What makes you happy? You would be surprised how some people would answer that question. I’m sure some would answer safely with family, kids, etc. but I have asked that question to others and the responses I have received are interesting, colorful and sometimes, downright funny.

What makes me happy? I bet you would expect me to answer with the max capacity crowd we had this past Saturday at the Greenville Convention Center for the 2nd Annual Jolly Skull Beer Fest. However, for those who know me personally, they would tell you I was pretty busy jotting down notes on what we did wrong and capturing ideas on how we can make it better.

Is that to say I didn’t have my happy times during Jolly Skull? No, there were some moments in there that rated a smile. The majority revolved around patrons who came up to me, telling how they just discovered a new favorite beer or they couldn’t believe there were this many tasty brews available. You could just see the light bulbs going off in their head as they were having their “moment.”

I’m talking about the eureka moment that all craft beer drinkers have had in their lives when they migrate from a mainstream beer drinker to a crafty one. While I wouldn’t be so brash to rank it up there with the birth of my children, getting married, etc., it does have a special place on my life’s mantel of achievements and significant moments.

On behalf of Beer Army, I want to thank the thousands of soldiers who came out in force to support us and make Jolly Skull a crown jewel event for the city of Greenville.

Now I know better than to cut this short and not give an update on our store. I’m happy to announce things are moving along and even though it is slower that we would like, we did get our preliminary approval from the Health Department and we should be swinging some hammers by the end of next week.

Our store will be like no other. A combination of bottle shop meets beer bar with an extra surprise that I can’t disclose at this time. I can tell you that it does have something to do with the $10,000 in plumbing upgrades we need to do before hand. We are talking about 3000 square feet of beer heaven. We’ll be doing tastings, release parties and all kinds of other fun beer related activities.

Originally we were going to call our store, the Beer Army Bottle Armory, but due to a couple of NC ABC regulations (which has something to do with the surprise mentioned earlier); we are now planning to just call it Beer Army. Internally we’ll have it showcased with the bottle shop being called the Beer Army Bottle Armory and the beer bar being called the Beer Army Draft Depot. As a collective, we’ll be referring to it as the Beer Army Outpost.

We’ll be posting a new webpage on BeerArmy.com for the Beer Army Outpost so you can track the progress as we plan on doing weekly updates with photos of the build out to go with it. If you don’t already, subscribe to the Beer Army newsletter as it will keep you up to date on any emerging developments we have. Be the first to know when we’ll be opening our doors.

Thanks again for all the support. We look forward to sharing a pint with you soon at the Beer Army Outpost.

Poto Cervesia,
The General