"We just walked into the cellar one morning, and there he was," says Chelsea Nolan, brewer at The Alchemist's production facility in Stowe, Vermont. "Just staring back at me, drinking a Focal."
In the late hours, long after the retail store and production operations were closed, John Kimmich, brewer and co-owner of The Alchemist, was down in the new cellar of the brewery that he built off the success of Head Topper fastening an image of Big Bird, the Sesame Street icon, onto one of his brite tanks. It was an outward manifestation of the creativity, playfulness, and free spirit that John encapsulates with the brewery and his beers. It's also one of the ways in which the new brewery became clearly John's.
Something wasn't quite right, however. John looked down at the near empty can of Focal Banger in his hand, took one last swig and grabbed a piece of tape. And then he stuck that can right into Big Bird's hand, where it most fittingly belonged.
