By MATT HUMBARD — Last year, Calvert Brewing Company in Upper Marlboro, Md., created a special release beer for Hyattsville’s anniversary celebration. The beer was a collaboration between Calvert Brewing and the people of Hyattsville. The concept for the beer was voted on by residents using the city’s Speak Up HVL online forum. The winner was an ale that utilized local honey from Hope Honey Farm, owned by Hyattsville resident Maggie Mills, and named Honeyville.
A year later, Calvert Brewing Company decided to re-release the beer for the Hyattsville anniversary festival. This time, rather than a small test batch, Calvert brewed a larger, production scale batch of the beer and packaged it in 12 ounce cans using the logo designed by the City of Hyattsville last year. Even though this year’s batch is much larger, Calvert Brewing Company used the same local ingredients as last year to preserve the spirit of the beer and community.
“The beer was so popular last year that we made it the same this year. We even used the same local honey from Hope Honey Farm in Hyattsville — just a lot more of it!” explained Kara Capelli of Calvert Brewing Company. In addition to using local ingredients, city officials pitched in on brew day. The Hyattsville guests acted as brewing assistants in the production of Honeyville Ale. “Maggie Mills, who harvested the honey, poured it into the batch. It was an awesome team effort,” said Capelli. “We even had one of the city’s code enforcement officers [Joe Brewer] be our assistant brewer for the day. He had the chance to mill over 1,000 pounds of grain, and helped with some of the beer monitoring we do.”
The Honeyville Ale from Calvert Brewing Company will be available at the Hyattsville Anniversary Carnival in Magruder Park on April 14th starting at 6 p.m. It will also be available at the monthly summer jam festivals at city hall all summer and in local retailers in and around Hyattsville.
