Leon Farmer : News Releases

Bonjour Bayou Teche

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Nestled along the banks of the Bayou Teche of Louisiana, Bayou Teche Brewing creates its innovative beers in an old rail car-turned-farmhouse brewery. The Knott brothers, Karlos, Byron and Dorsey, founded the brewery with a mission to craft beers that complement the cuisine and lifestyle of Cajuns and Creoles in South Louisiana. Each Bayou Teche beer recipe is created and tweaked to perfection by sampling it alongside Cajun dishes until it creates a pairing worthy of sharing with the masses!

Bayou Teche Brewing made its Georgia debut in April, when it featured its four year-round brews at the annual Classic City Brewfest in Athens. This week marks the official “Rollout” of the brewery in downtown Athens! We welcome the Knott brothers and the following bottled brews:

Bière Pâle is brewed with Belgian malts and American hops and yeast. It has a bronze color and a biscuity malt center, with a gentle bitterness and herbal hoppy flavor. We call it a “Louisiana Pale Ale.” 5.7%

Passionné is a wheat beer brewed with passionfruit, a fruit native to Acadiana, Louisiana and commonly enjoyed as a summer thirst-quencher. 5.7%

Bière Noire is a beer brewed to pay homage to coffee and what it represented for French-speaking ancestors of the Knott brothers. It is made with German malts and select American hops for a bite of noble bitterness and a dry, French roasted coffee flavor. 4.8%

Boucanèe is a cherry-wood smoked wheat ale brewed to enhance the flavors of gumbo, po-boys and other Cajun style dishes. Cherry wood is commonly used for smoking in Cajun cuisine. 5.7%

Please join us in downtown Athens on Thursday, May 9th as we welcome the brewers and the brews of Bayou Teche to Athens and enjoy a taste of Louisiana!

Spring Brew News

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

It’s been quite a year for weather, and it’s not over yet. Spring has come, gone, returned, left, come again, and possibly departed once more for a bit of winter weather right before summer hits… but when it comes to beer, the spring seasonals come early and leave when the bottles are empty!
Our spring newsletter features the latest updates in Georgia craft beer, breweries, and beer festivals.

In this issue of the newsletter, we welcomed popular New York brewery Sixpoint to the Peach State. We also announced the addition of two more awesome Georgia breweries to our lineup – Jailhouse Brewing, out of Hampton (SE of Atlanta), and Cherry Street Brewing Co-op, in Cumming (NE of Atlanta). These breweries are a delicious expansion of the variety of craft beer we offer in package and on draft.

By the way, our package lineup expanded too! Monday Night Brewing began bottling their year-rounds earlier this year, and Red Hare Brewing expanded their canned packages to include all three of their year-rounds. You can, as always, view a complete Leon Farmer and Company beer list here.

We also highlighted some new and returning seasonals from breweries such as Magic Hat, Lazy Magnolia, Goose Island and Southern Tier, as well as a few of the spring beer festivals in and around Atlanta and Northeast Georgia. Cheers to Spring Beer!

Sixpoint Brewery Debuts

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

The six-pointed star is a brewer’s symbol, used for hundreds of years to mark breweries, barrels and pubs. It symbolizes the purity and culture of brewing. Sixpoint Brewery, from Brooklyn, New York, uses a nautical version of this star as its logo to portray its dedication to the tradition of brewing and the maritime history of the brewery’s location. Founded in 2004, the brewery uses a “reverse-engineering” method of brewing to create one-of-a-kind styles and taste profiles unique to the industry.

