Last year, Fremont Brewing Company and Center of the Universe Brewing Company teamed up to create a collaborative beer that was not only interesting, but for a good cause. They joined forces on the ‘Hops for Heroes’ project and created Homefront IPA, a special beer that is aged on oak bats donated from Louisville Slugger. The project raised over $10,000 to benefit Operation Homefront, which is a charity that provides emergency assistance to military heroes and their families (100% of the proceeds from the beer sales go to this worthy cause). They are looking forward to another great year of fund raising, and this time they are getting some help.
Five additional breweries have joined in to create their own version of Homefront IPA for sale in their area. The new breweries include:
- St. Arnold, Houston, TX
- Sly Fox, Phoenixville, PA
- 21st Amendment, San Francisco, CA
- Cigar City, Tampa, FL
- Perennial Artisan Ales, St. Louis, MO
Another cool thing about this project is that each brewery will be paired up with a baseball ambassador who will help promote the project and brew. Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, FL is getting the help of Chris Gimenez to promote the release of their beer on May 24th. The Cigar City Homefront IPA will be available in 22oz bottles and on draft in their tap room only.
In addition to just drinking the beer, another way to get involved in the Hops for Heroes project is through a Twitter campaign that is being organized. Here’s how it works: You tweet a picture of yourself enjoying a Homefront IPA with a message of your choice thanking the troops for their service and use the hashtag #HomefrontIPA. They will then compile the Twitter “cheer” messages and put them in a Storify to send to participating Operation Homefront chapters as a Memorial Day tribute.
If you live in one of the areas where these breweries live, I encourage you to head out to their tap rooms and have a Homefront IPA this weekend. You’ll be doing something you would have been doing anyway (drinking craft beer), but this time it will be for a great cause (plus, you’ll get to have the only beer I have ever heard of that is aged on baseball bats).
Cheers to the troops!
You can find more information about the Hops for Heroes project and Operation Homefront here:
- www.hopsforheroes.com
- http://www.operationhomefront.net/default.aspx
- Twitter: @HopsforHeros
