to get things done, when up against the wall (and the clock).

Back in ’06 when H&L was just getting off the ground, a professional, modern website was admittedly not the top priority on my list. Just trying to get our beer into a few more outlets really took most our effort. But all that changed when we learned we were going to be profiled in the Washington Post Magazine, and thousands of curious visitors would be heading to our site. We had about 2 weeks, and needed a brand new website. We scurried together a designer and programmer, gave our input and got to work.  I was really impressed with what they came up with on short notice, so we ran with. After a very hectic 2 weeks filled with writing content, edits, re-designs, etc., the site went live about 8pm the night before the Post article came out.

Take some time to click around the new site (www.hookandladderbeer.com) and we welcome your comments.

And promises of more posts from the EntreBREWneur in 2009….

Thanksgiving

Great recommendation from Lyke2Drink for the perfect Thanksgiving brew.  He suggests having the Backdraft Brown with your Thanksgiving dinner, I of course, have to agree.  It’s the perfect dark to accompany your meal.

And since it’s the day before Thanksgiving, I’d like to thank all of our tireless staff for their immense efforts as we continue to build and grow Hook & Ladder.  

We’re also extremely thankful for our distribution partners who sacrifice portions of their profits for our cause. Even in these fluctuating and unpredictable economic times, our wholesale partners have been extremely supportive and have not flinched at donating part of their sales to the firefighters and firefighter community that already give so much.  

When we first created a “Penny in Every Pint” we never could have imagined that just a short 3 years later we would have 100+ wholesale partners participating in the give-back program. They’re not only helping put the Hook & Ladder beers on the shelf, but they are willing to forgo part of those sales. And for this, I am quite thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Listen to the 101.9 RXP interview in NYC

The interview I did with WRXP, New York’s Rock Experience Radio, aired this morning. Give it a listen here:

If it the audio player above doesn’t work on your computer, you can download here: WRXP-HL

It was a great interview, and it was very cool to talk to a huge rock personality like Matt Pinfield. The last few interviews he conducted were with The Smashing Pumpkins, Chris Martin from Coldplay and Fred from the B-52s.  Maybe we need to work the angle and have Fred sing our next jingle. 🙂

EntreBrewneur on NYC’s Rock Experience Radio

If you’re in the NYC area or can listen from your computer, I’ll be on 101.9 WRXP, http://www.1019rxp.com/, around 9:15am Friday morning. I’ll be talking about Hook & Ladder’s NYC debut at this weekend’s Brewtopia festival in Manhattan. The morning show host is the legendary rock personality Matt Pinfield, should be a great interview to introduce H&L into the Big Apple.

Congratulations Rich

Congratulations to Hook & Ladder founder, brewmaster and my bro Rich Fleischer on recently getting engaged. He didn’t drop the ring into a bottle of Golden Ale to propose like I suggested, but his girlfriend said yes nonetheless.

New Beers on the Way

We’ve got two new Hook & Ladder beers on the way. They’ll both be available this fall.

 

The Hook & Ladder Pipe & Drum Irish Ale is a well-rounded red ale with a pleasant toasted malt character and slight sweetness. As the name implies, this beer is great with anything Irish like hearty stews, sausages, shepard’s pie, and potatoes. Probably would have been a good idea to launch around St. Patty’s day, but it tastes so darn good we just couldn’t wait. Seriously, go out and try this one, brewmaster Rich outdid himself this time.

 

We also decided to bottle a concoction that many Hook & Ladder fans discovered long ago. The Hook & Ladder Ember Amber is a Black & Tan style mix of Golden Ale and Backdraft Brown– slightly hoppy, copper-colored ale. Amber ales, with a great balance of sweetness and spice, are easy to pair with almost any foods, including sandwiches, soups and pizza.

 

I can’t wait for these two to hit the shelves, i think they’ll be a big hit.

I’m donating to Charity!

Congratulations to Brett Slater, winner of Hook & Ladder’s commercial contest that we conducted on a great new site called GeniusRocket.

Warning, the song is pretty darn catchy and you might find yourself humming it all day.