CATAWBA ISLAND, Ohio — As the world watches what is happening in Ukraine, many are finding ways to help. Now, you can enjoy a locally-brewed beer while also supporting Ukrainian relief efforts.
"I think it's in everyone's general nature to want to help out other people wherever you can," Justin Williams, head brewer at Catawba Island Brewing Co., said.
The crew at CIBC was busy Wednesday canning a new brew.
As the crisis in Ukraine began, the Pravda Beer Co. located in Lviv, Ukraine sent out a worldwide call for financial assistance and released recipes from its award-winning "Victory Series" to help raise relief funds.
"I have no military background, I'm not joining the foreign legion, I'm not a musician," Williams said. "But as Mike had said, we know how to make beer. So, when they reached out and said 'Hey, help us out a little bit.' it just seemed like the perfect thing to do."
"Pretty much within an hour, we decided we were going to do it. We went and started looking at all the recipes they released, seeing how closely they were to ours, if we could brew them, how quick we could get them out," Mike Roder, president of Catawba Island Brewing Co., said.
The Catawba Island folks decided on a dry-hopped golden ale, and named it Slava Ukraini, meaning "Glory to Ukraine."
The first batch of Slava Ukraini went on sale on Saturday. The brewery made 120 cases of cans of the special beer, with 100 going to distributors. The final 20 cases were sold at the brewery and were gone by 2 p.m.
An even larger second batch will be available in a few weeks.
Along with portions of general sales of the beer going back to the Pravda Beer Co. Ukraine Relief Effort, Catawba Island Brewing will be hosteda fundraising event in-house on Saturday featuring live music, a 50/50 raffle and a silent auction.
$1 from every CIBC poured, and $3 from every Slava Ukraini sold will go towards the Ukraine relief effort.
"In general, breweries try to support each other. And when a brewery out of Ukraine who is about to be bombarded says 'Hey, we need help!' it wasn't that hard to make the decisions. We knew the world was following this, so it'd be easy to get the word out and sell quite a bit of it."
Along with that fundraiser this Saturday at Catawba Island Brewing Co., CIBC is also shipping out its Slava Ukraini beer to its Ohio distributors. The beer should also be on store shelves across the state this Saturday.
