In Cartersville, Georgia, there’s a new brew in town – and you can’t get it anywhere else in the state, country, or world, for that matter. Since Anheuser-Busch’s brewery in Cartersville began offering a limited number of public tours for the first time since opening in 1993, visitors to its pop-up tour center have been able to sample Etowah Imperial Lager, the new limited edition creation from Cartersville Brewmaster Travis Moore and his talented brewing team.
A Georgia native, Moore received a Food Science degree from the University of Georgia, where he initially developed his passion for beer through occasional homebrewing. Moore’s first job at Anheuser-Busch was as a midnight shift supervisor on the can line. “Working for A-B was a dream of mine I’d always had. I would have swept the floors if they’d have let me.”
Moore claims that he’s always had a few different recipes and styles in mind to create, but just needed the right opportunity. So he approached Cartersville general manager, Rob Haas, with a proposition: “I said, ‘We’re going to have tours here for the first time. Let’s have a brand of beer that you can only get in Cartersville to celebrate.'”
Moore and Assistant Brewmaster Amruth Reddy immediately got to work with their skilled crew of brewers — the result of which was a full-bodied lager made with distinct German hop varieties such as Hallertau and Tettenang. Unfiltered, the Etowah Imperial Lager features a dark golden, hazy color. As an “Imperial,” it offers an elevated alcohol content (about 6.5% ABV), a fuller body, and more flavor, thanks to a dry-hopping with German Spalter Select hops. “We actually put a bunch of hops inside of the tank and aged this beer for 21 days,” Moore explains. The outcome is a hop aroma bursting with spicy, floral, citrusy notes.
The lager was directly inspired by the region in which it was brewed, so “everything that’s in the beer are ingredients that we already had on hand,” Moore notes. Even the name of the beer is regionally inspired, as the brewery gets its water from the Etowah River, surrounded by the Etowah Indian Mounds, a 54-acre prehistoric archaeological site that was previously the epicenter of culture for indigenous peoples and now a National Historic Landmark.
In addition to brewing for local tastes, Moore is personally invested in this beer as well. “As the Brewmaster [brewing] some of the most popular brands in the world….my job is to ensure that those brands are of the highest quality and consistency so they’ll taste the same no matter where they come from.”
Much like his colleagues at Anheuser-Busch’s smaller Research Pilot Brewery (RPB) in St. Louis, Moore was able to experiment independently and use his local insights to deliver a beer that the community could connect with.
As thrilled as Moore and his team are about the lager, its release has been equally exciting for the city of Cartersville. “We’ve been sampling it for the public, and everybody I’ve talked to really loved it.” Despite the hundreds of visitors who have asked when and where the beer will be available for purchase, Moore has had to explain again and again that, “you can’t get it elsewhere – this is it.”
Etowah Imperial Lager is available exclusively at the Cartersville Anheuser-Busch brewery through April 12th.
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