Staff picks // cooler notes

Five O'Clock Beer

It's always five o'clock.

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Cooler notes

12 notes
  1. Bramble Creek Hefeweizen: clove hit harder than expectedOpened the first bottle Thursday afternoon. Team wasn't ready for how much spice came through.
  2. Hayfield Kölsch tastes like the poster, not the sampleThe rep brought a sample in March. The actual shipment tastes completely different — and we're not mad about it.
  3. Westbrook Doppelbock disappeared between Monday and ThursdayForty-eight bottles on Tuesday morning. Zero by end-of-shift Thursday. No signage, no promotion.
  4. Invoice matched the truck — boxes did notPaperwork said Valleybrook Pilsner in twenty-twos. The pallets delivered twelve-ounce cans and a shrug from the driver.
  5. Thornhill Amber landed at 26 IBU — here's the pourFresh off the truck with a malt profile that surprised the entire team. We opened a sample bottle before the cases hit the cooler.
  6. Ironclad Märzen showed up two weeks earlyNobody ordered it for April, but twenty cases landed on the dock this morning and the team already cracked the first six-pack.
  7. Clipboard says twenty cases, shelf holds nineteenInventory mismatch on Thornhill Amber — the numbers don't line up and I'm not sure they need to.
  8. Ashford Brown Ale: Nutty, Smooth, and Already MovingWe cracked a case to sample yesterday and by noon today we'd sold eight six-packs without saying a word.
  9. Riverside Bock arrived at 28 IBU with caramel I can't stop thinking aboutThe spec sheet said toasted malt and moderate bitterness. Nobody warned us about the caramel finish that lingers for thirty seconds.
  10. Fourteen cases moved — not the ones we expectedTurnover report showed two surprises: the ale we weren't pushing and the lager we thought would walk out faster.
  11. Millbrook Red Ale tastes better cold than the team expectedWe popped a test bottle at room temp during unload — mistake. Fifteen minutes in the cooler changed everything the team thought about this one.
  12. Somebody left a half-case of Ironwood Stout in the walk-inFound six bottles wedged behind the lagers at closing. No note, no order slip, just cardboard and condensation.