As some of you may know, I have a full time gig that is not this (unfortunately, this whole blogging thing isn’t exactly paying for a lavish lifestyle of drinking and luxury just quite yet). I work at a marketing agency, GYK Antler, where I lead digital strategy and social media. Prior to GYK Antler, I founded Antler (which was later acquired by GYK… hence the name GYK Antler). Anyway, that’s not really the point. The point is that when my business partner and I started Antler we wanted to do something cool that celebrated our love of craft beer (and gave us an excuse to brew beer in our office). What we created was Brewdown.
For about three years we ran Brewdown’s out of our Boston office in which we’d invite local craft breweries in to sample their beers and do an office brewed beer with us, live with an audience of about 50-100 people. We brought in local New England breweries like Backlash, Peak Organic, Long Trail, Notch, and a number of others over the years. And we even made our own bottles for the beer we brewed. It was a good run and we had a lot of fun doing it.
This year, with the “new” agency, I decided to take the whole Brewdown concept to the next level and launch Brewdown Pop-Up. The idea is all about celebrating the local craft beer community and the collaborative spirit that spawns great ideas and partnerships. And we’re doing this by bringing together cool brands and breweries — that otherwise may never had the chance to meet — to brew a collaborative beer and throw an awesome party in an alternative environment.
Which leads me to this announcement: the very first Brewdown Pop-Up will take place in Boston starting on September 11th and will feature Harpoon, one of Boston’s largest and longest running breweries, and Ball and Buck, a super hip retail shop for modern gentlemen that specializes in all-American made gear. We’ll actually do the launch party at Ball and Buck’s awesome space on Newbury Street, where we’ll unveil the collaboration beer that we brewed last friday (a Double IPA called Double Barrel, brewed with all-American ingredients), and then we’ll have a second pop-up experience at Ball and Buck’s American Field event that following Saturday (9/13).
Both events are free, but we have limited invites for the launch party. So if you want to sign up to get on the guest list, visit the Brewdown website.
If you can’t make either of those events, the collaboration beer will also be on tap at Harpoon’s beer hall starting September 12th and will be on until it runs out. If you’re in the Boston area, I hope you’ll check it out!
Brew day at Harpoon – Tom and Chris (Harpoon), Jeremy and Mark (Ball and Buck), me