Winter waning brings beer markdowns...

Welcome to Cork's weekdly newsletter. Well, we're finally getting rid of some of those massive piles of snow out there. And I think it's going to rain like crazy tomorrow and be in the 50's so maybe we can wash the rest of it away. And if you need another sign of spring, the Sox open their exhibition schedule with their anual double header sweep of BC and Northeastern.

Here at Cork's, we have a bunch of spring beers in house and more trickling in every week. We will continue with our 10% off special on any remaining winter beers we have left. And there are just a few more days left in February to take advantage of our monthly beer special featuring Brooklyn Mixed 12 packs with free pint glass.

Keeping with the beer theme, we have the return of my cousin Vinnie tonight (Thursday) from 4:30 to 7:00 pm to sample you on the beers from Widmer Bros out of Portland, Oregon. I'm a big fans of these folks since they hooked me up with a great tour of their brewery and fabulous lunch at their brewput in Portland. Hey, that's all it really takes for us to get behind your beers, you suppliers out there! Feed us..gives us beers..and a lil schwag and we get behind your products! Having said that, I really think the beers are well made and we have the 3 that make up the new Brother's Best 12 pack - Hefeweizen, Drop Top Amber ale, and Drifter Pale Ale for you to try. He will also crack open the Brother's Reseve barrel Aged Brrrbon Ale. As with all our beer tastings, we will take 10% off any Widmer beers the night of the tasting.

We don't have a wine tasting schedule for Friday night but we do have the return of Johny Pesky from Trio Wines next week. We also will be supplying the wines for our new friend Matt from the Presevation Framer in North Attleboro next Saturday night as well. He is having a "Woman in the Arts" artist reception at the Preservation Framer, 16, North Washington Street, North Attleboro, MA from 7 to 10 pm. The event is open to the public and features local women artists, music, and of course, some great wines. Matt is going to be coming to our 6th Annual Grand Wine Tasting on April 14th and showing some of his artwork here as well.

Here are our sale items for this week. They end on 3/2/11.

Wine:

• Leese Fitch Cabernet 750 ml - $9.99
• Cavit Pinot Grigio and all other varietals 1.5L - $12.99
• Gosset Brut Excellence Champagne 750 ml - $29.99

Beer

• Miller High Life 18 pack cans - $10.99
• Dogfish Head 90 Minute 4 pack - $8.99
• Arcadian Oak Aged Shipwreck Porter 220z - $9.95

Liquor

• Ursula's Nipe Special of the Week - Smirnoff Green Apple 50 ml - 99cents
• Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka...with 4 free nips...750 ml - $24.99
• Jack Daniel's Tennesee Whiskey 1.75L - $39.99

Robert

Winter hopefully fading but winter beers specially priced!

Welcome to Cork’s weekly newsletter….ahhhh, finally some nice, warm, spring-like weather, and the Sox full squad workouts underway. Let’s hope we’re done with the snow for this year and we can finally put this miserable winter to rest.

To push that thought along, all “Winter Beers” will be 10 % off as part of our weekly specials. Most of the Spring beers are already in house and I wouldn’t be surprised if the 1st of the Summer brews don’t start trickling in the next couple of weeks. We haven’t picked a new date for our 1st Wine Dinner at Cibo Matto but it will be a Monday night in mid to late March. We have picked a date for 6th Annual (OK we missed last years but there was stuff going on) Grand Spring Wine Tasting. It will be Thursday night April 14th from 5 to 7:30 PM. So be sure to mark the date in your calendars.

Tonight’s (Thursday) beer tasting is with our friend Zach from Newport Storm down in RI. He will be sampling the flagship Hurricane Amber Ale, RI Blueberry Ale, Cyclone Series “Peter” Spiced Ale, and the Chocolate Porter Winter Ale. The Winter Ale is specially priced at $6.99 as part of the weekly specials and the rest will all be 10 % off tonight only from 4:30 to 7 PM. These are great local guys from RI that make this beer and I’ve been a big fan of theirs for years. So help support the little guys and try some good local brews.

We don’t have a wine tasting scheduled for this week as we’ve had pretty sparse turnouts for the last two. I think when I cut and pasted last week’s newsletter I cut off the part about the Valentines tasting that Kat and Megan did last week…oopsies…This is prime time for a “customer” wine tasting…any takers out there??? I know Bill and Cherry (the originators of the customer tastings) expressed interest in doing a Saturday afternoon tasting. Guy and Phil ??…Cubbie and the Mrs?? Any of you other Friday night regulars?? Let me know when you want to do one and we’ll book it.

