Everyone knows someone who’s gotten really into homebrewing. People just love the craft of picking their own flavors and ingredients and brewing some beer in their own garage.
But now someone very unexpected has gotten in on the hobby: Charlie, a sloth at the LA Zoo! That’s right: this sloth had a hand in creating a limited-edition beer—and if you’re in the area, you can try it for yourself.
It’s all part of the LA Zoo’s annual “Brew at the LA Zoo” event, happening this Friday, August 2. The brew fest includes craft beer from 40 local breweries, but of course the zoo needed their own signature drink, and decided to enlist one of their animals to choose the flavors.
At last year’s festival a bear named Ranger had the honor, but this time it was Charlie’s time to be the brewmaster.
Charlie was given a table of ingredients to work with, a mix of different fruits and vegetables. While sloths are known for being slow, Charlie apparently had a stroke of inspiration and immediately chose the pear and the roses.
Simmzy’s Pub, who is partnering on the beer, was then tasked with creating a new brew using the sloth’s chosen ingredients.
“We’ll figure something out,” Simmzy’s head brewer Brian Herbertson told the LA Zoo in a video. “It should be fun.”
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The result: a beer called “Slothen Bräu,” which the site describes as a “crisp, refreshing German-style kolsch.”
“I’m very excited about this beer and had a lot of fun naming it, which ended up being a play on words with another well-known German beer named Löwenbräu, which translates to ‘lion’s brew,’ so we created a sloth’s brew and named it “Slothen Bräu,” Herbertson told the Beverly Press.
The sloth’s artisanal beer will be available at the Brew in the LA Zoo event and at Simmzy’s locations for a limited time. Tickets for beer sampling admission start at $65 (or $35 with unlimited soft drink refills if you’re the designated driver.)
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to drink beer crafted by a sloth, which is pretty much everyone’s dream, so make your plans now.
On #InternationalSlothDay we celebrate Charlie, our Linné's two-toed #sloth. He loves eating flowers and sleeping. 🌹 pic.twitter.com/LAgtMYDd0J
— Los Angeles Zoo (@LAZoo) October 20, 2016
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