Maisel & Friends Launches Hopfenreiter

In March 2016, Maisel & Friends introduced Hopfenreiter at the opening of its Liebesbier restaurant and brewery in Bayreuth, Germany. The Double IPA was conceived as a friendship brew: invited breweries contributed their own hop selections to a shared beer, expressing the collaborative ethos behind the Maisel & Friends name. Hopfenreiter subsequently became an annual series. Maisel & Friends retained the same base recipe while inviting a changing international group of breweries to supply different hop varieties for each edition. The project brought together collaborative brewing, contemporary IPA culture, and the Hopfenreiter artwork created by Berlin artist Vidam, which also became the beer’s recurring label motif.