Leon Farmer and Company is proud to announce that Sixpoint will be making Georgia its 15th distributed state in March, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

Year-round brews available will include:

Sweet Action: The original Sixpoint style- hard to define, but perhaps that’s why people love it. Part pale ale, part wheat, part cream ale- all Sweet Action. 5.2%

The Crisp: The original Sehr Crisp from Sixpoint. Brewed with noble hops for indelible sehr crisp flavor. 5.4%

Bengali Tiger: The Sixpoint homebrewed IPA interpretation. Blaze orange in color, with an abundance of citrus hop bitterness, and a full pine and grapefruit bouquet in the aroma. 6.4%

Resin: A beer that celebrates the extraction of hop resin for a concentrated yet balanced brew. 9.1%

Join us on Thursday, March 7th to celebrate the release of Sixpoint brews in Georgia. In addition to the four beers above, Righteous Ale, Brownstone and Diesel will be on tap at the rollout. Follow us on Twitter to find out when and where we’ll be!

Taste the Best of Athens

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

“Run, Walk…then Eat, Drink, and Help Many by attending Taste of Athens Weekend 2013.”

Taste of Athens Weekend begins with a 10K on Saturday, February 16th through downtown Athens. Then on Sunday the 17th, it’s time for the 20th annual Taste of Athens at the Classic Center Grand Hall, where guests will try hundreds of tasty dishes and drinks from local restaurants and businesses, bid on an array of silent auction items, and enjoy live music throughout. Beers from Lazy Magnolia, Peak Organic, Monday Night, Southern Tier and more will be pouring for anyone who visits the Leon Farmer and Company booth!

Proceeds from Taste of Athens benefit the Community Connection of Northeast Georgia, an organization dedicated to organizing volunteers and “connecting” them to non-profit organizations and resources for a united effort to improve lives. You can follow @TasteofAthens on Twitter for up-to-date information about attending restaurants, participating sponsors and more.

Green Life 2013

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Mark Saturday, February 9th on your calendar, because it’s time for the 2013 Green Life Expo in Athens at the Classic Center.

This year, the event will be focusing on greener transportation, and will feature ways you can “go green” in Athens by bicycling, carpooling, and using the city public transit system.

It will also feature informative booths from area businesses and organizations who practice sustainability and conservation as well as green shopping opportunities, educational seminars and activities for children. Special recycling bins will be available to accept the following items:

Batteries: alkaline and rechargeable (no car batteries)
Bulbs: compact and regular fluorescent tubes (no incandescent)
Electronics: (including TVs)
Styrofoam: (#6 plastic) blocks and other coolers (no cups, trays or peanuts)
Old Holiday Cards: for reuse
Used Cooking Grease
Broken Christmas Tree Lights
Old Media: CD’s, VHS, DVD’s, and more
Car Fluids: Used motor oil and anti-freeze (NO gasoline)
Tires: Bike Tires and Tubes

Attendance is free and the event is open to the public. Stop by and learn how you can go green in Athens!

Seasons' Greetings from Leon Farmer and Company

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As the final holidays of the year approach, we at Leon Farmer & Company would like to wish you a wonderful holiday season filled with warm hearts and cold brews.

We sincerely appreciate each and every one of our distribution partners, retailers, customers and employees and hope that you have safe travels as you enjoy this time with your family and friends responsibly. Cheers to the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013!

Winter Craft Beer News

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Is it really almost 2013? The year may have gone by too quickly, but it has brought us many new breweries and brews to share with our beer fans in Athens and Northeast Georgia. If you’re on our mailing list, you received the winter craft beer newsletter this week and read about the latest in craft beer in Athens. If you didn’t sign up in time, check out the newsletter here and sign up to receive the next one in March!

This edition of the newsletter announced the approaching rollout of two new breweries and several new beers into the Georgia market.

Sixpoint Brewing, in Brooklyn, NY, is a brewer of unique beers that can’t really be put into one style category. Sweet Action, for example, is part cream ale, part wheat beer, and allllll delicious.

Bayou Teche Brewing, on the other hand, brews beer styles complementary to the culture and cuisine of its home in Louisiana. Boucanèe, a cherry-smoked wheat beer, is a fine addition to a Cajun-style barbecue.

Red Hare’s inaugural Rabbit’s Reserve Chocolate Porter debuted recently in Athens and will soon be followed by newly packaged 6-pack cans of the year-round Gangway IPA.

