SWEETWATER BREWERY CAMPAIGNS TO “SAVE THE HOOCH” ONE BREW AT A TIME
Annual campaign with Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper® kicks off Memorial Day Weekend
ATLANTA (May 15, 2012) — SweetWater Brewing Company is gearing up once again for their 6th annual “Save the Hooch” conservation campaign in support of Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper® (UCR). Not only does the Chattahoochee River provide drinking water for more than four million Atlantans, but it is also the main ingredient for SweetWater’s lip-smackin’ brews. Since joining forces with UCR in 2006, the efforts are now more important as ever as the river was just listed No. 3 on the nation’s top 10 most endangered rivers list by American Rivers.
SweetWater’s campaign efforts will begin Memorial Day weekend and continue through July 4, offering beer drinkers, bar patrons and residents of metro Atlanta the chance to “Give of Your Liver to Save the River” by visiting participating accounts and purchasing paper fish, commemorative t-shirts or SweetWater’s seasonal Waterkeeper® ale. Proceeds from these efforts will go towards patrolling, protecting and preserving the Chattahoochee River.
“I have spent a lot of time on Atlanta’s waters since moving to Georgia in ’96 to start the brewery, and I’ve seen a lot of the issues firsthand,” said SweetWater Founder and Big Kahuna Freddy Bensch. “Keeping our water clean is a cause I think we can all believe in, and we’ll continue to do anything we can to help raise awareness and funding for the great folks who are out there every day protecting our water.”
In 2011, SweetWater launched its Waterkeeper® Hefeweizen, a great beer with a great cause, as part of the campaign in which proceeds benefit regional Waterkeeper Alliance® organizations. Now part of their seasonal Catch and Release line-up, the Hefeweizen brew will return to draft taps on limited release this May to help ramp up awareness and donations.
With the combined proceeds from the ale and campaign promotions, SweetWater raised a whopping $93,000 last year, a substantial increase from years prior. SweetWater has proudly raised more than $350,000, and several coldies, since campaign conception.
The success of the “Save the Hooch” campaign inspired SweetWater to expand their reach throughout the region to other communities and their local Waterkeeper® organizations with their distribution markets, including: the Neuse Riverkeeper® and French Broad Riverkeeper® in North Carolina, the Charleston Waterkeeper® in South Carolina, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper® and Mobile Baykeeper® in Alabama, and the Apalachicola Riverkeeper® and St. Johns Riverkeepers® in Florida.
Raising the bar even higher, SweetWater will host their first-ever regional concert series this year featuring the headlining act and bluegrass band Railroad Earth. The concert series will hit the road June 20-24 touring Raleigh, Charlotte, Charleston and Jacksonville. All proceeds benefit each city’s local Waterkeeper® organization.
For more information on the “Save the Hooch” campaign, to learn more about SweetWater’s efforts throughout the Southeast or to make a donation, please visit www.waterkeeperbrew.org. ###
MEDIA CONTACT:
Francesca Zeifman | Public Relations Manager | (C) 352-238-1604|SweetWater Brewery | [email protected]
ABOUT SWEETWATER BREWING COMPANY:
SweetWater Brewing Company is an Atlantaâ€based craft brewery specializing in aggressive West Coast style beers. SweetWater’s brews are unpasteurized and designed to be consumed fresh so distribution is limited to the Southeast. The awardâ€winning lineup of yearâ€round brews includes SweetWater 420, IPA, Exodus Porter, Blue, LowRYEder and Georgia Brown. SweetWater also features a Catch and Release series of beers available on a limited basis throughout the year, and an experimental, oneâ€timeâ€only Dank Tank series. The SweetWater Brewery, open for tours every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 5:30â€7:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 2:30â€4:30 p.m., is located at 195 Ottley Dr NE, Atlanta GA 30324. For more information about SweetWater Brewing Company, please visit www.sweetwaterbrew.com. For more of a social relationship with SweetWater Brewing Company follow @sweetwaterbrew on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook:www.facebook.com/sweetwaterbrew.
ABOUT UPPER CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVERKEEPER®:
Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper® is a nonproï¬t environmental organization that, since 1994, has actively worked to protect the Chattahoochee River from its birthplace at a small spring in the mountains above Helen to West Point Lake downstream of Atlanta. As the drinking water supply for more than four million Georgians, the Chattahoochee is north Georgia’s most important natural resource. With the support of their 5,600 members, they have stopped hundreds of illegal discharges into the river and its tributaries, removed tons of trash from local waterways, provided river education to tens of thousands of students, monitored and patrolled hundreds of miles of waterways, and forced local governments and industries to comply with clean water laws. For more information, visit www.chattahoochee.org.
