To celebrate the collaborative nature of both soccer and craft beer, a Columbus brewery has teamed up with the opposition for a couple of soccer-themed brews.
Land-Grant Brewery is well-known to Columbus soccer fans thanks to its American wheat ale, Glory, which launched this year in partnership with Columbus Crew SC and supporters.
Now, the brewery has taken its soccer-inspired beer to another level, and has introduced two new beers made in partnership with Texas-based Peticolas Brewing and Kansas City’s Boulevard Brewing Company.
“We were kind of looking at what more we can do with this [soccer] relationship and how can we grow,” Land-Grant creative director Walt Keys said. “Craft beer, being a highly collaborative industry, we sort of had the idea to do this collaborative outreach.”
As a result of the partnership, Land-Grant launched Matchday American Pale Ale in collaboration with Peticolas ahead of Crew SC's 2-1 win against FC Dallas on Aug. 26 and will roll-out Stoppage Time Hoppy Saison with Boulevard Brewing when Columbus host Sporting Kansas City this Sunday (1 pm ET; ESPN in the US, MLS LIVE in Canada).
Keys said Land-Grant’s dream for the concept is to collaborate on a beer with breweries from the cities of all the MLS originals. But for now, they wanted to see if the idea was a good one. So far, they’ve received nothing but positive reactions.
“[Peticolas and Boulevard] were both on board as soon as we mentioned it to them, so we went with those two for this first year,” Keys said.
In a statement, Peticolas founder Michael Peticolas said the collaboration for a soccer-themed beer was “a massive day for us.”
“Nothing beats being able to finally enjoy one of our beers while watching the local club on the pitch,” he said.
Each beer was created in Columbus with master brewers from both breweries, and Land-Grant is flying teams from the other breweries back to Columbus for the matches to see their work reach the masses.
Keys said he expects Land-Grant to expand their soccer profile, and said he thinks soccer and craft beer are a perfect fit, especially given the brewery’s sincere approach to both.
“I think there’s a pretty natural cohesion there,” he said. “In general and certainly in Columbus, supporters of teams have lots of civic pride and pride in what goes on and is made in their city. When we did [Glory], we wanted it to truly be an organic partnership. We didn’t want to just make a beer and say, ‘This is your beer; drink it.’ We wanted to get supporters involved and have some passion for it.”
For more information, visit LandGrantBrewing.com.