Goose Island, which has been sharing its Vintage collection with us for a few months now, will be adding 312 Urban Wheat Ale and three Classic Ales – Honker’s, IPA, and Mild Winter – to the Georgia linup in early 2013.

In addition to these, other updates include current seasonals from Southern Tier, Kona, and Peak Organic, an art project by Atlanta brewery Monday Night, and some upcoming local beer and community events you’ll definitely want to put on the books for January and February.

New from Lazy Magnolia

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Timber Beast is the first release from the all-new Back Porch Series of Lazy Magnolia, a series dedicated to higher gravity brews from Mississippi. It’s a spicy, full-bodied Imperial Rye Pale Ale with a generous dose of Zythos hops and is available in 4-packs and on draft.

In addition to the release of Timber Beast, Lazy Magnolia has more great news! The brewery soon will be releasing the new “Lazy Dozen” variety pack. This 12-pack is a seasonal package that includes Deep South Pale Ale, Jefferson Stout, Southern Pecan and a darker, roastier version of an old brew, Gulf Porter. We’ll post more news on the Lazy Dozen and when it’s expected to arrive in Georgia soon.

GABF 2012

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Tomorrow morning I’m hopping on a plane and flying over nine different states to land in Denver for my first trip to the Great American Beer Festival!

I’ve always wanted to visit Colorado and this is the perfect opportunity to experience it (without snow, I hope). Here’s what I as well as the other 49,000 attendees can look forward to this year:

Four tasting sessions: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night evening sessions for everyone, and a Saturday afternoon session for AHA and BA members only; all four sessions sold out in record time this year, so go ahead and mark your calendars for next year’s ticket release!

578 breweries from around the world serving 2,700 different beers (110 more breweries than last year – a 23% increase!)

Brewpub Pavilion featuring 24 U.S. brewpubs (Fun fact: brewpubs make up about half of all U.S. breweries)

84 categories of judging for 135 different beer styles, including a new competition category – Fresh Hop Ale (Ales hopped with fresh un-dried hops)

Pro-Am Competition for awesome home brews whose recipes are scaled up and brewed by a craft brewery for judging at the GABF

Craft Beer and Food Pavilion featuring demonstrations by chefs and brewers on cooking with beer and pairing with beer

Brewer’s Studio Pavilion featuring brewers discussing beer, breweries, and the industry… got any burning beer questions for them?

Brewers Publications Bookstore where you can buy books on all aspects of beer, meet some authors and maybe get some autographs

The Silent Disco which lets attendees dance to music of their choice through wireless headphones – fun for them, and hilarious to watch!

In addition to what is sure to be an amazing time at the GABF, I’ll get to tour some local breweries and enjoy a beautiful city. Follow @GABFtweets to stay up-to-date on what’s happening at the festival!

The Goose Has Landed

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

This week we announce the launch of a famed Chicago brewery in Athens and Northeast Georgia. Goose Island began as a brewpub in the Windy City in 1988. It has grown to be one of the premiere craft breweries in Illinois as well as the entire country, known for its unique series of beers like Bourbon County and Vintage Reserve Ales. The latter will be Goose Island’s first release in Athens, followed in the coming year by the Urban Ale series and more. Here is the initial Vintage lineup:

Sofie is a sparkling Belgian saison fermented with wild yeast and aged in wine barrels with an orange peel. 6.5%

Matilda is a Belgian pale ale with a fruity aroma and spicy flavor that will entice beer and wine drinkers alike. 7%

Pepe Nero is a Belgian saison brewed with black peppercorns to create a roasted chestnut aroma and an earthy finish. 6.4%

Pere Jacques is a Belgian Abbey ale filled with complex flavors and a fruity aroma. Dubbel lovers will find this beer on par with the world’s finest in the style. 8%

The arrival of Goose Island Vintage Reserve Ales is a long-awaited one that we cannot wait to celebrate with you.