SanTan Brewing introduces a new seasonal beer Thursday. And there’s a twist: It’s also the downtown Chandler brewery’s first seasonal available in cans.
The newcomer is Rail Slide – named for the snowboarding manuever – and owner/brewmaster Anthony Canecchia calls it an imperial spiced ale. It has an ABV of 7.1%.
Rail Slide traces its lineage to last year’s 12 Daze, a seasonal collaboration with Liberty Market, and similarly is brewed with the Gilbert eatery’s popular chai tea, infusing hints of ginger, cinnamon, and cardamon.
The beer will debut Thursday at SanTan, but some of the brewery’s nearly 600 bar and restaurant accounts around the state already have jumped the gun.
It is the first of four quarterly seasonals SanTan will offer in 12-ounce cans. Others will include Sex Panther imperial chocolate porter, Mr. Pineapple pineapple wheat beer, and Count Hopula imperial red IPA.
The seasonals originally were planned in 16-ounce cans, but the logistics and cost were prohibitive. “I don’t want to have to sell a four-pack for $10.99,” Canecchia says. Instead, a six-pack of 12-ounce cans will be $9.99.
They join four of the brewery’s “everyday” beers already sold in cans: Its flagship Devil’s Ale pale ale, HopShock IPA, Epicenter amber ale, and Hefeweizen.
In other news, Canecchia says SanTan is close to finalizing plans for a second, larger production facility in the East Valley. He hopes to close the deal within a month, and have its 50-barrel system (capable of brewing 1,500 gallons at a time) up and running by April or May.
The as-yet-unidentified location will be used to brew SanTan’s everyday beers, freeing the downtown Chandler brewpub’s 15-barrel system for what he calls “research and development” of new beers.
Canecchia says he hasn’t decided whether the new facility will have a taproom open to the public – like Four Peaks’ soon-to-open production facility in west Tempe – or be production-only.
