On premise has been busy this past quarter. There have been fundraisers, football games, and Pete Coors coming to town to celebrate Coors Banquet Draft. Pete Coors visited Austin in September to celebrate with Nickel City as they poured their one millionth ounce of Coors Banquet Draft. Almost two years ago when the bar opened, they had a goal to reach a million ounces of Coors Banquet Draft sold. They never imagined Mr. Coors himself would celebrate right alongside of them and sign a plaque to hang in the bar as a memento. Year-to-date, Nickel City has sold over 1.3 million ounces of Coors Banquet Draft.

In addition, while visiting Austin, Mr. Coors stopped at Yellow Jacket Social Club and Frazier’s, two of CWD’s top Coors Banquet Draft accounts, where he graciously stepped behind the bar and served the faithful patrons a cold Coors Banquet Draft. He also enjoyed a few games of shuffleboard and pool with a few lucky people at Frazier’s. 

Attending the Coors Banquet event at Nickel City Bar were CWD President Eddie Butler, General Manager Dell Boothe, Operations Analyst Grant Butler, Sign Shop Manager Tyler Binford, Field Sales Manager Charles Coburn, General Sales Manager Jason Soll, MillerCoors Brand Manager Mario Chapa and Division Manager of On-Premise Accounts Willie Schmidt.

Capitol Wright Distributing hosted Matt Perazelli, a Beer and Cider Educator with The Boston Beer Company, for an aggressive training session at the Manor headquarters in June. Live training covered various topics including the extensive Certified Beer Server testing preparation. As a result of this training, CWD now has multiple employees in various departments throughout the Company who are Level 1 Cicerone Certified Beer Servers. 

To achieve the first level certification, candidates must learn the fundamentals of serving beer, such as the following: beer clean glassware, a proper pour, and the ability to recognize beer not ruined by improper handling. The Cicerone Certified Beer Server Exam assesses the skills required to be able to talk about beer styles and flavors. We are proud to have this type of expertise among the following seasoned CWD employees:

Andy Willingham   Domingo Medina   Mark Powel

Antoine Brown   Donald McDaniel   Matthew Ratliff

Blake Havelka   Glen Bertsch   Meagan Shubert

Bobby Levine   Howard Wilson   Philip McClung

Brandon Gilroy   James Kleinfelder   Raoul Medina

Brett Curry   Jared Melde   Rick Riccitelli

Brian Brinkmeyer    Jim Oakes   Roberto Flores

Carter McFadden   J. D. Pinon     Steve Bradshaw

Carter Travis   John Garcia     Steve Cantu

Charles Coburn   Johnny Panatex    Steve Schmidt

Chris Calderon Joseph Fletcher Terry Wilkins

Chris Hathaway Justin Hochevar Todd Carter

Colby Fisher   Keith Brooks   Will McDowell

David Garza   Ken Cardenas    Willie Schmidt

Derek Haverkamp   Lexi Parker

Congratulations to all these Level 1 Cicerones, and many thanks to Boston Beer for facilitating this training. We look forward to adding more employees to this list and to seeing some of these folks seek more advanced Cicerone levels. 

On February 16, 2018, in the big Capitol Wright Distributing Hospitality Room, we came together to celebrate the CWD sales of one million cases of Lone Star for 2017.

Pabst Regional Vice President Matt Carpenter presented the one million case trophy to CWD President Eddie Butler, Vice President and Director of Operations Jane Wright and Vice President and General Manager Dell Boothe. As Matt said in presenting the trophy, "CWD is the only Distributor to receive such a trophy from Pabst Brewing Co."

We completed the night with barbecue from the Pit Stop Cook Off Team, cold Lone Star beer, and some great music by Lone Star sponsored, legendary country music singer Dale Watson.