Breweries are often popular attractions with plenty of visitors coming to see how beer is made… but one got a late-night visit from a very unexpected tour group.
New Glarus Brewing Company is famous for their Spotted Cow beer. It’s their best seller, and is only available in Wisconsin—the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that people come from out of state just to stock up on it.
But apparently it caught the attention of one unlikely group: a herd of actual cows, who apparently broke out of their corral and descended on the brewery in the early hours of September 23.
A security guard called the Green County Sheriff’s Department, and they were tasked with rounding up the 16 stray bovines in the parking lot.
Security cameras caught the unusual scene:
The brewery’s chief operating officer, Drew Cochrane, was woken up in the early morning about the strange news—and couldn’t believe the coincidence.
“Spotted cows come to the home of Spotted Cow,” Cochrane told CNN. “When the security guard called, I thought it was a joke.”
It’s still not clear how the cows ended up there. Did the cows think it was a beer for spotted cows? Were they attracted to the cows on the beer’s logo? Were they there to sue for unlicensed use of their name and image? So many questions.
“Our brewery is up on a hill, so I don’t know how they got up here,” Cochrane said. “It’s the craziest thing.”
Luckily, the cows were rounded up and returned home—and didn’t leave too much damage in their wake.
“There were no damages. They ate a bunch of our grass,” Cochrane told the Journal Sentinel. “We had a little cleaning up to do after they left, it’s fair to say.”
In the end, it was just a very strange story: “All I can say is it was an awfully interesting call to get at 2:30 in the morning.”
What a crazy coincidence. If you love spotted cows—the beer or the animal—share this story!
