Bullard's Brew-gift

Every job comes with its perks: maybe it's a company car, cheap pitchers, or unsupervised reddit time. But here at BottleMark, the big company perk is our customers. Brewers are just the nicest people out there.

We recently made a homebrewer so happy, he insisted he share the love. So we got two of our custom caps back, but with the brews attached!

Our caps fulfill their destiny

Josh Bullard reports, "I get inspiration for my beers from experiences, crazy ideas, friends/people I meet, music, art...weather patterns." I lol'd. I'd like to see a whole brewery be weather patterned-themed.

For the first beer, Josh was dreaming of a heavy-hitting wheat when the song "Bombshell" by Operation Ivy played, and so this Imperial Wheat was born. He completed it with a punk-rock anarchy cap.

The second is a special brew made for Josh's friend Natalie. She's fond of honey beers but not so much of hoppy beers, and so with the help of some local honey, Josh created a nicely balanced Honey Pale Ale. Natalie got pride of place on the cap and christened it Bumble Brew.

And for the first time I can actually report back that "nicely balanced" isn't just Josh's claim: it's mine, too! We hoarded the gifts for a special occasion at the Cooper household...what better night than chicken fajita night! Here I am hamming it up with the Bumble Brew Honey Pale Ale.

Natalie's not the only one who can make quirky faces!

This beer had a forward honey-induced sweetness that the hops at the end kept from turning too sweet. And here's Cameron with some delicious fajitas and She's A Bombshell Imperial Wheat.

He grew those sideburns for a play, I swear!

The Imperial Wheat had a lovely nutty taste, wasn't super-wheaty, and was super-drinkable for 8% ABV.

And here's the brewer!

(on the right)

While BottleMark can't exactly accept payment in beer, we're certainly open to company donations. Thanks, Josh, for some great homebrew! What's next? A Cumulus Cloud Cream Ale, perhaps?

Bottle caps and Bardolatry

For those of you who know me in the real world, you know I've got one of the quirkiest combinations of passions. It's time to confess to you all: I make custom bottle caps for a living, and I do Shakespeare. Wait, what?

Forsooth, I speak the truth! In fact, Shakespeare got me into bottle caps: I met Cameron through Rice University's Baker Shakespeare program, and he even proposed dressed as Prospero at the end of a Tempest rehearsal with a Shakespearean line he said on stage to me two years before ("Will you have me, lady?"). Thankfully Shakespeare left me free to give my own answer that time. When you have the Bard to thank for both your living and your love, you call it Bardolatry.

For the last ten weeks, I've been hard at work every evening directing The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare's most controversial play, for Baker Shakespeare at Rice University. At this Saturday night's cast party, we're popping the top on these bad boys.

An ESB brewed with a vengeance.

An English Brown Ale: as beer as beer gets!

So if you're in Houston, TX this weekend, consider catching our last three performances of The Merchant of Venice!

In this most problematic of Shakespeare's comedies, Shylock the Jew seeks a pound of flesh from Antonio the Christian while three couples fall in (and out of) love. All that glisters is not gold in this equal parts funny and frightening production, set in all the opulence and prejudice of Renaissance Venice.

Remaining Performances: This weekend only!
March 14, 15, 16 @ 8pm
Baker Residential College, Rice University
6320 Main Street

Tickets:
$5 Students
$7 Alums/Faculty/Staff
$10 Public

LINKS
Show info with maps and parking: http://www.bakershake.org
Rice Thresher Review
Meme

Kickstarter: LA Ale Works

You know the dream: good homebrew grows up into a great brewery. One of our favorite customers, LA Ale Works, is enjoying those fabulous growing pains right now. Help turn them into a brewery!

Want better beer in LA? Go donate to their kickstarter NOW! Pledges start at only $1.
LA Ale Works Kickstarter

When you help fund LA Ale Works, they'll send you a certain amount of "vote" tokens, redeemable for awesome things later. These tokens are our very own flattened custom bottle caps with the LA Ale Works logo. Very cool!

There are lots of other great prizes at different levels, from getting your name engraved on their fermentor to hand-made bottle carriers to naming a special release beer after you. You know you want some of that action.

If you'd like to enjoy beer like the Buttress of Windsor Coffee Rye Porter or Das Kolsch (a real traditional kolsch) among many of their award-winning other brews, support LAAW today!

Bells Brewing Company

Tom thought he might save some money brewing his own beer. After a year of avid homebrewing and making all the necessary equipment purchases, he's got the cost down to a mere $8 a bottle! But money hardly matters when you're sharing good beer brewed with care with friends and family.

When gifting beers, it's great to add a personal touch to the bottles--not to mention a label so they know what's inside! And thus Bells Brewing is addicted to custom bottle caps. Tom enjoys making connections between his beers and his rural home. Here are some of our favorite designs:

Named after the county

Named after the county's unfortunate laws

Tom added coffee to the secondary, hence the "Joe"

A 2-for-1 name: a "hoppy" ESB brewed in the land of cotton growing

Brewed with a touch of honey

Bells Brewing's latest offering is an Altbier, brewed with a top fermenting yeast and capped with this lovely Oktoberfest lass. (The wife however is not convinced "top-down" refers to just the yeast!)

And here's the design in action:

Unique names, crisp graphics, and a uniform design scheme that unites them all together. A great custom cap line-up from Bells Brewing!

Real gift cards are here!

Designing for yourself can be lots of fun, but designing for someone else? Uhh...thanks, but no thanks. Even my husband and I aren't that close. While it may be "the thought that counts," sometimes it's the font that counts.

Because nothing says legit brewer like Comic Sans.

So instead of spending hours over a Ouija board and Photoshop trying to divine their perfect brewing logo, why don't you save some time this holiday season, and give them what they really want: creative freedom!

Seriously. Nothing's as much fun as coming up with your own brand. That's the joy of BottleMark. While we've had digital gift certificates available for purchase since last year, we've just added a new and even better option for the savvy gift-giver: the REAL gift card.

Because nothing says legit gift like plastic.

Give the gift of custom caps in a tangible, wrappable, stocking-stuffable form. Cards come with a redeemable code, a gift card sleeve, and a LOTR reference on the back. You know you want to see one for yourself! Shipping's a cheap $2 in the USA.

Get them here: BottleMark Gift Certificates and Gift Cards

Dec. 7: New Christmas Deadline

Here at BottleMark, we don't like to make promises we can't keep. We calculated our original Christmas deadline assuming a heretofore unprecedented daily order volume. But it seems even that number wasn't high enough. We have grossly underestimated how much you guys want custom bottle caps.

When bottle caps attack!

Our new deadline for Christmas delivery is FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7 @ 11:59 PST. That means you've got two more days to place your order! DO IT NOW!

Christmas Guarantee

We're very happy to be very busy here at BottleMark. With the holiday season upon us, we're churning out custom caps as quickly as the machines can go. But we're not Amazon. We're not pulling from a warehouse.

Not us.

Want to give the gift of custom caps? Order by December 10, and we'll guarantee your caps will arrive before Dec. 25. In other words, order now!

Missed the deadline? Consider giving a gift certificate to the homebrewers in your life--it's the gift of custom caps and creative freedom! Because, let's face it: they probably won't like your font choices anyway.

Check out BottleMark's December shipping details here.

Happy holidays to you and yours! Cheers!