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| Cigar City Brewing's National Sales Manager Joe Burns and Carnival Vice President of Beverage Operations Eddie Allen |
MIAMI (July 14, 2014) — Capitalizing on the growing popularity of craft
beer in the U.S., Carnival Cruise Lines has entered into
an exclusive agreement to offer Tampa-based Cigar City Brewing’s craft
beers on all of its Florida-based ships.
Cigar
City’s Florida Cracker Belgian-Style White Ale and Invasion Pale Ale
will be available on 13 Carnival ships sailing from five Florida ports
beginning this week. Combined, those ships carry more than
two million guests each year.
The agreement — the first partnership of this magnitude between a craft
brewery and a major cruise line — was announced Sunday,
July 13, at an event aboard Carnival Legend at the Port of Tampa.
“Carnival
continues to seek high-quality brands to enhance our guests’
experience, and Cigar City Brewing has been rated among the top craft
breweries in the world,” said Eddie Allen, Carnival’s vice president
of beverage operations. “Cigar City Brewing craft beers are a fantastic
addition to our already extensive beverage menus and will provide our
guests a chance to enjoy two delicious and refreshing beers that aren’t
available on any other cruise line.” Allen
noted that Carnival also offers its own private label draught beer,
ThirstyFrog Red, which is available throughout the fleet.
"Cigar
City Brewing could not be happier than to partner with another great
Florida institution, that being Carnival Cruise Lines. Everyone at Cigar
City Brewing is thrilled to start this
wonderful partnership," said Joe Burns, national sales manager for
Cigar City Brewing.
Carnival
has 13 Florida-based ships sailing three- to eight-day itineraries to
the Caribbean, Mexico and The Bahamas, including Carnival Breeze,
Carnival Conquest, Carnival Ecstasy, Carnival Glory, Carnival
Victory and Carnival Splendor from Miami; Carnival Sensation, Carnival
Sunshine and Carnival Liberty from Port Canaveral; Carnival Freedom from
Fort Lauderdale; Carnival Paradise and Carnival Legend from Tampa, and
Carnival Fascination from Jacksonville.
Cigar City’s Florida Cracker Belgian-Style White Ale is named for the
colonial-era “Cracker” cowboys of Florida. Florida Cracker
Belgian-Style White Ale is brewed with unmalted wheat, orange peel and
coriander, which ends with a spicy, dry finish. The beer pours cloudy
straw in color and has moderate notes of orange peel, coriander and
hints of vanilla.
Gold in color, Invasion Pale Ale is Cigar City's version of a “session”
beer (a beer with a relatively low alcohol content), in
a hoppy ale that celebrates Tampa’s alleged history of being a pirate
hideout. The tropical aroma offers suggestions of peach, mango, lime and
papaya. Invasion has a light caramel malt character laced with a slight
“breadiness” and the finish offers a bounty
of tropical and citrus hop flavor and bitterness.
Unlike most U.S. craft breweries, Cigar City Brewing packages most of
its beverages in aluminum cans. Aluminum cans are the most
widely recycled containers in the United States, and aluminum may be
reused repeatedly without loss of strength or quality. From a beer
drinker’s perspective, cans have zero light penetration to better
preserve the integrity of the brew, they chill faster,
are easier to store and have a longer shelf life than bottles. Cans
also are shatterproof and therefore are allowed where bottles are not —
such as poolside. Producing new cans from recycled aluminum reduces
greenhouse gas emissions by 95 percent.
Florida Craft Brewing Trends
Over the past decade, the number of craft and microbreweries has grown
dramatically across the United States and consumer demand
for craft brews continues to increase. In 2013 in Florida, the state’s
66 small breweries produced 130,000 barrels (4.03 million gallons) of
craft-brewed beer for an economic impact of $875.8 million, ranking the
state 12th in the nation.
Nationwide, in 2013 the overall beer market represented total sales of
$100 billion, of which $14.3 billion was craft beers. That
represented a 20 percent increase in craft beer sales and an 18 percent
increase in production volume over 2012, according to the Brewers
Association.
For additional information and reservations, contact any travel agent, call 1-800-CARNIVAL or visit carnival.com.
Carnival can also be found on:
About Cigar City Brewing
Joey Redner, founder and owner of Cigar City Brewing, started the
company to highlight Tampa’s Cuban-American culture, and sold his first
batch of
commercially produced beer in 2009. Since then, the brewery has
expanded to offer a line of four beers, including Cucumber Saison, Jai
Alai India Pale Ale, Florida Cracker Belgian-Style Pale Ale and Invasion
Pale Ale, along with a number of seasonal releases
Seasonally,
Cigar City Brewing releases Humidor Series American Sour Ale, Cubano
Espresso Brown Ale and Puppy’s Breath Porter. The brewery’s
Nitro line of higher-alcohol-content brews includes Café Con Leche
Sweet Stout, Patio Tolls Dry Irish Stout and Vanilla Maduro Brown Ale.
Special edition beverages include Homefront India Pale Ale, Wandering
Pelican Black Ale and Tropical Heatwave Wheat Ale.
Cigar City Brewing offers brewery tours, private tastings and barware
and accessories. The company has a brewpub at Tampa International
Airport and
has opened a brew pub approximately 10 miles north of the brewery in
the Northdale section of Tampa.
About Carnival Cruise Lines
Carnival,
a unit of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), is
"The World's Most Popular Cruise Line®" with 24 ships operating
three- to 23-day voyages to The Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexican Riviera,
Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England, Bermuda. Australia, New Zealand,
the Pacific Islands and Tahiti. The company’s 25th ship, the
135,000-ton Carnival Vista, is scheduled to enter service
in 2016.
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