Collaboration 29 Returns: The Beer Tribute to Charlottesville That Was Named Best Hoppy Beer
At a beer festival in 2018, a little-known limited release IPA from Charlottesville, VA competed against acclaimed industry behemoths like Sierra Nevada, Stone, Bell’s, Ballast Point, Founder’s and more. A panel of experts conducted a blind tasting to evaluate the entrants for Best Hoppy Beer. In an upset that almost no one saw coming, the Charlottesville beer won.
In fact, the winning beer was not just brewed in Charlottesville. It was a tribute to Charlottesville. The three founders of Reason Beer are lifelong friends who grew up in Charlottesville. Not long after they launched their brewery in 2017, they decided to create a beer in tribute to the community they love. For the project, they brought together local collaborators, including Murphy & Rude and this website, The Charlottesville 29. Reason even named the beer for the site: Collaboration 29. The label reads:
There’s a good reason we chose Charlottesville as the home for our brewery. We all grew up around here, and if you ask us, it’s just about the greatest little city in the world. This beer is a juicy, tropical love letter to our home town, brewed in partnership with The Charlottesville 29 and Murphy & Rude Malting Co.
It is a great honor for Reason to have named their Charlottesville beer after this site. Brewery co-founder Jeff Raileanu once explained why:
“There’s so much great stuff happening around Charlottesville that deserves to be celebrated, and that’s the focus . . . We appreciate how The Charlottesville 29 tells a story – not just a ‘best of’ list, it tells stories of the local scene, from farm to table, with fascinating looks into all of the passionate people who make it happen.”
In 2020, COVID-19 prevented Collaboration 29’s annual release. Now, as the Charlottesville food and drink community emerges from the pandemic, Reason thought the timing was right for the return of their beer tribute to the community. So, the collaborators recently reunited to brew a batch for 2021.
Collaboration 29 will be available beginning next Wednesday, November 3, at the Reason taproom and, soon after that, at area bars and restaurants. Thank you, Reason, for including The Charlottesville 29 in this special project, and for celebrating Charlottesville in such a delicious way.