Its nice to see the sun shining again this afternoon after an extremely long run of clouds, cold, and showers.  Even though the dreary weather kept us all in to enjoy our brews and we resorted to enjoying laughs with friends and family indoors, Larry at Purple Healer has been busy on a few projects of his own.

We are happy to announce the newest addition to his household, the converted freezer unit into a Keg-o-rator. 

Larry converted his new shiny tapping system from a black chest freezer, a stained wooden panel, and of course a kit from one of our suppliers Keystone Homebrew.  If you like what you see here you can also purchase one of these kits here and take on the satisfying and rewarding project yourself.  Other kits and conversion items can be purchased through the Keystone Online Catalog or at either of their locations in Montgomeryville, PA and Bethlehem, PA.


Larry has been spending extra hours in the brew room for a few new projects.  Currently boiled and in the fermenter is a fresh batch of our Auntie M's amber.  I caught Larry mid brew playing a few classics by Jethro Tull and glowing.

Lets face it folks the man was born to make excellent beers for all of us.

Rumor around the tap is the Larry is also working on a NEW beer: a Russian Imperial Stout.  For those that may not know what makes this particular Stout special let me give you some stats.  This stout was designed by brewers in the 1800's to impress the Russian Czar and has been coined a beer that is fit for a king.  It has a distinguishable malt flavor and a higher alcohol content.  In fact all of the flavors in this delicious glass of drinking pleasure are dark and rich and with moderate carbonation it is a smoother version of other stouts.  Larry is working very hard to get the right balance of flavor so that this dark, rich, impressive beer can impress all of our loyal fans all the while being a beer to satisfy all sorts of cravings and calm the soul like chocolate does.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in our NAME contest (ahem Jay) and please keep on sending some great ideas.

That's all the news on the brew front.  You are going to have to sit there and anxiously await another issue of our brewing bittles.  And don't forget your furry friend this Easter, there is still some time to pick up a pack of Puppy Hops all natural freshly baked cookies to put in your best friends basket.

Today has two monumental occasions to celebrate, Larry the Brewmasters birthday and Purple Healers first on-air radio interview with 103.1 WILK.
Interviewing Larry was WILK's radio personalities: Nancy, John, Joe, and Bosco as well as Bill from MyBeerBuzz.  During this really special interview everyone got a taste of the Munich Helles, Auntie M's amber ale, and Rippinator.  John Webster and Bill were big fans of the ales but sadly disappointed that the IPA was still in the fermentation process. No need to be sad John and Bill, that IPA will be ready shortly and I'm pretty sure there will be two bottles with your names on them as soon as the reach bubbly perfection.  Nancy couldn't get enough of the Rippinator and was eager to have more than just a taste of the beer.  All in all I think Purple Healer has a new group of fans and we are more than eager to deliver our beers to the public soon.  In fact if you watch the interview here you will see that the largest amount of excitement was over the question of WHEN will our beers be available for sale?  I wish I had the exact answer to post here but for that question all I can say is that the business ball is rolling and we are going downhill.  When all of our carbonation is set perfectly (like the IPA) we will be sure to share that information with all of you!  Thank you to everyone in the production process of this very special day for our company.

One question we get a lot (including today) involves HOW did we even come up with such a crazy name.  As Larry described in his interview, every beer, story, name, and idea stems from something from our family.  "Ping" our family's newest Australian cattle dog was bred from a Blue Heeler breed and a Red Heeler Breed dog.  Of course when you mix those two colors you get purple so we called her our little Purple Heeler.  We thought the name was so cool that when Larry started brewing our fine beers he was going to call them Purple Healers (changing the spelling because we believe beer is much more "healing" than anything.

And as for "Rippinator...."
It is based off the name of our other cattle dog, Ripley contrary to all other ideas that it involves that funny bodily function or off of "getting ripped" from our beers.  However we like that everyone comes up with some crazy ideas for it and honestly our beers mean something to our families and earned their name but you may call them whatever you like for whatever reason you want as long as you call them tasty (because really they are not that I'm not bias to the beer or anything).

Tomorrow we will be at "Taming of the Brew" at the Caldwell Consistory in Bloomsburg Pa and if you were luck enough to get a ticket to the sold out event we will see you there, if not do not fret, pictures will be exclusively available to our fans right here!