For Immediate Release, 5/5/16

Valleyfair Amusement Park and Badger Hill Brewing have partnered to introduce a new and exclusive craft beer in honor of the amusement park’s 40th anniversary. High Roller Extra Park Ale, a brew as classic and satisfying as the ride it was named after, will be available all summer long at the upper Midwest’s largest amusement park. Badger Hill and Valleyfair are located less than a mile away from each other so this collaboration was the perfect pairing. The tap handles for High Roller Extra Park Ale are made by ReclaiMNed and fashioned out of reclaimed wood from the actual High Roller coaster, which is also celebrating it’s 40th Anniversary, giving it an extra special twist.

High Roller Extra Park Ale is modeled after an EPA style beer. It is malt-forward, easy drinking and perfect for a day at the park. At 5.2% ABV and 43 IBUs it is approachable and just what Valleyfair was looking for. The Valleyfair marketing team joined the Badger Hill team in April and tried four brews, choosing the Extra Park Ale as the winner. This beer release on Friday, May 13th and will be on tap at three locations in the park, including Atomic Beer, Chickie’s & Pete’s, Depot Refreshments as well as at the Badger Hill Taproom.

Cheers to celebrating 40 years at Valleyfair!

Badger Hill Brewing Company was founded in 2012 and moved to Shakopee, MN in late 2014. The taproom has weekly tours on Saturdays and serves unique beers that you cannot find outside of the brewery. Growlers are for sale Tuesday through Sunday. Find them in 6-pack cans at liquor stores throughout the state and on draught at select bars and restaurants. They are nestled between Canterbury Park and Valley Fair. Taproom hours and more information can be found at www.badgerhillbrewing.com.

Valleyfair is owned and operated by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, a publicly traded partnership that is listed for trading on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FUN.” In addition to Valleyfair, Cedar Fair owns and operates ten other amusement parks, three water parks, one indoor water park, and five hotels. Cedar Fair also operates the Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park in California under a management contract.

Badger Hill Brewing Company
Taproom Rental Information

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During our open taproom hours– we welcome groups of any size! Bring your friends, order in some food and enjoy some cold beers. If you’re looking to rent the space privately- here is some more information.

Private Rental Hours:
Monday- 10a-11p
Tuesday- 10a-3p (occasionally available for evening rental- ask us!)
Wednesday- 10a-3p
Thursday- 10a-3p
Friday- 10a-3p
Saturday- no private rentals
Sunday- 6p-11p (earlier available upon request)

Indoor Capacity: 100 seated, 120 standing

Patio Capacity: (weather permitting): 15 seated, 35 standing

Rental Fee (does not include cost of beer):
Staring at $150/hr, email info@badgerhillbrewing.com for more details.
Be sure to include set up and take down time in your rental length!

Provided:
Four high community tables
Three round high top tables
Seven low square tables
High top chairs (up to 45)
Regular chairs (up to 19)
28ft bar space
12 rotating taplines
Bartender(s)
Two flat-screen TVs
Non-alcoholic soda selections
Piped in music (Pandora or other)
Patio space with three picnic tables (weather permitting)
Games including Cards Against Humanity, Giant Jenga, Cribbage and more!
Public parking access

Private Rental Details:
*Access to the bar and outside beer garden area (weather permitting) for your guests only
*Ample parking in lot outside of brewery
*Cost of beer and gratuity is not included in rental fee. A selection of pints, flights and growlers (to go only) are available for purchase. We can handle payment for beer many ways- open bar, cash bar, split the tab and more. Just ask!
*If you need linens, decorations or other items you must work with an outside party. You are not allowed to hang items from the structure. You may have items for decoration on tables, please no open flames.
*Soda is available for purchase. No outside beverages allowed.
*Our license only covers service of our beer- no wine, cider or other alcohol is allowed on premise.
*We do not provide food for rentals, however you may work with a caterer of your choice. We encourage you to support local. Food Trucks are an option- please speak to the event coordinator prior to booking a Food Truck.
*We require the rental fee to be paid by check in full to secure the space rental.
*Tours given, depending on availability and brewhouse schedule

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Think of us for your:
Business/club meetings
Customer appreciation functions
Birthday party
Fundraisers
Retirement party

…and more!

