If you think things have been quiet for Spartanburg’s RJ Rockers brewery, think again. The Upstate brewery has been working on a flurry of projects, including expanding availability, new branding and more. I caught up with the RJR crew this past weekend and got a rundown of what’s in store for the brewery:

• Firstly – and much to the excitement of many – is the news that RJ’s Son of a Peach wheat ale has been given the upgrade from seasonal to year-round. With RJR now available throughout Georgia and Florida joining the distribution area soon, the brewery decided to make the brew regularly and more widely.
• With SOAP now out of the seasonal rotation, a new batch of seasonal releases are on deck. Gruntled Pumpkin and First Snow will remain in their fall and winter slots, respectively, and Stout will be moved to a late-winter release. Replacing SOAP in the spring will be the new Strawbeery Wheat Ale.
• RJR’s label artwork will be getting a facelift, beginning with the new design unveiled for Black Perle. The rest of RJR’s label artwork will undergo similar changes in the near future.
• Speaking of Black Perle – RJR’s 9.5% black IPA – it will be the first release in the brewery’s new special edition four-pack series. Those bottles will hit shelves in November followed by the beer formerly known as Impeachment in January. (The brewery doesn’t want to seem political with the formerly draft-only beer, and now that it’ll be more widely available, they’ll be giving it a new moniker.) New beers in the series will follow.
• A new one-off draft-only series of beers under the Chalkboard label will soon begin hitting taps. These are one-and-done brews that will allow the brewers to play around with different hops, yeast and more. The first Chalkboard beer will be a white IPA from RJR Head Brewer Taylor White.