Introducing Märkä: A new spruce beer brewed with 100% Ohio-grown everything. Mashed with West Branch Malts 2-row barley, and Haus Malts caramel emmer, triticale, and oats. Hopped gently with Auburn Acres Triple Perle, and spruced generously in the boil kettle with Norwegian spruce tips from our trees & the “Märkä” that surrounds our beautiful city. What does “Märkä”mean? Glad you asked! It’s a Norwegian word for the forested natural recreational areas that Norwegians intentionally create around their cities. These areas are filled with ways for citizens to conveniently commune with nature, chill out, and possibly get some exercise or a beautiful walk in the woods. What an amazing concept…sorta like Sells Park and Strouds Run function for Athens, we imagine. And since this beer was brewed with Norwegian spruce tips and fermented with a Norwegian farmhouse yeast (Hornindal), we felt the name was perfect for this lovely little beer. Märkä (the beer) also happens to be our annual benefit beer for Community Food Initiatives , a non-profit which does excellent work in getting fresh, healthy, local foods to people in need in our area, and empowering people to garden and grow their own foods as well. We’ll be donating $1 per pint or crowler from this entire batch to help them do what they do.