Above the call of brewery

What’s better than free craft beer after a bike ride? Raising money for charity and drinking free craft beer after a bike ride.

Come to Firetrucker Brewery this Saturday, June 27, to support Multiple Sclerosis while you ride.

Firetrucker Brewery is working to create community engagement at the young brewery, which will celebrate its first anniversary on Independence Day weekend. To start, each night, the brewery either has a food truck hanging out on its patio, or it will pick different restaurants in Ankeny for patrons to order from while they drink in the lounge or on the patio. The bartenders call your order over, and they go pick it up themselves when it’s ready.

On top of that, the brewery collaborates with other local breweries, creating unique beers together, as well as hosting contests at local bars with those same breweries, bringing business to the bar, and good-natured competition.

Through Firetrucker’s support, the enhancement of other local businesses and community members in Ankeny is apparent, but that’s not where it ends.

In another effort to bring the local community closer together, Firetrucker is going above and beyond the call of brewery. To raise money for the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Firetrucker Brewery is teaming up with BikeMS to host the C.H. Robinson Iowa Ride 2015 on June 27.

Starting at 7 a.m. at the Ankeny Fire Station — across the street from Firetrucker — riders of all levels of expertise can choose from a 25-, 50- or 75-mile ride. All three routes will have rest stops along the way with water, fruit and other snacks. Each course will end at Firetrucker, which will be stocked with food, beer and fun activities.

The registration fee for the ride is $30, and each rider is asked to fundraise an additional $100 minimum for the donation. Registration includes access to online fundraising tools, a BikeMS T-shirt, snacks and refreshments, mechanical and medical support and free craft beer when you cross the finish line.

For those who aren’t into biking, there’s no cost to attend the event if you’re not riding. Just show up around noon to enjoy Firetrucker’s craft beer, live music and food.

Randy Burk, an Americana artist, will start his music set at 1:15 p.m., followed by folk artists Courtney Krause and Luke Fox at 2:30 p.m. The rest of the afternoon will be filled with music by club DJ Chris Coffey.

The Multiple Sclerosis C.H. Robinson Iowa Ride 2015 officially ends at 4:30 p.m., but Firetrucker will keep the taproom open until 10 p.m.

Firetrucker Brewery calls craft beer an art. To create this art, it believes in the spirit of innovation, a sense of community and the desire to improve life. They’ve done all of this and more. And as Firetrucker says, “beer is awesome.” CV

Firetrucker Brewery
716 S.W. Third St., Ankeny • 964-1284
Tues. – Thurs. 4-10 p.m.
Fri. – Sat. noon – 10 p.m.
Sun. noon – 8 p.m.
www.firetrucker.com

Bike MS: C.H. Robinson Iowa Ride 2015
June 27, 2015, 7:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Bike MS Team • 855-372-1331
fundraisingsupport@nmss.org
www.facebook.com/ev

Bri Levandowski is a senior in journalism at Iowa State University. She is writing as part of an internship with Cityview.