| March 1, 2011 4:00 PM | to | March 31, 2011 11:59 PM |
All aboard!
You already know Capital MetroRail is a great way to get to your brewpub, but the schedule has probably been holding you back. We’ll, that’s not an excuse anymore!
Capital Metro is running late hours service of the MetroRail every Friday in March, and special service on two Saturdays (3/12 and 3/19) as well. We’re extremely excited to have more transit options our patrons, and encourage everyone to check the full schedule for the details.
We’ve always been committed to alternative transportation, especially when enjoying the products we make here at Black Star Co-op, so we’re going to go one step further and sweeten the deal even more. Ride the MetroRail to your Co-op, present your valid ticket at the bar, and we’ll take $1 off all pints of our house beers. This offer is valid for the entire month of March, so you don’t need to wait for one of the special trains to enjoy your brewpub.
Invite your friends with our Facebook Event!
| April 2, 2011 | ||
| 2:00 PM | to | 11:59 PM |
It’s hard to believe it’s been five years, but the meeting that formally organized our Co-op took place way back on April 2, 2006. On the exact fifth anniversary, and with six months of brewpub operations under our belt, it’s definitely time to celebrate!
Please join us this Saturday, April 2nd for a combined Members’ Assembly Meeting and 5th Birthday Party. The meeting will start at 2PM with an agenda covering the state of our Co-op, release of our 2010 Annual Report, and a few special announcements you won’t want to miss. Be one of the first 50 Member-Owners to arrive at the meeting and enjoy a free house pint!
The party starts at 4PM and will run much like our old Beer Socials. We’ll have plaza fenced in, an outdoor bar on the patio, and music from a couple local bands. The party is open to the public, but Member-Owners will enjoy $3 Rational Pints and 25% off food all day.
Celebrate your Co-op and participate in it!
| March 2, 2011 | ||
| 4:00 PM | to | 11:59 PM |
This Wednesday’s Special Tap stays right here in Austin with (512) Brewing Company’s Whiskey Barrel-Aged Double Pecan Porter. It’s a mouthful, but a delicious one.
About the beer:
(512) Double Pecan Porter is a robust porter accented by locally grown roasted pecans and subtly enhanced by aging in recently emptied oak whiskey barrels. For the first ever bottling, only one 200L barrel was bottled. Notes of chocolate, coffee and pecan marry with the subtle flavors of vanilla and whiskey to make this a wonderful winter warmer worth sharing and savoring. We sincerely hope you enjoy every sip.
(Approx. 8.2% ABV)
| February 28, 2011 | ||
| 4:00 PM | to | 11:59 PM |
This week’s glass night is also the debut of a new “Brewluminati” special from Independence Brewing Company.
Join us on Monday, February 28th, enjoy a pint of the new release, and keep the glass! Glasses will be released and the “Brewluminati” mystery tap will flow starting at 4PM. A second wave of glasses will go at 6PM, and the fine folks from Independence will be on site for you to meet the brewer.
See you there!
At this moment Texas brewers are attempting to pass two important pieces of legislation, one of which could have a direct impact on our brewpub. The first, House Bill 602, would allow microbreweries like St. Arnolds, which is sponsoring the initiative, to “give” a case of its bottled beer to people that pay a higher price for a tour. The second, more pertinent initiative, House Bill 660, would allow Texas brewpubs such as Black Star Co-op to:
- Sell beer to distributors and wholesalers
- Sell up to 5,000 barrels of beer per year directly to consumers
- Self-distribute their product to retailers so long as they are under 10,000 barrels per year (total production is capped at 75,000 barrels per year)
In essence, if this legislation were to pass Black Star Co-op would be able to sell its beers in kegs, bottles or cans anywhere, including other bars, at your local beer store, at restaurants, and even additional locations of our own.
Of course large breweries and their lobbyists are threatened by the prospect of any impact on their own market share despite the fact that they still supply over 95% of the entire domestic market, even in other states such as Colorado, Oregon, and our neighbor New Mexico, where brewpubs already have these rights. Distributors might also voice concern due to pressure from the same large brewing conglomerates that again make over 95% of our country’s beer, but from a distributor perspective the prospect of having more to offer is enticing, especially given that most craft breweries sell for a premium. At its core, current restrictions on brewpubs in Texas are outdated and unfair, especially when compared to other similar regulations such as those for wineries. In Texas, wineries are allowed to sell on site or through distributors and have none of the restrictions placed upon similar craft brewpubs and breweries.
