(San Diego, CA) – Alpine Beer Company sent out a newsletter on Wednesday with some wild news. The company plans to expand production drastically with the aid of another facility and will introduce a new package as well. We’ve never heard of a “twist off can” but wonder if the author of the newsletter may be talking about the Alumi-Tek bottle. If that is the case, perhaps Alpine had a chat with Oskar Blues about the package? Or perhaps something is in the works with recent collaboration partner, New Belgium?

Founder, Pat McIlhenny, told BeerPulse earlier in April that the company would expand but that production would remain pretty small (IIRC, not more than 5,000 barrels – the brewery produced just 1,050 last year). He also didn’t foresee distribution ever expanding beyond Arizona. Right now, the beer is only available in Southern California. Maybe all those plans went out the window…stay tuned.

More below…

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This is potentially some of the biggest news to ever come out of Alpine Beer Company. With the signing of a couple of hop contracts we have positioned ourselves to produce an additional 2,000 barrels of Duet and an additional 2,000 barrels of Nelson starting in late 2013. A “barrel” is two kegs. We plan on new packaging with a 16 oz. bigmouth twist off can along with 22 oz. bottles and kegs. There is little more I can currently say about how we are going to pull this off but know there is a lot of work to be done to assure the quality and standards are met while stepping up production. And, with Water being the largest ingredient in beer, it becomes the primary flavor contributor and is a highly important part of beer itself. Let’s just say we found a killer water source and a place to make more beer.

Look for more Duet and Nelson next year, like a lot more! Anyone for a “Flanders Red?”

We have released, for your ghoulish pleasure, our spiced holiday ale “Ichabod 2012.” Available in 22 oz. bottles, no growler fills, and on draught in the pub. For those that don’t know, Ichabod is supposed to be an annually produced beer that always uses “pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg” but has a different base beer. Annually has been an issue. But, this year’s version has a base of a nice chocolaty Porter. It comes in at 6% abv and is creamy, dark and smooth with the spices and pumpkin kicking in as a nice compliment. We have always had a hard time getting the pumpkin to contribute its flavor. So this year we used 240 pounds of pumpkin puree from Oregon. We used it in the mash tun, the boil kettle and the fermenter too! That amount of pumpkin is about 5 times more than our previous versions. Dam it, I want pumpkin flavor. I even called Dick Cantwell from Elysian Brewing, the pumpkin beer king, to get sourcing and advice. Elysian only ordered about 12,000 pounds of pumpkin puree, wow.

“New Millennium” extra pale ale is fresh and delicious and available for growler fills and on draught in the pub right now! This dry-hopped gem is made with Millennium and Galaxy hops for an out-of-this-world drinking experience.

We brewed “Ned” the other day and if all goes well we’ll see it shortly after the new year. “Ned” is our Flanders Red and is aged in used red wine barrels long enough to get the special bugs to impart their tartness and sourness, yum.

The next beer to join our tap list is “O’Brien’s IPA.” Already in the fermenter, it should be out within three weeks.