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Ballast Point Brewing Co. Debuts Spruce Tip Sculpin IPA

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Ballast Point Brewing Co. in San Diego, California has announced the release of a new Sculpin IPA variant.

Spruce Tip Sculpin joins the likes of Grapefruit Sculpin, Habanero Sculpin, Pineapple Sculpin, Unfiltered Sculpin and Aloha Sculpin to the brewery’s stellar original IPA.

The beer is available now wherever Ballast Point’s offerings are sold. The full release from the brewery is below.

SAN DIEGO — Just in time for fall, Ballast Point, one of the nation’s leading craft breweries, introduces Spruce Tip Sculpin IPA – a seasonal twist on its flagship IPA. The limited-release beer will be available nationally beginning October 1.

Sculpin’s complexity shines in this Spruce Tip edition. The addition of Oregon spruce tips, harvested from family farms, brings flavors of pine, red berry, lemon and wine grapes, which complement Sculpin’s citrusy hop profile. On the nose, the spruce tips contribute a unique piney, citrusy and woody character. A great brew for the holidays and beyond, the seven percent ABV Spruce Tip Sculpin is a standout in a forest of IPAs.

Spruce Tip Sculpin IPA was inspired by Ballast Point’s “Roots to Boots” R&D program, which empowers employees to brew experimental beers. After growing up enjoying his aunt’s teas made with spruce tips, an employee in the program was motivated to add the spruce buds to an IPA he was creating. The beer yielded such a unique and delicious flavor that the brewers at Ballast Point knew they had to continue experimenting with spruce tips.

“When we added spruce tips to Sculpin, we loved how the pine and berry notes accentuated the aromas and flavors already found in the beer. We thought it would make the perfect fall and holiday IPA,” said James Murray, vice president of brewing at Ballast Point. “Experimentation has always been in our DNA but the fact that the newest member of the Sculpin family was born from our ‘Roots to Boots’ program speaks volumes about our culture of innovation.”

In a quest to bring a spruce-infused IPA to the market, Ballast Point called on San Diego-based Specialty Produce to source spruce tips from Oregon. The local produce company has sourced fruits, vegetables, and herbs for Ballast Point for more than ten years and shares the brewery’s commitment to quality.

“Specialty Produce thinks about their sourcing in the same way we think about barley and hops. Quality always comes first,” said Murray.

Spruce Tip Sculpin comes off the heels of Ballast Point’s recent spring/summer seasonal release, Aloha Sculpin. The original Sculpin IPA launched in 2005 and has since become the hallmark of the west coast-style IPA, winning gold medals at the World Beer Cup (2010, 2014) and European Beer Star (2010, 2011). The Sculpin family now includes Grapefruit, Aloha and now Spruce Tip.

Spruce Tip Sculpin IPA is a fall/winter seasonal release and will be available nationally on draft and in six-pack bottles through February.

For more information, visit www.BallastPoint.com.

About Ballast Point Brewing Company
Started in 1996 by a small group of home brewers in San Diego, Ballast Point has a 20-plus-year history of supporting the art of home brewing and developing high-quality, innovative and award-winning beer. Ballast Point has become one of the nation’s leading craft breweries by exploring new tastes and techniques to create the perfect balance of taste and aroma. At Ballast Point, a culture of quality persists from selection of raw materials to the brewing process to the finished product and beyond. From developing a proprietary yeast for our amber ale to creating a breakthrough gold medal-winning IPA, Ballast Point is dedicated to the craft of brewing beers for all to enjoy.

Anheuser-Busch Makes Unscheduled Emergency Water Production Run at Cartersville Brewery

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Nation’s Leading Brewer Pauses Beer Production to Replenish Emergency Water Stocks Following 2018 Natural Disasters

CARTERSVILLE, GA – October 22, 2018 – Anheuser-Busch’s Cartersville Brewery is today pausing beer production to can emergency drinking water, after high demand for clean, safe drinking water following the California Wildfires and Hurricanes Florence and Michael exhausted existing stocks.

“Recent donations to disaster relief efforts have depleted our inventory of emergency drinking water. We need to be ready to help next time the Red Cross requests our assistance,” said Bill Bradley, Vice President, Community Affairs at Anheuser-Busch. “We’ve made a commitment to be there for American communities in times of need, and we are following through on that promise.”

Throughout the year, the Cartersville, Georgia brewery schedules periodic pauses of beer production to can drinking water. The water is staged locally, ready to be shipped at a moment’s notice once the brewer receives a request from its longstanding partner, the American Red Cross. At the request of the Red Cross, A-B has provided over 800,000 cans – or 16 truckloads – of emergency drinking water so far in 2018, prompting today’s unscheduled run to replenish stocks.

