From the first beer we released, we've included a very simple but meaningful tagline on all of our cans.
Don't Come Empty-Handed, Knock With Your Feet
It's a mindset that we strive to embody as a company. Beer is a social drink. In fact, some people have argued that alcohol (and, by extension, beer) is actually one of the main reasons that our society exists in the form that it does right now. In "Drunk" by Edward Slingerland, the author posits that alcohol is an evolutionary device. It has helped humans to evolve, culturally and socially, because of its presence.
Beer was around in its early days because it was safer to drink than water. But, long after we solved that problem, beer remained. There must be a reason. Breweries and pubs have long been community centers. They've been a place to gather for centuries. What started as a safe way to drink water, evolved into a reason to meet in a central location where you live for any number of reasons.
Long day? Grab a beer with your friends!
Something to celebrate? Grab a beer with your friends!
Someone to mourn? Grab a beer with your friends!
Time to celebrate someone's wedding? Grab a beer and raise it up!
We designed a beer that's explicitly designed to bring to your next holiday gathering to share with family and friends. The beer itself is a dark Saison brewed with cranberries. Every ingredient that is going into this beer is 100% NY-grown. We've worked with the fine folks from New York Craft Malt and Alta Vista Hop Farms since we brewed our first beer as a company. We knew that we could make a beer worth sharing that can showcase everything we have to offer in New York. The hops featured in this brew are called Stone House. If you're a homebrewer or are just generally familiar with hop varieties, this might be a new one for you. There's a very good reason for that.
Stone House is a wild hop that was found on the property of Stone House Farm and has since been transplanted at Alta Vista for commercial use. It's related to cluster (a hop you may have heard of) and is described as having notes of soft pine and undertones of citrus and grapefruit skin. We thought that would fit right into this recipe.
There was still one piece missing, though. The cranberries. From the time the initial idea was thought of, we knew we needed cranberries to round out the beer and link it to the holidays. But, does New York even have cranberry bogs? After some googling and some Facebook DMs with the Cornell Co-Op, we were able to track down the fine folks up at Deer River Cranberry Farm in Brasher Falls. As luck would have it, they were mid-harvest when I gave them a call and they were able to ship us quite a few pounds of fresh cranberries to include in this one-of-a-kind brew.
In the early hours of 11/6, we brewed the first-ever batch of Knock With Your Feet. We're incredibly proud of how far we've come and we're looking forward to sharing this new release with you all very soon!