If you want to see brewpubs in this state on equal footing with those in Colorado, Oregon and other more progressive, beer-friendly states, there are several ways to get involved. Archaic Texas beer laws must be changed so that we the consumer have the same sort of options consumers in other states have and our brewpub is able to flourish. First, we are asking all member-owners that agree with the initiative to sign an online petition which can be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/TXHB660/petition.html. Second, we also ask that you contact your local representative to voice your support of this measure. You can look them up here http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/. Third, if you have personal contacts with any state legislators or beer distributors please consider discussing it with them.
Scott Metzger, owner of the Freetail Brewpub in San Antonio, sponsored this latest initiative and maintains a blog regarding the effort at http://brewednotbattered.wordpress.com/. All of the Austin-area brewpubs including Black Star Co-op have signed on to support the measure. As part of this initiative all participating brewpubs including your Co-op will produce their own version of HB 660 brown ale to help bring attention to the cause.
The long-awaited house tap handles are now in service!
These handles are designed by brewer Jeff Young (myself) and Rob Young of R3 Manufacturing and manufactured by R3.
The concept for these handles came from a birthday beer-fueled conversation between the Youngs some 3 years ago. While sitting at Barley’s Brewing Company in Columbus, Ohio, I felt that logos and marketing for beers can be misleading and make someone judge a beer initially by the branding behind it. A great beer with a crappy logo might not be as appreciated or selected from a tap wall of beers with more refined branding. I understood that commercial beers have to stand out in the competitive craft-market scene, but at a brewpub where the house beers are focused, not as much flashy marketing is needed. Therefore, a tap handle that gives the essence of the beer, or a snapshot of the ingredients would be preferred over misleading or hyped branding.
The Black Star Co-op tap handles are molded acrylic pieces that have a hollow-chambered shaft to hold the beer’s solid ingredients. Atop the handle shaft, a 10-pointed star from the logo rests fastened to a molded bottle cap. Inside the shaft chamber, I have tried to give a representative snapshot of the beer’s construction. To do so, the hops and malts of each unique beer is added in proportion of the recipe. The base-malt of each beer has been dropped and only the specialty malts (like crystal malt, rye, and chocolate malts) are showcased. Since the weight of the hops is minuscule compared to the weight of the malt, the hop portion of the beer is exaggerated. The hops are presented relative to each other beer; that is, you can see how much more or less hops were used in each beer. I started with a hop composition of 3cm of the total handle for a 1lb/1bbl beer (like High Esteem). The amount of hops was then scaled per beer relative to the standard 3cm. For example, Vulcan has twice as much hops as High Esteem, therefore Vulcan’s handle has 6cm of hops. As a note, the honey of High Esteem and molasses of Dockhand could not be added to handles (I tried…FAIL) and made quite a mess.
For now, we only have our 4 Rational Beer tap handles. As more handles are manufactured, we’ll be adding Irrational Beer handles.
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
February 24, 2011
Directors Present: Stuart, Jessica, Jake, Donald, Colin, Mark, Dana
Directors Not Present: Andy, Therese
Board and Staff Liaison: Steven
Meeting Minutes Recorded by: Natasha Merklein (Not present)
Non-Member Owners Present:
Workers’ Assembly Member:
Call to Order: 8:02 PM
Comment Period
Mark asks if there are any opinions about the new format of the Board packets; Board Members noticed the change.
Andy would like to discuss following up on House Bill 660. Colin notes there is an article in the Austin Chronicle that gives an update on the Bill and explains the situation. Stuart has made a blog post about the Bill as well, and Steven is working on a media plan for March that will highlight Bill 660 and the train service.
Agenda Review
Mark suggests removing the Vision Discussion – Board Members are friendly to the change.
Mark suggests the Confidentiality Discussion can be 5 minutes – Board Members are friendly.
Colin suggests Pub Hours with the Board be 5 minutes – Board Members are friendly.
Action Item Review
Steven needs information confirmed for business cards
Consent Agenda Items
Jessica proposes changes to the January Minutes, including: during the last vote to adjourn, Donald seconded the motion.
Mark clarifies a previous discussion about D.4.3.3, where the Board will be notified if the cash on hand level falls below 7 days of operation expenses. The proposed amendment is to add D.4.3.3, which says, “The Board to be informed when cash levels drop below the amount necessary for seven days of business operations.”
