St. Charles breweries celebrate release of collaboration beer, part of proceeds to benefit Tri-City Health Partnership

There was plenty of enthusiasm on display June 15 at Riverlands Brewing Company in St. Charles for the release of the STC Six, the first-ever St. Charles collaboration beer.

Pollyanna Brewing Company, Alter Brewing, 93 Octane Brewing, Broken Brix Winery Cidery, D and G Brewing Company and Riverlands Brewing Company collaborated together to create a beer. A portion of the sales will go to Tri City Health Partnership, which operates a free private, nonprofit medical and dental clinic at 318 Walnut St. in downtown St. Charles.

“We had a ton of fun brewing it,” said Eric Bramwell, head brewer and co-founder of Riverlands Brewing Company. “It was an amazing time. Everyone in this room who helped make this beer is a super talented brewer. And the best part about this is it’s for an awesome cause.”

St. Charles Mayor Lora Vitek led the crowd in a toast.

“What is so cool about this is that the breweries are all in St. Charles and they are all unique,” she said as she raised a glass of the beer. “Please raise your glass for this awesome collaboration.”

After the toast, Vitek talked more about the businesses involved in the collaboration.

“The fact that these six brewers got together to do this is cool because they’re all unique,” Vitek said. “They’re bringing their specialties to one another and they’re bringing something special to St. Charles.”

Tri City Health Partnership executive director Kim Lamansky went to all the breweries and thanked the owners for wanting to participate in the collaboration. Many of the patients that the clinic sees work in bars or restaurants.

“A lot of the places can’t afford to provide insurance for them,” she said. “This was such a great marriage. It’s just great that they’re giving back to us and we’ve been giving back to them.”

The clinic continues to be busy.

“We’re probably going to get 4,000 visits this year, which is about 1,000 more than we did last year,” Lamansky said.

Ryan Weidner, co-founder, president and CEO of Pollyanna Brewing Company, said the collaboration – as well as the beer – turned out even better than he expected.

“I am so happy with how the community has embraced it,” he said. “Now I’m starting to think when is beer No. 2 coming out and what is the next charity we are going to support. Maybe during Scarecrow Fest or maybe next year. I think we have something special here.”

Ed Seaman has owned and operated the Home Brew Shop since 1990. Broken Brix Winery and Cidery is the newest addition to the long running Home Brew Shop.

He is happy to be part of the collaboration.

“All these guys that have opened breweries have been my customers at some point in time,” Seaman said. “So they invited me. They said, ‘Well, you’re the godfather, you need to come and be a part of this.’ And I was honored.”