Wine Sale Items for week ending 2-23-11
BV Coastal Sauvignon Blanc 750 ML…$8.99
J. Lohr Cabernet 750 ML…$12.99
King Estate Pinot Gris 750 ML…$12.99 or Pinot Noir 750 ML…$24.99

Beer Sale Items for week ending 2-23-11
Ballast Point Yellowtail Pale Ale 22 OZ…$4.95
Newport Storm Winter Ale 6-pks…$6.99
All Winter Beers 10 % OFF !!

Liquor Sale Items for week ending 2-23-11
Ursula’s Nip Special of the week…Tres Leches Triple Cream Liqueur 50 ML…99 cents
Ty-Ku Citrus Liqueur 375 ML…$12.99
V One Vodka 750 ML…$24.99 with free 1 liter Major Peters Bloody Mary Mix !!

For those of you still confused by last week’s cooler reset, let me recap a few of the changes and highlights of the moves. 30 Packs (racks for you youngens) and 20/24 pack bottles are no longer on the runs. Just go into the self serve cooler and they are on the pallets there. All “malternative” beverages (Mikes…Smirnoff…ciders…wine coolers) are now in the side doors around the corner. Single serve bottles and cans are now in the 1st two doors around the corner as well. The main run of cooler doors start off with 64 OZ local growlers followed by 7 doors or domestic microbrews.

From there not much has changed as we have English/Irish beers…Mexican Beers...followed by Holland…Germany…a few Canadians and then your everyday domestic beers (Bud…Miller…Coors). The last couple of doors are your value domestic beers and the last door your non-alcoholic beers. Be sure to ask Marc or myself if you need help finding anything.

Have a great weekend.

Robert

New beer locations...check them out!

Welcome to Cork’s weekly newsletter. Well even though the Pats weren’t in it, I think we had a pretty good Super Bowl this year. But I have to say the commercials were sub par…that E-trade baby just isn’t all that funny as a 4 year old. But now we can concentrate on the Bruins who had an epic, fight-filled win over the Canadiens last night and the Celtics who go for the regular season sweep over the rat and llama from LA. And the Sox equipment truck is officially in Ft. Myers ready for the pitchers and catchers to report this weekend. So the early signs of spring are all around us, especially now that we’ve had a whole week without snow.

Tonight (Thursday) from 4:30 to 7 PM we have our friend Miguel from L. Knife here to sample you on the beers from Brooklyn Brewery. He will pour the 4 beers that comprise the Brooklyn Variety 12 pack. Lager, Pennant Ale 55, East India Pale Ale, and Brown Ale make up this mix 12. And we even have some Winter Ale hanging around for you to try as well. The Variety 12-packs have been our “Beer of the Month” for February at $13.99 plus a free pint glass. This week you can snag that same 12-pk for $12.99 along with the pint glass. The Winter Ale is just in a 6-pk and will be 10 % off tonight. Marc has beer tastings lined up pretty much every week on Thursdays night going forward, and the ones that he doesn’t, we welcome you to do a “customer tasting” or Marc will do 1 himself.

Wine sale Items for Week Ending 2-16-11

• ChocoVine Reg. or New Raspberry 750 ML…$9.99
• Bila-Haut Cotes Du Roussilon Villages 750 ML…$10.99
• Shingleback Black Bubbles Sparkling Shiraz 750 ML…$19.99…you’re gonna luv it…or you’re gonna hate it!!

Beer Sale Items for Week Ending 2-16-11

• Narragansett 16 OZ 6-pk cans…$5.69
• Brooklyn Variety 12-PK…$12.99
• Cisco Dark Woods or Lady of the Woods 22 OZ…$13.99

Liquor Sale Items for week Ending 2-16-11

• Ursula’s Nip Special of the Week…Smirnoff Raspberry 50 ml…99 cents
• Double Cross Vodka 750 ML…$34.99
• Macallan 12 Yr Old Single Malt Scotch 750 ML…$49.99…Great Valentine gift!
  