MOTION to accept D.4.3.3 and changes to January Minutes, Jake motions, Donald seconds:
6 For
0 Against
0 Abstain
Pub Hours with the Board
At the February 7th Pub Hours, Colin notes that two people attended. No one attended the second Pub Hours, and Jessica believes we need to do a better job of communicating the Pub Hours to the Membership. Jake suggests reducing the number of meetings to one per month and Board Members are in agreement.
The next Pub Hours will be Tuesday, March 15th, and Donald and Jake will attend.
B.1: Policy Governance
Jessica believes it would be a good idea to order the seven parts that the Board is supposed to do, arranging them by emphasis. Mark and Jessica feel the Board needs to be better at holding each other accountable. Mark discusses the monitoring calendar.
[Dana arrives at 8:24 PM]
Mark and Jessica continue discussing the Policy Monitoring Calendar and its level of specificity. Jessica gave the Board a low score for assuring performance by monitoring and discussing compliance, because there hasn’t been a Policy Monitoring Calendar used effectively. She envisions a spreadsheet for each month, where future Board Members can look back to how compliance has been viewed previously. Several Board Members agree that this is a good idea, but think this is a unique interpretation of B.1.3.1.
MLC Meeting
The next MLC Meeting will be March 7th at 6PM at the Co-op.
Calendar and Elections
Mark included as much on this calendar as possible for the upcoming year, such as when the Board Packet goes out. Board Orientation – Dana suggests holding two “Meet the Candidates” events during Pub Hours during the two Pub Hours before the election. She also suggests that the topical Pub Hours become a blog post to recap the conversation. Colin points out that the Board is supposed to recruit candidates for elections.
Board Discussion on Levels of Confidentiality
Mark describes the difference between Board Session and Internal Session. A Board Session would be information just for the Board, and an Internal Session would be what the Board and the Workers’ Assembly should know. Steven wonders where this would be codified. Jake asks if the Board Session can be called Executive Session, that way only Internal Session needs to be added. The Internal Session would be only for Workers’ Assembly Members, with the ability of the Workers’ Assembly to choose what other employees can be privy to the information. There will need to be a policy change to incorporate the Internal Session language, and Therese volunteers for this. Jessica believes the levels of confidentiality are a transparency issue: she thinks that if the Board is discussing confidential information about personnel, real estate, or litigation, people should be able to figure out that something is going on from the minutes.
Upcoming Members’ Assembly Meeting
Mark points out that the MA Meeting is a good opportunity to make By-Law changes, and he notes 1.6.3 will be changed from “After a period of two years, the Membership capital of an inactive Member will be considered a donation to the Co-op.” After talking to Dan Gillotte of Wheatsville, it appears that this language needs to be changed, because unclaimed property reverts to the State. This language can be removed or altered to note that it becomes unclaimed property. Steven would like to take time to make sure due diligence has been pursued before changing this. Mark believes it’s really easy to remove this language. Board Members wonder how the Membership will interpret frequent changes to the By-Laws. Mark notes that the By-Laws are good for Membership interest in meetings and does not believe they are irresponsible changes.
Jessica asks about the Ends Policies, A.2.1, “To be an advocate and educate for and educate the Membership about the Cooperative Model, beer, and breweries,” and wonders why the Board is not considering adding food to that list, as suggested from the membership during the last MA meeting. There was a suggestion to change 1.6.2 to say that as long as you’ve made a good-faith payment, your Membership won’t be inactivated. The next change is to edit the language on quorum to remove language regarding “the running average of the last two.” Steven notes that the intention of the running average was to set standards for greater and greater participation; there was hope of having some percentage of active Members for quorum. Colin asks what would happen if 250 people showed up to the meeting. Donald suggests not changing the By-Laws is fine if it is reflected elsewhere in policy, saying that we are supposed to try and get more people.
Jessica believes there should be a meeting about the Board Staff Liaison election. Steven is working on 4.1, for changing the idea of an apprenticeship; all that will need to be added to the By-Laws is a clause that includes workforce, “who have completed an apprentice period as defined by the Workers’ Assembly.” Mark points out 5.4, which states that if minor changes are made to the By-Laws, then as a whole they do not need to be reviewed for five years, and he suggests that this be changed as well. He also suggests a one-time meeting for By-Law and Ends Policy discussion.
Steven thinks that if the meeting is held before the party, that provides the best chance of getting people involved, who may not otherwise come. Mark wonders if 90 minutes will be enough, or if two hours should be blocked. Steven notes three procedural items that can be announced at the meeting: the plastic keg shells, the late-night happy hour/train service, and member appreciation days. Mark concludes that two hours will be blocked for Board and Workers’ Assembly time.
