Please read on for complete details on the release of Hopworks’ Gigabit IPA.

Portland Brews Up “Gigabit IPA” To Attract Google’s Fast Gigabit Fiber Network To Portland

Google-inspired IPA will be introduced to the public from 4pm to 6pm, Friday, April 2, 2010, at Portland’s Green Dragon, where the city’s geeks and creatives meet for “Beer and Blog’’ every week Portland’s geek, creative and beer communities have joined forces to brew up Gigabit IPA, special microbrew to help the City of Portland convince Internet giant Google to build an innovative gigabit fiber network here. Friday afternoon from 4 to 6pm, the new “broadband beer” will be introduced to beer enthusiasts at “Beer and Blog” at the Green Dragon brewpub (928 SE 9th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 503-517-0660) where techies and creatives gather to blog every week.

Justin Kistner, host of Friday’s event, says, “You don’t have to be a blogger to come. Everyone’s welcome to come and ‘embrace the bandwidth’ with a growler of Portland’s newest microbrew.” A senior executive at Webtrends, Kistner founded Beer and Blog in Portland two years ago. Today Beer and Blog chapters meet every Friday afternoon in 18 cities as far away as Tokyo, and Kistner is inviting all of them to join in serving Portland’s Gigabit IPA.

The idea of brewing a special beer in honor of Google’s superfast broadband began at a potluck with local geeks and creatives meeting with the City of Portland team to come up with a strategy to get Google’s attention. Over 1,100 U.S. cities have applied to be testbeds for Google’s innovative network, but Portland offers something extra that geeks at Google are reputed to love: awesome craftbeers.

Portland beer maven Kerry Finsand (whose title at start-up Taplister.com is “Chief Beer Officer”) was enlisted to find a local brewmaster who could produce a world class beer for the Google initiative and do it at Internet speed. He suggested Christian Ettinger of Hopworks, whose organic IPA won gold at the World Beer Cup. Ettinger spent years designing and building the world’s first carbon-neutral brewery in Portland, a city where green and sustainable living is the goal. (Google is also known for its many green initiatives. Google’s innovative gigabit network will utilize fiber-to-the-home to save many millions of dollars in energy costs.)

The new Google-inspired beer is, of course, organic. The best description of Hopworks Organic Gigabit IPA is the words on every bottle:

“This fresh & edgy IPA honors Portland’s new gigabit network project to pioneer a connected future with Google fiber-to-the-home. Embrace the bandwidth with a massive NW hop aroma, with rich citrus and pine accents aggressively balanced with clear malt caramel flavor, and a deep, clean, satisfying finish. From Hopworks, the world’s first carbon-neutral artisanal brewery.”

The cheerful logo for Gigabit IPA, with colors that evoke the Google brand, was designed by Bram Pitoyo, a typographer popular with the PDX geek community. The Gigabit IPA story and logo are featured on www.portlandheartsgoogle.com, the City of Portland’s new website, where visitors will find links to many communities and organizations supporting the new network initiative.

Portland has worked for 15 years to bring fast broadband and rich connectivity to this international hub for open source technology. And by coincidence, 15 years is exactly how long Christian Ettinger has been brewing innovative craftbrews. Plans are to make Gigabit IPA, his newest, available on tap, in kegs and in 22 ounce bottles in Portland.