CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Raise your glass and toast the trees! Big Grove Brewery has launched a new beverage designed to help restore tree canopies across the state.
Big Grove Brewery has partnered with Trees Forever, a Marion-based nonprofit tree conservation organization, to make a positive and lasting impact on the environment by increasing our tree canopy.
When the idea for this project came about, Big Grove wanted to find the right partner to join forces with. They thought Trees Forever would be the perfect partner, not only because they are a local organization, but because they are “experts in their field.”
This partnership resulted in the release of the fruit lager Good Grove, the beer that plants trees.
“We released it last year, changed the liquid a little bit and released it again this year. With each beer, a portion of the proceeds goes to planting trees across the state of Iowa,” said Mikala Demet, community and project manager at Big Grove Brewery.
With money raised from Good Grove sales, 87 trees were planted last year and 83 so far this year, bringing the total to 170.
And while Cedar Rapids was hit hard by the 2020 derecho, it wasn’t the only city affected, so the project aims to create and restore our green spaces across the state.
“It’s a nationwide project. We’ve planted in Iowa City, Solon, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids and we plan to continue outside of those main areas,” Demet said. “But because of the derecho and the impact on Cedar Rapids and because we’re opening our new taproom here, we really wanted to bring the project to the forefront because we know it’s very important to a lot of people here.”
The goal is to plant 400 trees – or one for each employee – in Iowa communities by the end of this four-year project.
If you want to try Good Grove and support this project, you can find it at all Big Grove Brewery & Taproom locations. It is also available at most major grocery stores in Iowa. For more information about the project, visit the Big Grove Brewery website.