This past September, Anheuser-Busch introduced the water canning capability to its Fort Collins, CO brewery doubling its production capacity and enabling the brewer to more quickly help communities in need from coast to coast

“This program is made possible by our employees at the Cartersville and Fort Collins Breweries, and our wholesaler partners who never hesitate to go the extra mile when American communities are facing difficult times,” Bradley continued.

For the past 30 years, Anheuser-Busch has partnered with the American Red Cross to provide emergency drinking water for disaster relief efforts. Since 1988, Anheuser-Busch and its wholesaler partners have provided nearly 80 million cans of water to U.S. communities affected by natural disasters nationwide.

To learn more about Anheuser-Busch’s disaster relief efforts, please visit https://www.anheuser-busch.com/betterworld/community.html.

ABOUT ANHEUSER-BUSCH

For more than 165 years, Anheuser-Busch has been woven into the cultural fabric of the United States, carrying on a legacy of brewing great-tasting, high-quality beers that have satisfied beer drinkers for generations. Today, we own and operate 23 breweries, 29 distributorships and 23 agricultural and packaging facilities, and have more than 18,000 colleagues across the United States. We are home to several of America’s most recognizable beer brands, including Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA and Stella Artois, as well as a number of regional brands that provide beer drinkers with a choice of the best-tasting craft beers in the industry.

From responsible drinking programs and emergency drinking water donations to industry-leading sustainability efforts, we are guided by our unwavering commitment to supporting the communities we call home.

For more information, visit www.anheuserbusch.com or follow Anheuser-Busch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

PRESS Premium Alcohol Seltzer

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PRESS Premium Alcohol Seltzer

PRESS creator, founder and owner—Amy Walberg

Launching a boutique adult beverage brand is a story that might normally begin on Madison Avenue instead of Madison, Wisconsin. But Amy Walberg, founder of the new alcohol seltzer beverage brand PRESS, was never one to rest on convention. Amy Walberg founded PRESS to marry her love of seltzer and celebration. Her premium PRESS alcohol seltzers elevate every occasion with a unique blend of natural fruits, fresh spices, and the effervescence of a crisp seltzer. Between professional and personal, Walberg’s travel miles were awe-inspiring. Exposed to far-flung places—and flavors—that would influence the beverage brand she would come to create, Walberg was at the same time crystalizing her personal lifestyle. In 2015, armed with a career’s worth of business insight, she experienced what now seems like a providential moment. Over dinner with a trusted colleague, Walberg remembers musing over the fact that there were limited choices for light carbonated alcohol beverages in the market beyond beer and wine. And as an avid seltzer drinker, Walberg longed for a drink that was a refreshing balance of flavors and effervescence with a touch of alcohol. It was what Walberg describes as her perfect storm—the moment a light-hearted discussion about a lack of beverage choices and an open market niche was spliced with her idea of building a business that would meld professional pursuits with her personal lifestyle and priorities. Finding work-life balance had always been a challenge for Walberg, a single mom with a young son and daughter. The idea of creating a national beverage brand supported by a company reflecting her deeply held values about life priorities, product quality, social responsibility and environmental stewardship was irresistible. That dinner discussion sparked Walberg’s inner entrepreneur and PRESS was, at least in theory, born on a table napkin like so many epic undertakings. The product that emerged was exactly what Walberg envisioned—a lighter, lower-alcohol beverage, appropriate for special occasions or relaxed afternoons on the veranda, with delicate flavors that appealed to those seeking an alternative to wine, beer and traditional malt beverages. But if creating a uniquely flavored alcohol seltzer beverage from scratch sounds like a formidable challenge, going to market in a rising tide of flavored malt and “sweet beer” offerings from the biggest names in the business was doubly daunting.

PRESS may have been one of the first fruit and spice infused alcohol seltzers in the market, but Walberg knew the competition would be closing that gap quickly. The pressure was a catalyst for Walberg. The next two years really was the stuff of Madison Avenue— researching flavors and markets, crafting and testing formulas, sourcing manufacturing, packaging and distribution solutions, all while simultaneously fleshing out the operational and business models. She was on the path to create the finest premium alcohol seltzer on the market, and if long hours and relentless testing were the cost, unparalleled taste would be the reward.

Fast-forward to 2018—PRESS is on the shelves in XYZ markets, sales are climbing at an average XYZ percent and Walberg’s fledgling brand is fast becoming what she calls “a real contender.” Now in its 3rd year of production, PRESS is currently concentrating on supplying a growing network of retailers, distributors, wholesalers and partners while expanding into new markets like Salt Lake City, Chicago, Buffalo and Boston. Comparatively low calorie and carbohydrate counts and the unique seltzer, no-aftertaste fruit-and-spice flavor experiences are winning combinations, and Walberg is expanding flavor profiles beyond already popular and exotic selections like pomegranate ginger and grapefruit cardamom.

PRESS represents a true point of difference that audiences are responding to as they eschew traditional beer and wine offerings, and Walberg is glad retailers are giving consumer “another option.”