New Belgium rollout!

Today I hopped over the lake on the causeway to celebrate the Northshore distribution debut of New Belgium. From what I hear, getting New Belgium here in Louisiana was a long time in the making, so everyone at Champagne Beverage Co. (who hosted the event and will be distributing the brand) was very happy and very relieved that all went well. And it did go well! It was a super event. Had a canoe full of crawfish, shrimp, potatoes, and corn; tables of BBQ and fried seafood, and of course, stands serving 5 of New Belgium's beers - Fat Tire, of course, Ranger IPA, Shift (a pale lager hopped with Nelson Sauvin), Sunshine Wheat, and Trippel Belgian style ale.

sample display of the Sunshine bombers

Shift, a canned pale lager which may have been my favorite of the night

Man, New Belgium's marketing is so awesome

They didn't have this at the event but it is RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS

Thanks go to the always wonderful Vanessa Gomes, the new head of Craft Beer Management for the Northshore location of Louisiana Craft Beer distribution group. The Louisiana Craft Beer portfolio is distributed by Champagne Beverage Co. on the Northshore, and Crescent Crown on the south shore (New Orleans). She invited me to the event and introduced me to the bigwigs at Champagne Beverages and the New Belgium regional sales folks, all of whom were super friendly. Geoff came out from Dallas and Zach came out from Austin, and I know they are looking for a New Orleans area representative (called a "Ranger.") They both seemed really excited about expanding their regional territory into Louisiana, and I hope to hear more from them in the future!

Both New Belgium and Champagne are incredibly fired up and the party they threw to promote it reflected that enthusiasm. I'm really excited that there's such a great energy around this from the distributors to the brewery to the retailers to the consumers. So when Monday comes around, go support craft beer by welcoming New Belgium to Louisiana!

Also, I have a New Belgium T-shirt, size XL to give away. Let me know in the comments if you're interested and I will choose at random! And I'll bring it to the Avenue Pub on Monday because I'll be attending their rollout which will include several of the Lips of Faith series.