MORGANTOWN — Country Roads Trust Lager, a co-branded beer between the Country Roads Trust NIL collective and Big Timber Brewing Company, was officially unveiled Wednesday at the Mountaineer Tap House in Morgantown.
The beer is the latest co-branded beer to pop up in recent months between a brewery and a school’s NIL collective.
Once they saw other schools launching a branded beer, Country Roads Trust COO Stephen Ford said it was a natural fit to develop one for WVU.
“It was an easy call for both of us to get together,” Ford said before Wednesday’s event. “What we first started talking about was not what it is today. Once you get the ideas flowing, the wheels start spinning and it all happened kind of fast.”
The release lined up with the beginning of WVU’s fall football practices, the first of which took place Wednesday morning a few miles away at Milan Puskar Stadium, where the beer will be sold during WVU home games.
“It’s what gives me goosebumps,” Ford said. “I’ve been going to games at Milan Puskar Stadium since 2015 and to see our name in people’s hands on gameday is a dream come true.”
Revealed Wednesday, the beer comes in a 16-ounce can featuring the familiar gold and blue colors of WVU. Big Timber Brewing and Country Roads Trust both have their names emblazoned on the can, which was designed by Wheelhouse Creative, a design company based in Wheeling.
Ford said it was important to partner with an in-state brewery to create Country Roads Lager and they were more than happy to work with Big Timber Brewing, located in Elkins.
“Almost all of the business that we do is with vendors within West Virginia,” Ford said. “A lot of our gear, promotional items and the beer that we’re doing now, we want to give back to West Virginia, we want to give back to West Virginia companies.”
Matt Kwasniewski, who owns Big Timber Brewing with his wife Ashley, explained that Country Roads Trust Lager is not a completely new beer.
“We did a small batch of American light lager and called it BT Light in the past,” Kwasniewski explained. “When we do these collaborations we try to figure out what people want, so we sat down and tried several beers that we had on tap. They really liked the way BT Light tasted so we just ramped up production as Country Roads Trust Lager.”
Kwasniewski said Country Roads Trust Lager will be sold across the state where Big Timber Brewing products are stocked and 15% of all sales of the beer will go back to the collective to support WVU athletics.
“I’m born and raised in West Virginia, there’s a lot of pride in West Virginia,” Kwasniewski said. “To make a West Virginia product that supports the Trust and supports the student-athletes, we’re very proud. Sometimes (West Virginians) don’t have as much to hang our hat on as other states but when we do, we show up for it. I’m very happy for that.”
