Have you ever been to Purdue?
I have. I actually dated a Purdue student for a while, despite not attending myself; I spent quite a few weekends on and around campus and touring the lovely* West Lafayette area.
(*lovely, used here, means “a permanently overcast rick and concrete combination of a boring piece of Indiana and fall of the Soviet Union-era Russian architecture.)
There’s not a ton to do. It’s fine, all things considered. There are worse places. But as with most of Indiana, it’s the kind of place that absolutely loves to try something new. Where I grew up (very small town in proximity to other slightly-smaller towns), if a Ruby Tuesday opened within thirty minutes of us, we were definitely going to go the first Friday it was an option, and we were just as definitely going to wait an hour for a table because everyone else had the same idea.
This is a long way to go to tell you that Purdue has an officially licensed beer, and it’s selling incredibly well at football games and at an on campus tavern. We told you in June that Purdue was going to sell beer at football games for the first time this fall, but we didn’t know their own licensed beer would be such a popular product.
At least eight (college licensed) beers are currently on the market, a half dozen of which are new this year, and all of which allowed a brewery sanctioned use of a schools name or mascot—beers like New Mexico State University’s Pistol Pete’s 1888 Ale and Tulane University’s Green Wave Beer. One of the latest of the bunch comes from Purdue University: The Indiana school’s Boiler Gold-American Golden Ale was announced and released this month – and the excitement surrounding it has offered up another answer to my original question: demand.
In a piece for Lafayette, Indiana’s Journal & Courier, Dave Bangert described just how successful Boiler Gold’s launch has been, both in public interest and actual sales. At the brew’s debut during the Boilermaker’s first home football game, lines were so long some fans were choosing the beer over the game.
“We missed the opening kickoff due to large, slow-moving lines,” said one attendee from Indianapolis. “At one point, I overheard a worker say, ‘We didn’t expect this many people.'” Turns out that fan was lucky he got to try it at all: A university spokesman said that all 150 cases of 16-ounce cans sold out, some before the game even started.
There’s nothing wrong with that! And hey, maybe the beer is awesome! I now once again live within a few hours of Purdue’s campus, and if it pops up in any local store or bar, I will absolutely drink one or two or seven and report back with my full review.
But more likely, this is a product that couldn’t be more directly available to the absolute sweet spot of their target demographic. And it’s new, which people in Indiana love. It’ll probably still sell very well throughout the year, and it’s just as likely that it becomes a staple, or a traditional purchase when visiting campus or the game, especially if it never expands beyond West Lafayette.
And hey, the football team itself is undergoing a bit of a renaissance under Jeff Brohm. Things are really turning around down there.
Just in time for the annual 8 month West Lafayette winter.
