Glory to Columbus! Land-Grant’s Crew brew is out

Land-Grant Brewing Company’s Glory American Wheat Ale will debut tomorrow at the Columbus Crew’s Mapfre Stadium, a collaboration months in the making.

“We have some great old friends who work with the Crew, and as we talked about simply serving our beer at Mapfre the conversations quickly grew to something a little bigger than that,” said Walt Keys, co-owner of Land-Grant Brewing.

With the mission of crafting a Crew brew, Land-Grant decided to let their fans help decide on the final product instead of settling on a style internally. They brewed two gold and two black ales back in July and asked customers to vote on their favorite and to provide feedback for improvement.

“We wanted it to be a brew that the club’s supporters would take ownership of, and with that in mind we wanted to include them in the recipe development process,” said Keys.

One of the “gold” ales, an American Wheat, won the initial vote. Land-Grant took the customer feedback to brew up four varied batches of American Wheat, and in the end the version with Citra hops won out.

“It’s a hoppy American Wheat Ale brewed with Citra hops, so you’ll get citrusy hop profile on top of a light and refreshing wheat base,” said Keys. “It makes for a great beer to drink outside, whether in the stadium or the parking lot.”

Glory will debut tomorrow at Mapfre Stadium and Land-Grant’s own taproom. A few Crew-centric bars around town will receive an allocation of Glory kegs, and the brewery plans to package a limited run of cans for the end of Crew season.