People make parties, but a custom-made craft beer can help make a special evening even better. For the next post in our People of Party Rental series, Business Development Manager Hollie Herrick shared with us the story behind The Hoppy Hippo, a custom craft beer she created for this year’s Spring Boston Open House. Learn all about how she created the signature recipe, the story behind the name, and more.
Business Development Manager Hollie Herrick
When we started planning our Open House this year, I offered to help source the alcohol. Craft beer is very on-trend right now, and many restaurants in Boston have a custom-brewed house beer, so I thought, “We should create our own custom beer, too!” I love the Party Rental Ltd. branding — the hippo, our marketing, our social media — and I thought this could be a fun and unique way to bring our brand to life.
My husband is really into craft beer, so I’m familiar with many of the local breweries. I started calling around to see what our options were, and I connected with Hopsters, a brewery based in Newton, Massachusetts that lets guests brew their own craft beer. When I reached out, I spoke with Kristen who explained the process to me and helped me make a reservation at their Seaport location.
When the big day arrived, I arrived at Hopsters with a few clients, ready to brew. Our Brew Master Evan sat with us to find out what kind of beer we were looking to create. I’m a fan of light Belgians for spring since they’re fun and easy to drink, so we used that as our starting point. From there, we chose our signature selection of hops — a mix of Amarillo, Centennials, and Chinook hops. We got our kettle, barley, hops, and other ingredients, and with the Hopsters team as our guide, we brewed our beer in about three hours.
About three weeks later, we returned to Hopsters to bottle and label our beer. I had tapped our Marketing team for help naming the beer and creating the custom label, and “The Hoppy Hippo” was born! I thought it was a fun nod to the hoppy-flavors of the beer and our own happy hippo, and the label featured our pink logo with its signature smile. After bottling, we had three cases of craft brews ready to serve at our Spring Open House, and, needless to say, they were a hit!
I loved the process of creating our own craft beer, and I look forward to doing it again! Not only was it was fun being creative, I loved that we were able to support a growing local business.