Denver’s Spangalang Brewery and North Carolina’s Fullsteam Brewery make Super Bowl beer wager

In advance of the upcoming Super Bowl between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers, Spangalang Brewery (Denver) and Fullsteam Brewery (Durham, N.C.) are entering into a wager on behalf of their respective NFL home teams. The terms of the wager are significant for the brewers and their fans.

The losing brewery will have to brew a special batch of beer from a recipe chosen by the winning brewery. The beer recipe must include indigenous ingredients from the winner’s state and will be named by the winning brewery. On tapping day, the losing brewery must hang the winning team’s flag and fly it for one week or until the beer is gone, whichever comes first.

“That Panthers flag,” said Sean Lilly Wilson, founder of Fullsteam Brewery, “is going to look great hanging in the Spangalang tasting room. But we’ll send a beer recipe with some choice Carolina ingredients and flavor to help ease the pain of Denver’s loss.”

“It will be interesting to see if Cam Newton can sport his 1000-watt smile with Von Miller in his face,” said Spangalang co-founder and brewer Darren Boyd. “I’m thinking ‘Cam’s Kryptonite’ would be a good name for the beer recipe we send to North Carolina.”

Each brewery will be asking its social media followers to suggest beer styles, local ingredients and names for the winning beers. On Feb. 5, the Friday before the Super Bowl, each brewery will release a special pre-game beer to rally local fans.

Spangalang will bring back Orange Crushsicle, which it debuted prior to the Broncos defeating the New England Patriots to win the AFC crown and a place in the Super Bowl. The beer equivalent of the Dreamsicle frozen treat, Orange Crushscicle is a citrus session ale enhanced with orange juice, sweet and bitter orange peel and vanilla. Its name pays tribute to the past and current defense of the Broncos and predicted the creaming of the Patriots by the Broncos.

“Broncos fans came out in droves to try the beer last weekend,” said Spangalang brewer and co-founder Taylor Rees. “Our tap room will be a sea of orange jerseys when we tap it again.”

Fullsteam will release Bless Their Heart, a twist on its recent collaboration with Charlotte-based Free Range Brewing. The beer is made with foraged juniper, North Carolina Frasier fir, and an addition of chokeberry syrup. “We thought chokeberry would be a good ingredient to use in this beer,” Wilson said, “due to Manning’s history of choking in the Super Bowl.”

No matter which team wins the game, the rival brewers are comfortable with the wager. “The worst that can happen,” Boyd said, “is we let a like-minded, quality obsessed craft brewer take the lead on a beer of ours. So this is a good bet to make. Although the Panthers flag in our brewery would make us all sick.”