While we are in the postponing/re-scheduling mode we are going to have to push back the wine dinner we have scheduled at Cibo Matto. Peter at Cibo had knee replacement surgery last week and we still have details to work out on the wines and menu. We really haven’t done 1 here at Cork’s yet and I don’t want to rush it. We will push it off till mid-March and let you know the date and details in future newsletters and on the website. This will be an amazing night of delicious food and great wines at a very reasonable price. Part of the ticket price will go to a charity, and we’re hoping for a few raffle items as well.

Oh yeah…I almost forgot we did a re-set of beer cooler this past week. So if you’re looking for your favorite beer, it’s still here, we just moved them around a bit. 30 packs and 20/24 packs are now going to be located in the self serve cooler only and not on the door. It was getting ugly seeing most of you (a few we actually did enjoy) bent over trying to wedge those suckers out. This has allowed Marc to get a lot more craft beers on the runs for you. We still have a few more shelves on order and we’ll have even more cold beers for you to enjoy soon. Have a great weekend.

Robert

Pre "Big Game" News!

Welcome to Cork’s “Winter Wonderland” and “Big Game” Bowl newsletter. These snowstorms are getting just a little ridiculous now, don’t you think? I heard when Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole he was immediately pelted with snowballs, became rabid and bit the ankle of Bill Murray… so now we have 3 more months of winter. Well the good news is we have less than a week before the Sox equipment truck heads to sunny Ft. Myers, Florida. And if it helps here are the top 10 signs that spring is right around the corner from Redsox.com http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/bos/fan_forum/voice.jsp?partnerId=ed-4184818-183032328 Let’s hope the next storm due on Saturday is just a minor nuisance, and it won’t interfere with all the “Big Game” parties.

Let’s give a tip of the cap to Marc for what I thought was 1 of the best big beer tastings we’ve had in awhile. And thanks to all of you who once again turned out in droves and made Superbrew VI a huge success. We do have a special beer tasting lined up for tonight (Thursday) with Sarah from Samuel Smith from 4 to 7 PM. It is the “Samuel Smith Salute” celebrating the 30 years that these beers have been available in the states. There are only 10 stores Mass. that have this special tasting. I’m not sure how many of the 9 plus Sammy Smith brews she will be sampling, but we will have a special price of just $2.95 on the 550 ML size. We will also take 10 % off any of the 4-pks if you prefer that package tonight only. Some come celebrate with the British brewery that launched the US craft beer revolution.

I’m going to do a wine tasting on Friday night (4:30 to 7) featuring the wines we are running for this week’s sale. I’m glad to see some of you taking advantage of these great weekly specials. We’ll start with Torrent Bay Pinot Gris from New Zealand. We sold a ton of this wine when we launched it at a tasting over a year ago and not much since then, so we will take $3 off and sell it for just $9.99 this week. Keeping with that same price of $9.99 and 3 bucks off we have Four Vines Naked (Unoaked) Chardonnay and Zinfandel. Last but not least we have Laboure-Roi Morgon that I bought on a pre-sell last year (are you sensing a theme to our weekly sales yet?) we will take $5 off this wine and sell it for only $12.99 this week. So here is a complete list of this week’s sale items.

Wine Sale Items for Week Ending 2-9-11

-Torrent Bay Pinot Gris 750 ML… $9.99
-Four Vines Naked Chardonnay or Zinfandel 750 ML…$9.99
-Laboure-Roi Morgon 750 ML…$12.99

Beer Sale Items for Week Ending 2-9-11

-Samuel Smith Assorted Styles 550 ML size…$2.95…not including the fruit ales or Stingo
-Otter Creek Copper Ale or Stovepipe Porter 6-PK…$7.69
-Coors Light 18 PK cans…$14.99

Liquor Sale Items for Week Ending 2-9-11

-Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka 750 ML…$24.99 …This is the gift set that comes with 4 free nips as well!!
-New Amsterdam Gin 1.75 Liter…$21.99
-Ursula’s Nip Special of the week…Cointreau Liqueur with a free mini shaker…$2.49

So be sure to come out for the this week’s tastings…check out the great sales… and stock up for the “Big Game”…oh screw all the big game stuff…it’s the Super Bowl…there I said it…SUPER BOWL…and no…we’re not an official sponsor…come sue us Roger Goodell. Have a great weekend…GO PACKERS!!!

Robert