Wicked Weed Brewing Returns Holiday Donut Beer To Convenience Store Chain

, Wicked Weed Brewing Returns Holiday Donut Beer To Convenience Store Chain

(Courtesy Wicked Weed / Sheetz)

What was once one of the hottest breweries in the country, Wicked Weed Brewing is now making donut beers for Sheetz a gas/ convenience store chain. An unlikely odyssey for a brewery renowned for its sours, which was purchased by Anheuser-Busch in 2017.

Before that sale, the Asheville, North Carolina-based brewery was incredibly in demand, its beers were cutting-edge, and the nation’s most prestigious breweries were lining up to collaborate with them.

, Wicked Weed Brewing Returns Holiday Donut Beer To Convenience Store ChainAt the time of Wicked Weed’s purchase, Anheuser-Busch was on a craft beer buying spree that had started Goose Island in 2011 and eventually grew into a family of once ‘craft’ properties (at least according to the Brewers Association craft beer definition) that included Blue Point Brewing10 BarrelElysianGolden RoadBreckenridgeFour PeaksDevils Backbone, Karbach Brewing and others.

And although so many of those acquisitions we’re judged harshly by many in the craft beer community’s passionate core, the backlash that this purchase generated was immediate and brutal.

“Treachery,” set the tone for a piece that was published in the Chicago Tribune. The quote itself was lifted from the many comments left on Wicked Weed’s Facebook page after they made their announcement, and it captures the tenor of betrayal that many of the brewery’s fans may still feel.

Jester King (another prominent wild ale brewery) announced at that time that it had cut all ties with the organization. There would be no more collaborations with Wicked Weed and Jester King would no longer be selling its beers at their taproom.

It’s almost axiomatic that the greater the brewery’s perceived integrity, the tougher it is for many beer fans to forgive.

, Wicked Weed Brewing Returns Holiday Donut Beer To Convenience Store ChainAnd to be fair we’re not sure how Wicked Weed’s current beer sales are faring. What fans the brewery has lost has to be weighed against the massive economic power of the world’s largest brewer and the enhanced distribution network that the deal has afforded them.

But we’re pretty sure we wouldn’t have received a press release from Sheetz, a gas station/ convenience store chain headquartered in Altoona, Pa, announcing that it had partnered with Wicked Weed Brewing to produce a donut-infused beer for the holidays.

Brewed using Sheetz signature donut holes, and exclusively available at hundreds of Sheetz stores across Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia, Project Happy Hole-idayz is a 6% ABV golden Pale Ale with notes of fresh baked donuts, vanilla frosting, graham crackers, honey, and malted barley.

It was originally brewed for the convenience store chain last November and apparently was such a hit that Sheetz is returning it again this holiday season.

But while a beer like this may seem like something that Sheetz would sell (especially around the winter holidays), it doesn’t sound anything like anything that Wicked Weed would ever have wanted to put its heart into…

Not the Wicked Weed that we used to know…

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