Scamper IPA is back!! Now on tap in the Brevard taproom and always a fan favorite, we thought it would be interesting to give a quick history of the Scamper IPA and how it came to be.
When UpCountry first started distributing outside of our Asheville taproom back in 2017, we originally began with 16oz cans of Hop Dread IPA and Bogey Free Session IPA. Anyone recall these goodies?
With our local Asheville distributor encouraging us to produce a new product that would instead be available in 12oz cans, we went with our best selling beer style in the taproom at the time - the gose. The idea was to do a seasonal line of gose beers. We started with the Mangose, followed by the Black Currant Gose, and then the Dill Pickle Gose. We had even more gose options planned, but we received such incredible demand to keep the Black Currant and Dill Pickle year round that we eventually shifted to that concept. But.......
....we still needed "THE IPA". It seemed every successful brewery had one. UpCountry had made several one-off IPA's in the taproom by this point but none seemed like it would be "THE ONE" needed to succeed at the distribution game. So UpCountry's brew team at the time (Bryan Bobo - now at Wedge, Josh Yoder - now at Highland, and Leah Tyrell - now co-owner of Silver Spruce Brewing in Traverse City, MI) did some research and a few test brews and IMHO they perfected a brilliant IPA recipe.
With beer recipe in hand, we then had to decide on a name. As anyone in the beer business today will tell you, with 9,000+ breweries in the US producing hundreds of thousands of beers, it's a challenge trying to pick a unique and catchy beer name. Luckily, John had some friends in Atlanta that had recently launched ScamperVan, a company they intended to be the Southeast’s 1st and ONLY combo campervan rental and concierge service. With a quick phone call, UpCountry secured not only the rights to the name "Scamper IPA", but also a collaborative partnership with ScamperVan, that proved to be a win/win.
Click HERE to see the Brewbound press release from the initial Scamper IPA release party back in 2018.
Cheers, John