Millstream Brewery and Hy-vee
Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 3:03 pm
Below is a email from Teresa about Homebrew competition. The winner will be produced by Millstream for Hy-Vee.
Dave Coughlin
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Happy New Year to all of you out there in Home Brewers Land!
I have a fun proposal for all of the Iowa Home Brew Clubs that I hope you will pass onto your club members. Millstream Brewery contacted
Hy-Vee a few months ago and started talking to them about private labeling a beer for Hy-Vee. They really liked the idea and as things
go one idea grew into another and then into another. So here is how the story goes: They wanted to do 4 seasonal beers and would like for us to take samples of several spring, summer, fall and winter beers up for them to sample. They would put a panel of judges together from their various stores for them to pick the beer to be brewed. This of course, allows buy in from their employees of this product because they chose the actual beer. We really like the idea too, but here is where a problem occurs for us and you come into the picture. As I said this part of the whole concept really blew into something bigger and really is going to be fun if you are interested. We cannot brew small batches of test beers for Hy-Vee to sample and choose from. I asked Hy-Vee if they minded if I brought in the home brewers at this point. I would like to challenge each home brew club to brew a summer beer to submit to Hy-Vee to sample. The winning beer/recipe would then be brought to Millstream Brewery and we would brew this beer and package it for Hy-Vee as their summer seasonal beer on a regular basis. Hy-Vee will then promote this Iowa Home Brew Club to Iowa Microbrewery to Iowa Retailer concept throughout Iowa. They will publish the winning home brew club and their new seasonal beer in the newspapers, TV, in their in house “Seasonal” magazine, etc. What great publicity for Iowa businesses and Iowa beer. I’m really excited about this venture and hope that we have several home brew clubs willing to take on this fun challenge.
You could make this a competition within your own club to have everyone brew a beer and choose which one goes on to represent your
club or you can do a group brew (is that done?). However you want to do it.
We will be doing this 2 times this year for a Summer and Winter brew and 2 times next year to add in the Spring and Fall brews. I wish we could do all 4 this year but it would be very taxing on Millstream to brew 4 new beers and get the packaging done in 1 year. Also this gives us great publicity for 2 years.
There are no entry fees associated with this friendly competition. Judging will be done the week of Feb 15th. Sorry about the short notice on this, but I promise I will give you plenty of notice for the next 3 seasonal beers. We just needed to get this off and running!
Here are the only guidelines for you to follow as you develop a beer for this fun competition.
1. Must be an ale
2. We use Briess Malt to brew with so keep that in mind
3. 4 bottles must be submitted to Millstream Brewery for judging by Feb 15, 2010. (Bottles can be of any size)
4. A summer style beer is preferable.
5. Only 1 beer submitted per home brew club
6. Nothing too exotic – remember it will go into production and we have to be able to afford to brew it and still make a profit!
7. MUST BE LEGAL! (6.25 ABV)
Dave Coughlin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Happy New Year to all of you out there in Home Brewers Land!
I have a fun proposal for all of the Iowa Home Brew Clubs that I hope you will pass onto your club members. Millstream Brewery contacted
Hy-Vee a few months ago and started talking to them about private labeling a beer for Hy-Vee. They really liked the idea and as things
go one idea grew into another and then into another. So here is how the story goes: They wanted to do 4 seasonal beers and would like for us to take samples of several spring, summer, fall and winter beers up for them to sample. They would put a panel of judges together from their various stores for them to pick the beer to be brewed. This of course, allows buy in from their employees of this product because they chose the actual beer. We really like the idea too, but here is where a problem occurs for us and you come into the picture. As I said this part of the whole concept really blew into something bigger and really is going to be fun if you are interested. We cannot brew small batches of test beers for Hy-Vee to sample and choose from. I asked Hy-Vee if they minded if I brought in the home brewers at this point. I would like to challenge each home brew club to brew a summer beer to submit to Hy-Vee to sample. The winning beer/recipe would then be brought to Millstream Brewery and we would brew this beer and package it for Hy-Vee as their summer seasonal beer on a regular basis. Hy-Vee will then promote this Iowa Home Brew Club to Iowa Microbrewery to Iowa Retailer concept throughout Iowa. They will publish the winning home brew club and their new seasonal beer in the newspapers, TV, in their in house “Seasonal” magazine, etc. What great publicity for Iowa businesses and Iowa beer. I’m really excited about this venture and hope that we have several home brew clubs willing to take on this fun challenge.
You could make this a competition within your own club to have everyone brew a beer and choose which one goes on to represent your
club or you can do a group brew (is that done?). However you want to do it.
We will be doing this 2 times this year for a Summer and Winter brew and 2 times next year to add in the Spring and Fall brews. I wish we could do all 4 this year but it would be very taxing on Millstream to brew 4 new beers and get the packaging done in 1 year. Also this gives us great publicity for 2 years.
There are no entry fees associated with this friendly competition. Judging will be done the week of Feb 15th. Sorry about the short notice on this, but I promise I will give you plenty of notice for the next 3 seasonal beers. We just needed to get this off and running!
Here are the only guidelines for you to follow as you develop a beer for this fun competition.
1. Must be an ale
2. We use Briess Malt to brew with so keep that in mind
3. 4 bottles must be submitted to Millstream Brewery for judging by Feb 15, 2010. (Bottles can be of any size)
4. A summer style beer is preferable.
5. Only 1 beer submitted per home brew club
6. Nothing too exotic – remember it will go into production and we have to be able to afford to brew it and still make a profit!
7. MUST BE LEGAL! (6.25 ABV)