We can offer customized packages to suit your needs- just ask!

To reserve the space or if you have questions-
please email info@badgerhill brewingcompany.com
Badger Hill Brewing Company * 4571 Valley Industrial Boulevard S * Shakopee, MN * 55379
www.badgerhillbrewing.com

We’ve had some challenging times in the last few weeks at Badger Hill Brewing. I’ll tell you a little about the good news in a minute but first the bad news.

Our canning line has produced some cans that leak. The problem seems to affect 4 batches of beer canned between 5/8/15 and 5/26/15.  We noticed the problem on our internal batch number 1030. We “fixed” it and then canned batch number 1032, which after time also leaked. At that point we stopped canning and called in the equipment and can manufacturers. We replaced the seamer heads and the pneumatics that seemed to be at the root of the problem. The tech from American Beer Equipment, the manufacturer of the canning line, stayed in Shakopee for 3 days as we ran the canning line and checked for leaks and other problems. Batches 1033 through 1036 were canned successfully with no leaks. But later that week the problems started to appear again. We stopped the line immediately. As far as we know, we haven’t produced any leaky cans since batch 1032. We are still working on a permanent fix but we have successfully isolated and routed around the problem as we do.

For those wondering, we perform quality control in two primary ways on the canning line. We weigh the cans and we measure the seams on the lid in height and width. These values get recorded. The minimum is to check at the beginning, middle and end of a canning run but we generally check several times each hour. The leaky cans passed all of these tests. Without having sophisticated x-ray machines or something, we don’t know how we could have caught this problem before we did. We noticed it due to little bubbles of beer on some cans and wet cases boxes on some cases. We did not knowingly ship out any beer in leaky cans!

Here is where we need your help. We need to know about every leaky can you discover. On the bottom of every can we sell, we print the batch number, a unique hashtag and date/time stamp. Just email the info on the bottom of the can to info@badgerhillbrewing.com. You can type it out or snap a picture. If you do this two good things happen. 1) We get more data about the window in which the bad cans were produced. This will help us understand the problem and let us know what we have to recall. But more importantly for you, 2) we stand behind our beer 100% and will replace that beer in some convenient way for you at no charge.

We’ve been drinking (I mean testing!) every batch of beer we’ve ever made. I have not yet opened a can of beer from Badger Hill that tasted different than we intended. If for some reason you drink a beer that was in a leaky can, you may not notice. The beer is not spoiled or tainted. But it is a problem that we won’t tolerate or expect our customer to tolerate.

While we’re on the bad news, we also dumped our first batch of beer a few weeks ago. It was not contaminated or full of off-flavors or anything. We just didn’t feel like it was the best pale ale we could make. While many of our customers loved it at the tap room, the other part of our guarantee to you is that we will not release beer that we don’t think is fantastic. Our tap room allows us to experiment in a wonderful way with a few kegs from our pilot system.

Speaking of the pilot system, let’s move on to the good news. We did an experiment where we brewed 300 gallons of pale ale and used American ale yeast in half and British ale yeast in the other half. The results are now on tap in the tap room. The difference in flavor and appearance is remarkable considering they were treated identically except for the yeast strain. They are both fantastic and the credit goes to brewer Todd Koppelman. Internally we’ve jokingly called it TP Ale. We also have a keg or two left of our English Mild, created by brewer Chase Dutton, that is truly mild and easy to drink at 3.5% alcohol by volume (ABV).

We are brewing as fast as we can these days. The patio is open at the tap room. We sell growlers on Sundays! You can pretty much walk to our brewery from Valley Fair. So while we tear our hair out every so often trying to make the best beer that can be made, we are enjoying every step of the way.

Finally, I’m very sorry if you experience a suboptimal Badger Hill beer due to this leaky can problem. Quality is our #1 concern and I am the one responsible for making sure it happens. I will keep trying to do better.

Thank you for your support!

Michael Koppelman
Head Brewer
Badger Hill Brewing
Shakopee, MN