“It’s a bit overwhelming. The weirdest thing was when [Samuel Adams] sent me pictures of my beer on the bottling line. I saw thousands of bottles with my face on it.”
– Rodney Kibzey
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Rodney Kibzey’s friends call him a “beer rock star.” Because Kibzey was a winner in the 2007 Samuel Adams American Homebrew Contest a Weizenbock brewed to his recipe currently is on shelves across the country.
Each Longshot six-pack contains three bottles of Weizenbock and three of Grape Pale Ale from Samuel Adams employee Lili Hess.
Kibzey’s beer was one of two winners of a national homebrew contest. The other was an Imperial IPA and production of that one was delayed because of the hop shortage.
Grape Pale Ale is the 2007 champion of Samuel Adams’ annual employee homebrew contest. Attendees at the 2007 great American Beer Festival tasted the three employee finalists’ homebrew and voted Grape Pale Ale their favorite.