Brewing Something Special for Great American Beer Festival
FINDING A FOOTHOLD AT GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL
Every year thousands of brewers and craft beer fans descend on Denver, Colorado for the Great American Beer Festival. The festival presents a unique opportunity for brewers to connect with consumers, get them hyped on a new release, or remind them how much they love a core recipe.
As ingredient suppliers, the event is undoubtedly less important for us than it is for our customers. Craft Brewers Conference, also hosted by the Brewers Association, generally cultivates a more B2B focused atmosphere and for that reason draws more ingredient suppliers and brewing industry vendors into the mix.
Despite this understanding, we also recognize that ingredient suppliers in the brewing industry tend to tip-toe around opportunities to do activations with partner breweries at consumer centric events, for a myriad of reasons.
More importantly, we emphatically believe that the beer industry is supposed to be fun. Look no further than Petey the Prairie Dog, our unofficial mascot, who we think appropriately captures the gregarious, lighthearted dynamic of our team at Prairie Malt, and exists in contrast to the more austere, plasticky connotation that comes to mind when people think of maltster marketing materials and outdated brand personalities.
So with Petey as our inspiration and a half-baked idea to do something unique, fun and memorable for Great American Beer Festival we set out to work.
PURE FUN WITH PURE MADNESS
The first thing we needed was a partner brewery or breweries. Someone who wouldn’t shy away from doing something big and brash and lean into the fun of it all. Most importantly, a brewery with an excellent reputation for producing world-class liquid.
With a name like Pure Madness, we felt like our friends at Roadhouse and Melvin Brewing would be the perfect choice. In 2024, we collaborated with Roadhouse’s Brewmaster, Max Shafer, to produce “Malt Mule, Hop Mule,” a 5.5% fresh hop beer that was a huge hit with the crowd who visited the Prairie Malt booth in the Maker’s Lounge. With a long-history of strong representation at Great American Beer Festival and a reputation as perennial medal winners at both Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup, this was a no brainer for us.
So when our Mountain Region Craft Manager Jeremy approached Max about running it back with something bigger and better for the 2025 Great American Beer Festival the answer was an enthusiastic yes and we set out to work.
THE LINEUP
The team at Roadhouse and Melvin are difficult to pin down when it comes to styles. Their flagship lager, Highwayman, won a well-deserved Gold at the 2025 World Beer Cup in the American Style Pilsener category. Family Vacation won a Silver Medal at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival in the American Style Light Lager category.
They’re no strangers to hoppy beers either, with iconic beers like Melvin’s 2x4 Double IPA and Roadhouse’s palate pleasing Walrus both flaunting their decades long hop proficiency. Don’t sleep on their saisons either, with Sacred Creed showing a complex depth of flavor with an extremely dry finish.
So when it came to the lineup at our shared Featured Sponsor Booth, we knew we wanted variety of styles produced to feature an equally expansive variety of malts from Boortmalt’s network of historic and innovative malthouses across the globe.
We settled on 10 recipes, including core recipes like Walrus, 2x4, Sacred Creed but also novel recipes like an Oktoberfest featuring our brand new Salzgitter Vienna malt and a Bohemian style Pilsner brewed exclusively with our brand new Rhapsody Bohemian Pilsner malt from Badass Barley Malt. We even ran it back with another fresh hop beer, “Friggity Fresh” to be poured in the Maker’s Lounge.
You can’t have this deep of a lineup without a flagship. We settled on Petey’s Powerwagon Pils, a reimagined version of the doubly award winning Highwayman Pilsener, brewed with 100% Prairie Select malt. Our friends from Stout Collective helped us put together unique can artwork for this beer, designed to be consumed in ice cold cans.
THE FUN STUFF
So with a killer lineup of beers decided upon, several collaboration brew days behind us, a dusky skiff ride down the Teton river and no small amount of beers and laughter shared together, we began to finalize the fun stuff.
We settled on a limited edition print run of t-shirts, with custom artwork from our friends at Stout Collective.
We designed custom Petey the Prairie dog plushy dolls, replete with Prairie branded bandanas, to be incorporated into a festive and fun scavenger hunt on the Festival floor.
We commissioned accomplished beer-industry artist Phineas X. Jones to produce a custom illustration inspired by “Petey’s House of Pilsner,” a fictional dive bar where Petey has been known to knock back a few cans of his Powerwagon Pilsner in the evenings.
We’re making postcards that evoke the natural beauty of the landscape surrounding Roadhouse in beautiful Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Melvin in Alpine, WY and our Prairie plant in Biggar, Saskatchewan.
Best of all – we’re throwing a rager of an after-party on Thursday, October 11th. Visit our booth (BB18) to find out more about when and where. Be advised, you will not want to miss it!
MALTSTERS HAVE MORE FUN
So what more could we possibly ask for?
A deep lineup of widely respected beers featuring new and traditional malts—check.
Prairie dog paraphernalia – check. T-shirts, illustrations, games, after-party—check.
The only thing left to do? Show up on October 8th – 11th and see for yourself why Maltsters Have More Fun.
Roadhouse Brewmaster, Max Shafer had this to say about the collaboration:
"Beer and brewing is always supposed to be fun - and as everyone knows, Maltsters have more fun. Coming together with the team from Prairie is always a pleasure and an absolute joy but this time around was next level special. Having the chance to get together and brew some hyper exclusive and unique beers for Craft Brewing’s largest stage was an honor and left my cup filled. I love collaboration because of the opportunities to learn from one another and that’s what I get every time I work with the Prairie Malt team. Using malts new to Roadhouse and Melvin, and in some cases new malts to the greater Boortmalt portfolio, left us all giddy and excited for these malts and whatever else has yet to come. I am so excited to have the Roadhouse and Melvin brands behind the beers showcasing the world’s finest barley and wheat products - and I look forward to sharing a taster of these beerswith everyone who comes to try them at GABF!"
Shoutout to Max, Jon, and the entire Pure Madness team for their help and support.
