Finally, no more secrecy surrounding Anheuser-Busch's move to trademark ZIP codes. The brewing company has unveiled its plans to unleash "ZIP Code" beer in liquor stores this fall.
The Star-Ledger tells us that the company chose 12 of its breweries to produce small-batch "tribute" beers named for the ZIP codes in which it were made. Of those, six picked by company experts will be submitted to a summer-long contest, called Project 12, that will determine the three beers to be sold in a limited-edition sampler pack later this year.
The move explains why the company bought up a slew of copyrights to ZIP codes last year. We're still waiting to find out why it did the same with airport codes.
The Anheuser-Busch brewery in Fort Collins, Colo., one of the chosen cities, is producing a filtered wheat beer for the competition. The Denver Business Journal described the brew as deep-gold in color and flavored with lemon peel, orange peel and coriander.
Syracuse.com has more details on the competition's other cities and the beers they'll produce:
The other finalist are Budweiser Small Batch 91406 (Los Angeles), a deep amber lager; Budweiser Small Batch 63118 (St. Louis), a deep gold lager; Budweiser Small Batch 43229 (Columbus, Ohio), a light amber lager; and Budweiser Small Batch 23185 (Williamsburg, Va. ), a light amber all-malt bourbon cask-aged lager.
In a release, Anheuser-Busch explained that the "friendly competition" is meant to pay homage to Budweiser's traditional "clean and crisp" taste by using the proprietary yeasty descended from the company's original yeast culture, first used by Adolphus Busch in 1876. It's still used by Budweiser today.
Click through the below gallery for more info on the six beers to be featured in Project 12.
