Lakefront Brewery is expanding its popular Black Friday beer release this year by more than doubling the amount of bottles available for purchase that day.
Lakefront Brewery, at 1872 N. Commerce St., first released a limited edition Black Friday beer in 2012. In 2017 and 2018, Lakefront Brewery annually sold 5,000 regular Black Friday beers and 1,000 Black Friday Vintage at $20 and $30 apiece, respectively.
This year, Lakefront Brewery is releasing five unique limited edition Black Friday beers Nov. 29. The brewery will sell 4,600 bottles of the 2019 Imperial Stout, which is aged in bourbon barrels and boasts a 13.25% alcohol-by-volume. Lakefront will sell 2,750 bottles each of its 2019 Fruit Cake Strong Ale with a 13% ABV and its 2019 Barleywine with a 14.85% ABV. The brewery will also have 1,850 bottles of the 14% ABV 2017 Rye Barrel edition and approximately 100 bottles of the 13.85% ABV 2014 Black Friday V.
“This year, it’s an amazing collection of high-gravity, single-cask beers,” Lakefront Brewery brand manager Michael Stodola said in a press release. “This 2014 Black Friday has been sleeping in just two bourbon barrels for five years, 10 months. Due to barrel evaporation over that period of time, the number of bottles is extremely small.”
Interested customers can purchase two four-packs of the beers on Black Friday. The first four-pack will have one 2017 Rye Barrel Edition and three 22-oz. Black Friday bottles, and the second four-pack will have two Fruit Cake Strong Ale bottles and two Barleywine bottles. Those four-packs cost $80 each.
About 100 of the first customers will also be able to purchase the 750-ml bottle of 2014 Black Friday V, which will run $100 per bottle.
Stodola said this year the brewery expects about 1,600 people with approximately 13,000 bottles to be sold, over double what it sold in 2017 or 2018.
Lakefront Brewery will open on Nov. 29 at 8 a.m. The limited edition beers are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.