Lutsen 99er
Handing out free beer!
24.06.2022 - 25.06.2022
Last year I applied to be an Ambassador for Athletic Brewing. They are a completely Non-alcoholic brewery based out of Connecticut (with a second location in San Diego, and they have just opened a third location in Connecticut). As an ambassador, I get discounts on beer and merch when I post on social media, share with friends, etc. So if you've looked at my facebook or IG stories, you usually see them mentioned a few times a week.
Athletic is also very involved in organized races as well as trail development. 2% of all of their profits are donated to local trail projects, and they sponsor a number of races, as well as get involved by handing out product at others.
The Lutsen 99er is one of those races. Ambassadors are able to help out at these events by handing out beer and sharing information about the product. Most of these events don't take place in the midwest, so when there was one that was actually in Minnesota, I jumped at the chance! Now, let's also just remember that Minnesota is a huge state... so Lutsen is actually over a 6 hour drive from my house. I can get to Chicago in the same amount of time it takes me to get to Lutsen. But, I digress.
The biggest bonus about Lutsen is that my friend competes in it every year, so I figured I could watch him as well. As it turned out, I actually rode to Lutsen with him, which worked great for both of us (I drove him so he could work during the drive, and he had a hotel I could crash in... perfect!).
So I needed to be there by about 1pm for set up. The booth was going to be open from 2-8pm. Owen had a meeting at noon and one at one, so we were trying to get to the race before his second meeting so he could get set up for it. So it was just before one that I arrived at the race. I got in contact with Nick, who was the ABC employee that was meeting me there, and turns out he was still on the road on the way there. No worries! So I just walked around and tried to find the contact there. Turns out the beer hadn't been delivered yet either. So it was a bit of a waiting game.
Not long after I arrived, Emily found me to tell me the beer had arrived. So we went to the parking lot the truck had come to.
The almost unloaded pallet.
All loaded and ready to go!
Unloaded, stacked and waiting for a tent!
Nick showed up not too much after the beer was ready to go. I had put a number of cases on ice, so the beer was chilling and we just needed to get set up
Set up and ready to go!
Ready for all of my new friends to get free beer!
We had 5 beers to hand out. This one, the Downwinder Gose was one I was always a bit leery to order and try. I didn't think I would like it. I'm not a huge sour drinker, and it sounded like it might have a bit of wheat flavor to it. Nick described it to me as a "margarita beer" so I had to try it. It was good! Not exactly a beergarita, but pretty darn close. Nice and refreshing and there is some salt in there that balances out the sour nicely. Definitely worth an order!
So many things to hand out. The koozies went like crazy the next day. And the temporary tattoos took me about 3 weeks to actually fully remove haha!
We spent the afternoon handing out beer to people and just chatting with them. At the end of the night, Owen came to pick me up and we all decided to grab some food on the hill before heading down. Turns out, there was no where to eat cause there were so many people eating on the North Shore! So we ended up at a crazy expensive place on the lakefront.
Great view. though.
One of the best charcuterie boards I've ever had. Man it was so good. The blue cheese with the honeycomb was sooooo good and the pate was amazing! Owen ordered sturgeon which we all tried and I had a wild game burger. Nick got some salmon. All of the food was so good. One of the waiters was coming over and bringing Owen some whiskey samples too. It's fun when you're practically the only table in the restaurant cause it's the end of the night!
The next day was the race... and Owen didn't get to participate. Turns out when he packed his bike into the car the day before, he forgot his front tire. Oh no biggie, just buy a new one, right? Yep. Unless you have a mountain bike that only has one front fork and is super uncommon and specialized... so none of the bike people have a wheel with them that will work (cause why bring things no one will need or buy instead of bringing things that almost everyone could use?). So Owen and I went on a quick hike in the morning until we got eaten alive and turned around. So many bugs. So I drove up the hill and Owen decided he was going to run up a bit later. He's training for a full Ironman, so at least he could get some kind of training miles in.
Ready for the day!
Ryan, the owner of Fulton, stopped by our booth. They were also there and Nick had talked to him the year before. He stopped by and gave us one of their hop waters to try. So good! Definitely worth trying if you see them somewhere!
The finish line.
The crowds of riders and people cheering them on.
I had put tattoos on my arms the day before, but since it was a bit cooler that day, I was wearing a long sleeve shirt under my ambassador shirt... so you couldn't see them! So I decided to put one on my cheek instead. Luckily that one came off later that weekend! The arm ones, however... they lasted!
Nick had gone out of the booth with a flat of beer a couple times to hand it out. I decided to try it out myself. Ready to go!
Nick had brought some of the Athletic hop seltzer with him. This was the Yuzu Guava flavor which I had at home, but hadn't tried yet. Really good! I love the Hibiscus Lemongrass flavor, but this was really good too. It's a light flavor that really lets the hops stand out, which is why I really like it.
Get your free beer!
After the last riders came in, we cleared up the booth and decided to head down to the Fulton cart and chat with Ryan.
We brought him a case of beer that was leftover, and he happily poured us a couple pints of Lonely Blonde. We had a great time chatting. Turns out Ryan is one of the few Americans (or even people in general) that has lived in Western Australia, so we had a lot to talk about! Us WA kids are few and far between.
Owen had run up the hill and gotten the car, and then I let him know that we were finished and he headed our way. We all sat around and chatted a bit and then we decided to head into Grand Marais to Voyageurs Brewing to have some beers and food. Nick joined us as well.
Gotta love sunset
We finished eating and had been hearing live music, so we went on a journey to try to find it. We didn't succeed, but we managed to find the lake. Nick took his shoes off and went to test the water. Of course, it was freezing! After a short walk around, we decided to call it a night and head back.
Back to Lutsen!
What a fun weekend! It was so much fun meeting Nick and getting to do something really fun for Athletic! Definitely looking in to when I might be able to get involved again!
Posted by rhwanderlust 14:50 Archived in USA Comments (0)