Other Half Brewing Creates Global Beer Collaboration to Support the Hospitality Industry

In 2018, when the Camp Fire wildfires devastated Northern California, one of America’s largest independent brewers — Sierra Nevada — devised a plan to let breweries across the country and around the world raise money for the cause on their own terms. Resilience IPA was a beer than any brewery could produce — Sierra Nevada made the recipe public — and in return, all they asked was that proceeds go to those impacted by the fires. Well over 1,000 breweries participated.

Now, as the world battles the COVID-19 outbreak, one of America’s most-acclaimed breweries — New York’s Other Half — is borrowing the concept and asking brewers from around the globe to help them raise money to support the hospitality industry at a time when beer sales are plummeting as restaurants, bars, and taprooms have been forced to shut. All Together will be a global beer collaboration with individual breweries offering their own take on a single recipe to their local communities.

“Raising awareness about the devastating losses in the hospitality industry is the core vision of this project,” said Other Half Co-founder Matt Monahan. “We want to keep these losses at the forefront of conversations so that anyone who wants to help can learn what is happening and find a way to contribute to the recovery.”

As Other Half explains in its announcement, “#AllTogetherBeer invites any brewer, from any corner of the planet, to participate by providing the tools needed to make the beer at the lowest possible cost, including an open-source recipe, artwork, and name. In exchange, the collective asks that a portion of the proceeds go to supporting hospitality professionals in each brewery’s own community. The rest should be donated to keeping the brewery in business to weather this storm.” Specifically, Other Half has pledged its proceeds to the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation.

The list of breweries launching this effort is practically a who’s who of heralded global craft beer producers. Domestically, it features Side Project, Monkish, Trillium, Alvarado St, Arizona Wilderness, Outer Range, The Veil, Humble Sea, Finback, 3 Sheeps, Sigma, Southern Grist, Burial, Mikerphone, Pilot Project, Modist, Homes, KCBC, Industrial Arts, Fifth Hammer, Hidden Springs, Green Cheek, Bottle Logic, Parish, Vitamin Sea, Ska, Equilibrium, Carton Atlantic, American Solera, Civil Society, Anchorage, Hoof Hearted, Barrier, Sand City, and Dancing Gnome. Internationally, the list includes Omnipollo, Crak, Northern Monk, Garage Project (NZ), Wylam, Lervig, Stavanger, Juguetes Perdidos, Bellwoods, Whiplash, Boundary, and Collective Arts.

As for the beer itself, Other Half is known for its elaborate recipes with hand-picked hops and other high-quality ingredients, but in this case, the brewery opted for a base recipe that can be “easily brewed with commonly sourced ingredients” leaving brewers to make All Together either a New England IPA or a West Coast IPA as they see fit. Label artwork and other graphics can also be downloaded for free. Other Half says it hopes the beers will be available as soon as next month, April.

As for beer drinkers, they are encouraged to support the cause by signing up for the mailing list so they can find out when these All Together IPAs will be available to purchase from their local brewery. And from there, obviously, they’ll want to help out by actually buying the results as well.

Meanwhile, breweries who want to get involved are being directed to the official website — alltogether.beer — for more information. Other Half writes, “We're inviting any brewer, from any corner of the planet to participate.”