Zwanze Day, Maplewood 2015

When the City of Maplewood reached out to us about participating in Zwanze day, we were immediately excited for the opportunity. Maplewood does a great job of creating new and different festivals, and Zwanze was a great reason to do so.

For the uninitiated, Zwanze day is a Belgian beer festival in which Brasserie Cantillon releases a special beer to only 56 locations around the world, and only for one day. This year, Side Project Cellar was one of the locations selected. And, in Maplewood fashion, why shouldn’t the rest of the city celebrate as well?

Zwanze day was exciting for us, as it was our first chance to participate in a Maplewood event with other local vendors, and it was also our first event selling merchandise (up to this point we only ever gave away samples).

Photo by @strangedonuts

We handprinted a box full of MAUHAUS t-shirts, and we brewed and bottled our rich and delicious cold brew iced coffee featuring coffee beans from La Cosecha.

The day was beautiful, and working the booth didn’t feel like work at all. It was a joy to talk people, many of them neighbors, about MAUHAUS, or cats in general. Tenth Life joined us, and brought some adorable kitties which stole everyone’s hearts.

The best part of the day was hearing so many supportive people say that they can’t wait for MAUHAUS to open. When you live and work in a community, it’s so important to know that people care about what you’re doing. It was also great just getting to participate with other Maplewood businesses that we admire so much. Doing an event like Zwanze definitely solidified that Maplewood is the place we want to be.