The rumor mill has been swirling around Hamilton Ohio’s Municipal Brew Works this summer so far. Packaging? A Production facility? There’s a lot of things that the geeks have been whispering about – and I’ll talk about them all… give me a minute.
First thing’s first, though – and the first thing that you have to know about is their anniversary party this weekend.
The Anniversary Party
I love how Municipal celebrates their anniversary each year – it’s certainly a big party, but not too big to feel out of place for the brewery that so many people have fallen in love with in the last three years. They do things exactly how you want – live music – special beers… you know the drill.
For the live music, the brewery shuts down the street in front of their space, brings in a massive truck bed stage for bands on Friday and Saturday nights – and then on Sunday they open it up for an open mic night to get their fans involved.
To satisfy the beer side of the deal, they’re tapping a few special releases including their big Anniversary DIPA. The beer is loaded up with 6 different hops and fresh local honey to give this 10% beer a personality that stands tall in a world filled with a ton of great IPAs. You’ll also see some crowd favorites returning like their Mango Habanero IPA and Peanut Butter Porter. Still thirsty? How about a Raspberry Hefeweizen or a Snickerdoodle beer? Peach Blonde? Birthday Cake Blonde? Come on… you know that finding some great beer isn’t going to be an issue.
Packaging
If you’ve been to a Municipal Anniversary before, you know that you should expect that DIPA that I mentioned before to be making it’s way into bombers again for you to take home. (If you don’t know about this beer… you can read a little more about year one’s version here). What you might not know, though, is that in addition they are surprising us with the release of three of their crowd favorite beers in six packs of 12oz cans to go alongside it! You’ll be able to snag six packs of their Approachable Blonde, Orange Agave Blonde and Scout IPA too for the first time ever.
This surprise packaging release is a little preview, though of what we might be seeing from Municipal in the not so distant future.
Growth
There aren’t many local breweries that so quickly found themselves outgrowing their space in the way Municipal did. It makes making the move into packaging a little more difficult than you might realize… and I can promise you that it’s a discussion that Municipal is definitely having. They are currently working on plans to open up a second facility – a production only space that will loosen up the requirements of their current taproom and allow for things that they (and we) desperately want… like regular packaging.
Don’t start getting to amped up quite yet, though… according to the brewery, they are looking at sometime in the next 18 months or so for this to come to life. Regardless… this test run of cans is a sign of big things in the future.
Stay tuned, and keep your eyes peeled on what these guys are doing!