Sometimes Shower Dreams Do Come True

*Originally written by Paul Von Hagen who quit

Have you ever heard the concept that the best ideas you have come when you’re in the shower? Woody Allen once said, “In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you’ve left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you.” I constantly find myself coming up with what I feel to be great ideas whilst under the barrage of hot water and the absence of the concept of passing time. Man, I love a good hot shower.

Back in January, one particular shower thought stood out to me while I was enjoying one of my other favorite things in life, a good ole shower beer. I consider myself a fervent advocate of the mighty shower beer, but I’ll save that sermon for another blog. I forget what exactly I was drinking, but it was definitely an IPA, something on the hoppier end, and it got me daydreaming about hops. This daydream led to my usually distraught chain of thought: Hops for charity, hoppy beer, hoppy beer for charity, hoppy IPA for charity? What would I call it? The name Hopping Hands immediately came to mind. I have a penchant for alliteration and bad puns, so any chance I can get to utilize both I’ll take it.

So that was it, a very basic idea to somehow use a hoppy IPA for charity. I fleshed the idea out in my head over the week, and with the help of many coworkers (shout out to Billy especially!), it ended up where it is now. The Hopping Hands Project, launching this month, will showcase a different single-hop IPA each month all summer, with a unique release around the 3rd week of May, June, July, and August. May’s single-hop is Cascade, and will be shipping out soon!

One of the surprisingly more difficult tasks for us was finding a charity that was willing to partner with us. This being a learning experience for me, pretty much everything I was doing ended up being accomplished last minute, including finding a suitable charity. I spoke to a good friend of mine, a local Marine Corps veteran, (hi Lee!) about what he would recommend if he were heading the charity. This is how I came to find out about the Veterans Conservation Corps, a department of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs. The VCC provides opportunities for veterans to connect with nature in their own way while restoring Washington’s natural resources. If you want to learn more, check them out here! After the recommendation from my good friend, I with the VCC program manager, and from there it was a no-brainer for us to partner with them.

Iron Horse Brewery has agreed to donate all of the brewery’s net proceeds from every Hopping Hands Project keg directly to the VCC, so please, help us out in supporting them by drinking a nice single-hop IPA this summer for the cause. If you’re not near one of the locations partnering with us to serve these beers, and would still like to donate, you’ll find more information on how to do so here!

Look for Hopping Hands Charity brews at these participating accounts:
Peaks and Pints, Tacoma
The Swiss, Tacoma
Topside Bar and Grill, Steilacoom
McNamara’s, DuPont
CRFT Beers, Auburn
19th Hole, Bremerton
Horse and Cow, Bremerton
Tracyton Pub, Bremerton
New Moon, Port Angeles
Ale Spike, Stanwood
Brigid Bottle Shop, Edmonds
Hop House, Redmond
Redmond Bar and Grill, Redmond (obviously)
Bennett’s Fish Shack, Ocean Shores
8th Street Ale House, Hoquiam
Charlie’s Tavern, Montesana
Billy’s, Aberdeen

Iron Horse Pub