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Right now, our most trusted Genesee employees are hunkered down in a secure room in the brewery with only some Bavarian pretzels from the Brew House and a couple cases of Ruby Red Kolsch while they hand-count your votes. There are around 10,000 votes, and they need to count them a few times for accuracy, so this very important step could take a while.
Our next winter Specialty beer is currently in development. What does this mean, exactly? It means that our product development and brewing teams are sourcing and sampling ingredients and brewing test batches to make sure they’ve got the winning beer deliciously dialed in before it hits shelves and taps later this year. Perfection is the only acceptable outcome, and remember, these teams invented Ruby Red Kolsch, Tropical Pineapple Kolsch, and Cran Orange Kellerbier, so you know this beer is in good hands.
What’s a beer without character? Our main man, Dan, is currently hard at work creating a character awesome enough to hang with Captain Kolsch, the Goat, and the other folks who star in our Specialty beers. Using decades of graphic design and comic creation skills, Dan will pour a soul into this character as he explores the essence of the beer.
Once the beer’s character is finalized, Dan then moves on to packaging. He will choose a color palette and work those colors into the cans and cardboard carriers. A few ingredients of the packaging are already set, like the Genesee logo and where everything will land on the can and box but there is much to consider in the way of bringing this package to life: color, any Easter eggs he can fit in, and secondary designs (for instance, the daisies on the Spring Bock packaging, or the fruit patterns on Cran Orange Kellerbier and Tropical Pineapple Kolsch).
Now that the beer has been developed and the packaging finalized and ordered, it’s time to brew! We obviously couldn’t do this before we had a recipe and before we had cans and packaging (where would we put the finished beer?!). Now, we take our test batch and scale it WAAAAAY up for our 500-barrel brewing system. This is a very delicate process and requires a lot of beer sampling by our brewers and quality team to make sure this beer is just right. It’s not an easy job, sampling a lot of beer, but our team is happy to do it.
This might be the most exciting part of the entire Genesee for ’23 program: seeing our beer go to stores and bars. It’s like sending your kid off to college. You don’t know how they’re going to fare because you’re pretty sure they don’t know how to do laundry, but you’re hoping for the best. First, we fill the cans and kegs. Then we put the cans in boxes and the kegs on pallets before they hop on an 18-wheeler and head to a store or bar near you. We hope you enjoy it, whatever it is. You helped us create it, making you a part of Genesee history!
It’s Genesee for ’23! We’re opening our beer polls to the Genny-loving public because we want YOU to choose the next Genesee Specialty beer! This is no light task. This beer will stand beside modern favorites like Ruby Red Kolsch, Spring Bock, Cran Orange Kellerbier and other full-flavored beers. There are four candidates on the beer ballot, and the polls are open until March 31st. The candidate with the most votes wins and will be released in the fall of this year. So, what’s it gonna be?
