I finally got through sending my Kickstarter rewards and doing a count of available pins from The Return for events and the Pledgebox surveys.

Then after much head scratching and fumbling with said survey construction (and much help from the team at Pledgebox!), that's been completed and smoke tests have gone out to about a dozen folks.

Samples for Amber Ale are likely going into round 2, as I was unhappy with the clear enamel chosen for its belly/underside. (It's a little too yellow green.) It'll also need an adjustment to the mold; similar to what I went through with Cascadian Dark. The process that changes the metal color bled into the entire beer glass area, which overpowers the semi transparent white enamel. So while I tried to avoid it having a hard line on the shoulder/wing area "behind" the beer glass, it will be necessary to stop the color bleed.

Samples for Stout are getting an adjustment on the screenprint; both came out too light so we're tying a darker color. I will also likely go one darker on the tail's soft enamel for full production.

The enamel and screenprint color fixes I consider to be minor, the mold fix is more worrisome because if it can't be modified we'll need an entirely new mold. But I trust in the skills of the folks that work with these materials and am likely worrying over nothing.

Here are some photos!

I'm heading to Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) for Tekko this weekend, so if I don't have time to double check and/or adjust after the smoke tests before I hit the road, expect early next week the rest of the surveys will go out. I'll also have info and a link to the (now open) pre-order store to advertise at the convention. Here's the link if you want to pass it on to fellow beer dragon enthusiasts:
Drachtoberfest: Green and Gold pre-order store

Thanks again for y'all's patience while I had a ... whole bunch of curveballs thrown at me over the past few months. As always, I'm happy to answer questions and otherwise, Cheers!