After hours of yelling, begging, pleading, name-calling, and bottle-throwing madness, we’ve chosen the winners of our “Why is Raging Bitch the Perfect Beer for Carrie Nation” contest.

Jaye Greene and Travis Skillings will each receive our brand new Raging Bitch t-shirt. Here’s why:

Jaye said: “Raging Bitch is the perfect beer for Carrie Nation because throughout American history, women have had to fight loudly and aggressively to be taken seriously at all. Consider the times in which Carrie Nation lived - she along with many women had absolutely NO rights or say over their own lives and unfortunately temperance/prohibition was one of the only shots many women had. Raging Bitch is the perfect beer for Carrie Nation because she earned her right to the title.”

And Travis said: “Raging Bitch is the perfect beer for Carrie Nation because its superior taste attacks your taste buds like a hatchet and like all great provocateurs they make us re-think what we thought we knew.”

[INSERT OBLIGATORY “thanks to everyone for entering our contest” HERE]

From a live band showcase of Washington, D.C.’s finest talent to the official Texas launch of Raging Bitch (our 20th anniversary Belgian-style IPA), Flying Dog is gearing up to be the fuel to the creative fire that is SXSW.  

Here’s a list of events planned for the 2010 Austin, Texas festival:

When one of our brewers left us a few months ago to go work at the Troegs Brewery in Harrisburg, PA, our Senior VP of Brewery Operations Matt Brophy told him that we’d pay a visit to Troegs to see how he was settling in. So last Friday, a group of about 15 Flying Dog Brewery employees hopped in our company Winnebago (complete with a draft beer system inside) and drove 90 minutes to go see Jeff and the rest of the people at Troegs. Flying Dog CEO Jim Caruso was kind enough to be the designated driver for this excursion as plenty of beer sampling was involved.

From Matt Brophy:

We try to get out every few months to visit another brewery, seeing how others do things and feel better about ourselves when we realize that all brewers deal with the same day to day challenges that we do.

So we spent the day at Troegs, tried some great beers and went on a great tour of their impressive facility. The Troegs people are also planning to come to our brewery sometime in early 2010. We’ll be sure to let them get their fill of our award-winning ales, including Gonzo Imperial Porter and our new 20th Anniversary Raging Bitch Belgian IPA.

As a group, American Craft Brewers are about 5% of the national beer market. American Craft Brewers, as a result, have largely decided that we’re all in this together. Many of us have really great friends at other breweries around the country. We all see each other at festivals throughout the year, and it’s great going to try beers from other breweries. The result is a very cohesive and wonderful community, full of really great beer and really great people.

We are hosting our 2nd Annual Beer Dinner with Brauns Bar and Grill during the Great American Beer Festival in Denver at 7PM on September 26th, 2009.

The cost of the five course meal is $35.95. We will accept reservations through September 24th. Get your tickets soon, this beer dinner will definitely sell out! For more information head to the GABF Beer Dinner @ Brauns event page.

Buy your tickets online here.

Click here to see a larger image.

Capital Division Sales Manager Matt Crow was all over Maryland and Virginia during American Craft Beer Week. These are photos of his travels, and the cool Flying Dog fans he met along the way. Keep it up, Matt! We threw a bunch of his photos in a flickr photoset from his stops at Kooper’s Tavern in Fells Point, VA, Max’s & Coburn’s Tavern in Baltimore.

Matt will be all over the region this summer, we’ll be updating his travels from time to time. Looking for more events we’ll be at? Check out our events calendar at our homepage, and watch for promotions on the Flying Dog Twitter page.

DC Beer week is next week. We’ve got a shit ton of events planned, and here’s the list of what we’ve got going on. Make sure you check out our DC Tweetup event on the 27th. We’ll be giving away some awesome shit, and the first 50 to show up get a free pint glass.

Monday, May 25
• Craft Beer Trivia Night - 7PM @ Fado - 808 7th St NW.

Tuesday, May 26
• Meet the Flying Dog Brewers - 7PM @ the Brickskeller - 1523 22nd St NW. Drink a wide range of our more experimental and aggressive brews, like Dog Schwarz, our über-limited Belgian IPA, Barrel-Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter (plus more).
• SAVOR sampling - 6:30-9:30 @ RFD - 810 7th Street NW. Join Flying Dog and 12 other breweries for a sampling.

Wednesday, May 27
• DC Tweetup - 6PM @ Luna Grill & Diner, 1301 Connecticut Ave NW (DuPont Circle). We’re having a Tweetup in DC at Luna Grill and Diner on May 27 at 6pm. Everyone who comes to the Tweetup will get one complimentary Flying Dog beer and be registered to win some sweet Flying Dog swag. We’ll even throw in a free Flying Dog Pint Glass for the first 50 people through the door!
• Capitol Hill Craft Beer Bar Tour - 6PM, starting @ Hawk ‘n Dove, 329 Pennsylvania Ave SE.

Thursday, May 28
• Flying Dog Promo Night - 6-9PM @ Bourbon in Glover Park - 2348 Wisconsin Ave NW.
• Meet the Brewers & Steal the Pint Glass - 4-9PM @ RFD - 810 7th Street NW. 4-7 is Doggie Drafts Happy Hour, and 7-9 Meet the Flying Dog Brewers & FD steal the pints
• Flying Dog Night at Reef - 5-Close @ The Reef, 244618th St NW, Adams Morgan. Happy Hour pricing on Flying Dog. A great bar with great food and an amazing rooftop patio.

Friday, May 29
• Roundtable Discussion with Craft Brewers - 9PM @ Pizzeria Paradiso, 3282 M St NW. End of the week Meet & Greet! Roundtable Discussion, Flying Dog Firkin on hand.

Saturday, May 30
• SAVOR Craft Beer Festival - 7:30-11PM @ National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW. The second year of the Brewer’s Association Festival geared towards pairing great craft beer with great food.

We’re doing a twitter contest this week, in honor of American Craft Beer Week. Here’s the gist. Each day this week, we’ll be posting a tweet asking you what you’re drinking tonight. You will respond to us. Each entry that has @flyingdog and #craftbeer in it along with the American Craft Beer you’re drinking. We will be picking a winner from all the properly formatted entries, and if you’re picked, you win some free shit!

Here’s a properly formatted tweet: @flyingdog We’ll be drinking a bunch of Double Dog this evening! #craftbeer

Read more about American Craft Beer Week here.

Our next battles in our Beer Radness bracket are in the Seasonal Section:

It Winter vs. Summer with K9 Cruiser Winter Ale taking on Woody Creek White Belgian-style Wit.

In out other match-up, we have the kid on the block, Garde Dog Biere de Garde vs. perennial favorite Dogtoberfest Marzen.

Vote Here. NOW. Do it.

Here is our updated bracket as Barrel-Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter eeked out a victory over Barrel-aged Horn Dog and Dog Schwarz triumphed over the Open Source Doppelbock.

Big news! We were featured on mashable.com today for our Social Media presence! Rad. We’re a huge deal.

Check it out here or by clicking the image below.

Check out out Twitter here and our Facebook page here.

Lunch & debriefing with our sales guys after south Florida wholesaler meeting.

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