TROY, N.Y. — Shmaltz Brewing Company officially turns 24 this Hanukkah season as the largest, the smallest, the most award winning, and astonishingly still the only Jewish celebration beer company in the country. And what a time for Anniversaries as the roller coaster of a year just keeps rolling. With so much uncertainty still looming for 2020 and beyond, couldn’t we all use some tasty and delightful craft beer comfort?!
A long way from the first 100 cases brewed in 1996 and delivered in a Grandmother’s Volvo – Hanukkah Beer is all new for 2020! 8 malts, 8 hops, 8% abv of course – Shmaltz cooked up bright shiny gift of its new Golden Jelly Doughnut Pastry Ale brewed with 600 pounds per batch of real purees of Raspberry & Cherry with a generous slathering of pure vanilla. A glorious tribute to the beloved Sufganiyot, dating back to the 1500s, the official chosen beer of this holiday season will be available in 12oz Can 4-Packs and limited draft through their East Coast wholesalers and through Brew Pipeline nationally:
Shmaltz Direct: Gasko Meyer – Upstate New York, SKI Beer – NYC, Long Island and Westchester, Horizon – Massachusetts, Black River Traders – New Jersey, Shangy’s – Philadelphia PA, Savatt – Pittsburgh PA, DOPS – Maryland/D.C./Delaware , Freedom Beverage – North Carolina, Aleph – South Carolina, Cavalier – Florida, Full Clip – Texas, Johnson Brothers – Iowa, Kysela – VA, WV
Brew Pipeline: Guardian (So Cal), Mussetter (Nor Cal), Orcas (WA), Quail (AZ and NE), Beverage Distributors (OH).
Regional retailers confirmed to carrying Hanukkah Beer this year include Total Wine, Whole Foods, Price Chopper, ABC and Publix in FL plus 100s of high-end independent craft beer specialty stores across the country. Check shmaltzbrewing.com or info@shmaltzbrewing for local availability.
For this very special release, celebrations kickoff all week long including a Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Wednesday 11/25 at its Tasting Room (518 Craft, 200 Broadway, Troy, NY) now featuring local artisanal chocolate hero, Primo Botanica and new 3rd wave custom espresso roaster, Alias Coffee. Plus Thanksgiving morning for the virtual Turkey Troy with Collar City Runners, Small Business Saturday with local Troy food and craft markers, Small Brewery Sunday (Brewers Association) and Cyber Monday with new gift pack offerings, delectable flavor collaborations, and the annual favorite, the “Build Your Own Beer Menorah” promo. Details at Facebook.com/ShmaltzBrewing.
Shmaltz will also be launching Hanukkah 2020 along with its newest art installation at their Tasting Room in Downtown Troy: Negative is Positive: Hindsight is 2020, a curated art show by photographer Thom Williams of Troy Arts Center with over a dozen regional and local artists exploring personal, political, and aesthetic themes of the current moment.
The local launch began with WEQX and Capitol Craft Beverage Trail Virtual Makers Happy Hour and will also include a Holiday Doughnut Festival featuring renown Cider Belly, Cosmic Donuts, and more for the Hanukkah holiday, this year from Thursday, Dec 10 to Friday Dec 18. More details for local and regional delights will be posted on Facebook and Instagram.
PREVIEW ALERT! Coming in December and launching into the New Year: SHE’BREW: #RBG IPA4-packs of 16oz cans and draft, this soon to be #Notorious IPA will be launching in New York State at both breweries in December and around the region and the country over the coming week. Details to follow!
From the label for the coming #RBG Tribute:
For our fourth She’brew Release, when Lauri from Moustache Brewing mentioned that #RBG was her Beacon of Empowerment – the verdict was IN! The perfect inspiration for our next Shmaltz tribute collaboration. The launch was set for Int’l Women’s Collab Brew Day in March 2020 — and then the disastrous case of our current Global Pandemic stormed into reality.
But RBG was also a once in a lifetime kind of event — a truly epic hero who changed our country and our consciousness for the better through her work and by her example. Intelligence and emotion, collaborative in spirit yet ferocious in her commitment to progress, the most serious positions from the highest responsibilities exhibited with constant charm and wicked wit.
This year is clearly different from all other years — and we brewed this sincere offering to give huge thanks to a guardian and a champion in the way we know best — by upholding the bar for #Notorious IPAs equally balanced for a commemoration of life and just causes everywhere – L’Chaim!
About Shmaltz Brewing Company
Founder and owner Jeremy Cowan established Shmaltz Brewing in San Francisco in 1996. The first 100 cases of He’brew Beer® were hand-bottled and delivered throughout the Bay Area from the back of his Grandmother’s Volvo. Shmaltz Brewing now sells across 25 states, through 40 wholesalers and in nearly 5,000 retailers.
RateBeer.com ranked Shmaltz as one of the “Top 100 Brewers in the World” in 2013, and the brewery recently brought home 1 platinum, 10 gold and 6 silver medals from the World Beer Championships. In the past several years, Shmaltz Brewing introduced its line of upstate New York focused farm beers under the 518/838 Craft brand name and acquired and rebranded the Alphabet City Brewing beers. In July 2018, Shmaltz opened 518 Craft, a new bar and tasting room in downtown Troy, NY. Shmaltz beers are available at 518 Craft as well as throughout Upstate New York, the East Coast and in select markets nationally at the best craft beer bars and retailers.