Drink beer. Win prizes. What could be more fun?
That is the short story behind the Louisville Ale Trail, a get-your-passport-stamped program created by three beer-loving friends in 2020.
One of the trail’s co-founders, Michael Moeller, was enjoying a beer a few years ago at a Dayton, Ohio, brewery when he learned about that city’s beer passport program. He had heard about similar trails in bigger cities and was surprised to find one in Dayton. Although Dayton is smaller than Louisville, Moeller also was surprised to learn that the two cities had the exact same number of breweries. It was then that he realized that Louisville could have a beer trail.
Today, the Louisville Ale Trail has 24 stops. “We have 100 percent participation,” Moeller said. “Every brewery in Louisville is in the passport.”
Moeller predicts that, if people look through the passport, they will probably find a brewery they have never visited. He thinks of it as a way to introduce new beers and breweries and to educate the consumer.
“If we can get someone who lives downtown to go out to a brewery in [Jeffersontown], outside of their neighborhood, well, it is a win for us,” co-founder David Satterly said.
Beer drinkers purchase the Louisville Ale Trail passport—either at the breweries or online at louisvillealetrail.com for $10—and then visit the breweries at their leisure. No purchase is necessary to get your passport stamped, but of course, purchases are encouraged.
If participants complete at least half the trail, meaning they obtain 12 or more stamps, they can redeem their passport for a Louisville Ale Trail trucker hat or a Louisville Ale Trail barrel stave bottle opener. These openers are handmade by Satterly. “The bottle openers are a knock back to Louisville’s bourbon heritage,” Satterly said. “We source the staves from Bourbon Barrel Guys in Bardstown, who get them from distilleries like Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.”
If participants visit all the establishments and obtain all the stamps, they receive one of those prizes and are entered to win a $300 Visa gift card, which is referred to on the trail as “Beer Money.”
Gallant Fox Brewery on Frankfort Avenue opened in April 2020, which was a precarious time to open a business. The brewery wanted to participate in the trail as a way to get people in the door and has been surprised by the results. “Not only do we stamp quite a few passports each week, we also sell the passports and have to keep re-ordering them,” owner Roger Huff said. “We have the passport front and center on our bar.”
He said the passport helps the brewery with marketing, and it brings people in to try its popular Key Lime Pie Sour Ale. “It is the gamification of beer, because there is a prize,” Huff said. “But the passport gives people an actual reason to go see what other breweries are in Louisville.”
Moeller said that more than 2,000 people have acquired an Ale Trail passport since its inception.
“Louisville is definitely known as a bourbon city,” he said. “But we are a beer city, too, one that rivals all the great beer cities in America.”
For more information visit louisvillealetrail.com