Beer fans poised for Divine release

St. Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8 St. Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8 Photo: Brett Coomer, Chronicle Photo: Brett Coomer, Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Beer fans poised for Divine release 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Tween girls have the Jonas Brothers, and vampire fanatics Twilight and True Blood.

Thursday, beer geeks have Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8.

Serious brew fans will fan out across the city, stalking beer trucks and scouring the beer aisles at groceries and liquor stores as the first cases hit the shelves. They'll be cell-phoning their friends and checking Twitter for news of six-pack sightings. And in a grown-up version of a Harry Potter release party, scores of them will descend on the downtown Flying Saucer, dressed to the nines in Saint Arnold hats and T-shirts, after general manager Jake Rainey sends out the alert that he's about to tap the keg.

Parceled out in Belgian-style snifters, the keg should yield 135 to 140 glasses. “I can expect that to be gone in about an hour,” Rainey predicted.

After seven highly rated releases — Divine Reserve No. 4 took gold in the World Beer Cup's Scotch Ale category — the arrival of these single-batch brews has become a much-anticipated event. Just 1,504 cases were bottled this year, and the beers can be tough to find, even at $15 to $16 a six-pack.

“It's gotten progressively more challenging as the awareness has grown,” said Craig Stichtenoth, who has sampled the entire series and still has bottles aging at his home in Katy.

He plans to the hit the Spec's, Kroger and H-E-B outlets as soon as he gets home from work, cell phone in hand — unless, of course, his wife has already found some for him.

The downtown Spec's will have No. 8 when the doors open at 10 a.m., but customers will be restricted to two six-packs each.

The series' popularity is due in large part to the success of the earlier offerings, Stichtenoth said, while Facebook, Twitter and beer blogs are getting the word out to ever-larger crowds. Houston-based Saint Arnold doesn't distribute beyond Texas, but local aficionados buy the Divine Reserves and trade them for specialty beers from other parts of the country.

“People are anxious to share their local big beers,” Stichtenoth said.

Rainey also credits Saint Arnold with savvy marketing of Divine Reserve as a luxury item. Local home-brewers, he added, are excited because No. 8 is based on the winning recipe from this year's Big Batch Brew Bash. “It's really kind of giving back to the beer community,” he said.

Phillip Kaufman, whose BBBB-winning recipe inspired this Scotch ale, is doing his part to further tighten the supply. He's sending a case to family in Ohio, a case each to members of the sales staff at his chemical company and several other cases for friends, customers and co-workers.

“I'm buying as many cases as I can,” he said.

Later this month, Kaufman will travel to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival, where Divine Reserve No. 8 is entered in the Pro-Am competition.

But buyer beware: No. 8 is no Brand X beer. Asked for recollections of Divine Reserves past, Saint Arnold owner Brock Wagner recounted the story of “people who have patiently saved bottles of Divine Reserve in their refrigerators only to come home and see some visitor dumping it down the drain, saying, ‘What is this stuff? Do you have any light beer?'”

ronnie.crocker@chron.com