(Houston, TX) — Saint Arnold Brewing Company (www.saintarnold.com), the oldest craft brewery in Texas, has been involved in charitable activities in the past — but never anything like ‘Hops for Heroes.’ The undertaking centers around brewing Saint Arnold Homefront IPA, a special single-batch beer to benefit Operation Homefront, a charity that provides emergency financial and other assistance to the families of U.S. service members and wounded warriors.
Saint Arnold Homefront IPA has been embraced by the entire craft brewing community, with support from malt, hop. label, bottle and box suppliers. At 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, May 9th Saint Arnold will open its doors to volunteers — including Houston-area veterans — to help with one of the more labor-intensive aspects of the recipe — the zesting of nearly 2,000 oranges.
“It has been great to see the response from the craft brewing community — every phone call has been answered with an enthusiastic offer of support,” said Brock Wagner, founder/brewer of Saint Arnold Brewing Company. “The fact that we have local veterans participating in the making of the beer makes it even more special.”
In addition to Saint Arnold Brewing Company, the following organizations are participating:
– Action Box — Case box manufacturer
– Brewers Supply Group — Malt supplier
– Hops Direct, LLC — Hop supplier
– Inland Label — Label supplier
– Louisville Slugger — Baseball bat manufacturer (six bats are used in the aging of Homefront IPA)
– Mark Trece, Inc. — Printing plate supplier for the case boxes
– Primer Grey — Graphic designer
– Rahr Malting Group— Malt supplier
– The Bottle Shop — Bottle supplier
Additionally, several distributors, including Ben E. Keith Company, Capitol Beverage Co., Del Papa Distributing and Silver Eagle Distributors have agreed to donate their profits from the sale of Homefront IPA.
Saint Arnold expects to produce approximately 40,000 22-ounce bottles of Homefront IPA, with a goal of raising more than $100,000 for Operation Homefront. The release date for Homefront IPA is Thursday, May 24, 2012 — just in time for Memorial Day weekend. It will be available at stores, restaurants and bars throughout Texas.
Those volunteering in the orange zesting are encouraged to arrive at Saint Arnold Brewery at 2000 Lyons Avenue in Houston at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 9th and are asked to bring their own zester.
About Saint Arnold Brewing Company
Saint Arnold Brewing’s 13 brews are made and sold by the company’s staff of 38 dedicated employees. Ranked 43rd on the Brewers Association list of top craft breweries, Saint Arnold was listed by USA Today as one of the “10 great places to see what’s brewing in beer,” and Smart Meetings magazine named it among the “Top 5 breweries to host an event.” Saint Arnold is located at 2000 Lyons Avenue and its brewery tour and tasting is offered every weekday at 3:00 P.M. and Saturdays starting at 11 A.M. For more information on Saint Arnold’s five year-round and five seasonal beers as well as root beer, log on to www.saintarnold.com.