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Google Beer “Gigabit IPA” Debuts in Portland, Oregon

30 March 2010 57 Comments Contributed By: kfinsand
Final Logo Version

Final Gigabit IPA Logo Version

What happens when you combine a passionate Portland, Oregon technology community, Google and Hopworks?  You get Gigabit IPA.  Described by Hopwork’s Brewer Ben Love, “this fresh & edgy IPA honors Portland’s new gigabit network project pioneering a connected future with Google fiber-to-home.  Embrace the bandwidth with a massive NW hop aroma, with rich citrus and pine accents aggressively balanced with clear malt caramel flavor, and a deep, clean, satisfying finish. From Hopworks, the world’s first carbon-neutral artisnal brewery.”

The back story.  This past month I joined the grass roots efforts led by a small group of people banded together to lobby Google to consider Portland, Oregon as the perfect spot to roll out their Google Fiber for Communities experiment. Google is planning to design and build one of the fastest experimental broadband networks in the world, delivering over 1 gigabit per second fiber-to-the-home connections at a competitive price for up to 500,000 homes.  Teresa Boze a fellow Beer and Blogger brought me into this project to help recruit a brewery to create a special beer that represents the sustainability, quality, innovation and creativity that is Portland, Oregon.

Gigabyte Logo

Gigabyte Logo

I had several breweries in my mind for the project, but at the top of the list was Hopworks Urban Brewery.  Monday of last week I was asked by Sheldon Renan (the ring leader of PDXFIBER) to set up a meeting later that day with Hopworks.  Fortunately I was able to deliver and meet with Christian Ettinger (Owner/Brewer) and Ben Love (Brewer).  After talking about the project we were all excited and Hopworks quickly got things brewing.  Fast forward to this week and we collectively came up with two names for the beer, Gigabyte IPA or Gigabit IPA.  We chose Gigabit IPA because it was more relevant to the topic.  Next Bram Pitoyo used his typography skills to create a Google inspired logo for the beer which will be bottled in very limited supply and delivered to Google.


This Thursday at 2pm Hopworks will be hosting a special media preview offering the first taste of Portland’s new Gigabit IPA.  The event will be in the brewery and representatives from the project, the brewery and the city will be on hand.  Then on Friday Justin Kistner of Beer and Blog will be hosting the public release at the Green Dragon with the Hopworks team and their beloved bike bar.

There are over 1100 communities fighting for the opportunity to have Google create a high speed fiber network in their town.  Only time will tell who Google will choose as they are in no rush to make a decision.  No matter what happens we do know that Portland will continue to be a creative community making great beer.

Update: A few things that have come to my attention.  This effort has been put together in a short period of time with a lot of stake holders involved so I want to make sure everyone gets the appropriate credit.  Michael Weinberg was actually the initiator of the PDXFIBER project.  While Sheldon Renan and Ben Love worked on the beer description.


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kfinsand

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