Mark suggests the topic of cooperation among cooperatives, where Dan Gillotte can come and speak. The topics of democratic member control, voluntary and open membership, education and training are suggested as well. Dana says that education for community would be easy too, because several events have been happened and are planned. Education and training, cooperation amongst cooperatives and concern for community are the topics. Board Members discuss whether or not the kitchen should be open and when. Steven believes the Co-op should be closed for regular service, and that this event will have more of a “member appreciation” approach. The e-mail announcing the April 2nd Members’ Assembly Meeting will be sent out by April 2nd, and there will be a later e-mail announcing specific details.
Discussion leaders will be as follows: Dan Gillotte and Mark for cooperation among co-operatives (and possibly Third Coast Workers’ Cooperative), Dana for concern for community, and Jake with another volunteer for education.
MOTION to enter Executive Session, Dana motions, Jessica seconds:
7 For
0 Against
0 Abstain
[Board enters Executive Session at 9:08 PM]
[ADDITION BEGINS]
[Board exits Executive Session at 9:47 PM]
Dana proposes getting a book of zip-codes cross-referenced with legislators, and then a form letter that people sign and address, that can be sent individually to the representatives. She notes there is not space for a computer. Dana notes that there are a lot of potential volunteers from the Membership who could stamp and send the letters. Jake outlines what is needed, including letters, a laminated one-page, an e-mail sign-up list. Jessica clarifies that the Co-op’s stamps and postcards will be used. Dana is going to put together bullet points about the legislation, and Jake suggests signage that stands up on the counter.
March Meeting Agenda
Section 1, By-Laws Monitoring – Dana
Vision Discussion
Members’ Assembly Discussion
Policy Monitoring B.2 – Jake
Action Items
Pub Hours with the Board E-mail, HB 660, Discussion of By-Laws Changes, MA meeting, send out an e-mail by 03/2 stating that we are having an e-mail 04/2, MA meeting on website – Steven
Request that Steven provide 940 form – Mark
Resolution on 0% dividends – Steven
Books with representatives’ info – Jessica
Draft the changes to the B.3 policy with Jessica’s notes, make postcards regarding HB 660, monitoring of Section 1 of By-Laws – Dana
Colin and Steven clarify that the website update to improve feedback possibilities will be live on Monday. Instead of a physical feedback form at the Co-op, Steven anticipates a business card with a link to the online feedback form, in order to avoid data entry. Steven is also wary of the possibility of workers intercepting negative feedback with a physical form.
Jessica points out there is no bio for Stuart or Therese on the website (they need to be posted), and Jessica wants a recent picture.
MOTION to accept action items, Donald motions, Jake seconds:
7 For
0 Against
0 Abstain
Calendar Review
Pub hours – 03/15 at 7PM about HB660
MLC – 03/07
MA Meeting Committee – By-Laws review – 03/02/2011 6:30PM
March Board Meeting will be from 12:00-3:00PM on March 20th.
MOTION to adjourn, Colin motions, Donald seconds:
7 For
0 Against
0 Abstain
[Board Meeting ends at 10:09 PM]
| February 21, 2011 | ||
| 4:00 PM | to | 11:59 PM |
For this week’s glass night we’re pouring two beers from local favorite Real Ale Brewing Company. We’ll have both their ESB and seasonal Phoenixx Double ESB on tap. As usual, buy the beer and keep the glass!
Glasses will be distributed starting at 4PM, with a second wave held until 6PM. Kenny from Real Ale will be on site, and later in the evening we’ll also be joined by head brewer Tim Schwartz.
See you this evening!
| February 16, 2011 | ||
| 4:00 PM | to | 11:59 PM |
This week’s Special Tap Weds is Regal Pilsner from Breckenridge Brewery. A double pilsner weighing in at 7.7% abv, it fits in perfectly with our current focus on high gravity beers.
| February 14, 2011 | ||
| 4:00 PM | to | 11:59 PM |
This Valentine’s day there’s no need to dodge C̶u̶p̶i̶d̶’̶s̶ New Belgium’s “Mighty Arrow.” In fact, you can celebrate it by taking the glass home with you!
That’s right, this week’s glass night brings New Belgium Brewing Company back to your brewpub with their spring seasonal, Mighty Arrow. Mighty Arrow is a pale ale made with Cascade and Amarillo hops over a base of honey malt and tips the scales at 6.0% abv.
A perfect match for a sunny day in Austin, we recommend enjoying a pint on the patio.
Glasses will be released in two waves, one at 4PM and another at 6PM. Come and get ‘em!