ST. Paul, Minn. \u2014 Around four years ago, Kevin Bowles and the Minnesota Wild food and beverage team noticed a trend of beer bats at baseball games. The long plastic bats were open at the top, and when filled with beer, fans could sip from them like unorthodox cups.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy aren\u2019t we doing this?\u201d Bowles thought to himself. \u201cWe need this, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last season, he and his Levy Restaurants catering team introduced beer-filled plastic hockey sticks to Grand Casino Arena. The Wild were able to have them ready just in time for the playoffs. They were a smash hit, said Bowles, who is a senior executive chef and has been with the team for 16 years. The plastic sticks, made by a company called the Beer Twig, are \u201cpart drinkware, part souvenir, and all energy,\u201d per the company website. Bowles said the Wild were the first NHL team to use the product.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just wanted to do something cool, something \u2018wow,\u2019 something over the top,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cThen, boom. Beer Twigs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vessel holds 24 ounces of liquid and is sold at four locations on the main concourse. Fans can fill it with their beer of choice or Slap Shot Seltzer, a green, cherry limeade flavored drink only available at the arena.<\/p>\n
A group of friends stood holding their Beer Twigs in the main concourse around 90 minutes before puck drop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sick,\u201d said Chase Carlson, a 22-year-old wearing a Devan Dubnyk jersey. \u201cC\u2019mon, you get two beers with these puppies, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks awesome,\u201d added Carlson\u2019s friend Karsen Brickson. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a keepsake at my house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carlson saw a video of the Beer Twig on Sunday on TikTok. He and his friends were more than content with his purchase a night later. One joked they were going to play lightsabers with them after they were done drinking.<\/p>\n
The Wild sold the Beer Twigs during the regular season, but the team has seen an uptick in sales since the games rose in importance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have noticed it is much more of a playoff, \u2018wow,\u2019 good-time fun item,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cThey\u2019ve really been booming again as we\u2019ve gotten back in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wild aren\u2019t the only team using creative beer holders. The Hurricanes have a beer skate<\/a>, which sells for $19 empty and $31 full. The Hurricanes tweeted that 4,687 sold at their Game 1 win against the Flyers \u2014 the equivalent of one out of every four fans. Buffalo began selling a Beer Sabre<\/a> this season. The Utah Mammoth have a tusk mug.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of turning into an arms race right now,\u201d Bowles said.<\/p>\n He compared it to collectable popcorn buckets at movie theaters.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople love a collectable gizmo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bowles loves watching people exit the arena with their empty Twigs. He keeps some empty ones in his garage, though he noted, \u201cIn my old age, it\u2019s bigger than I can chug.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople love them,\u201d he said. \u201cI personally like watching people walking out of the building holding them. It\u2019s just a cool thing to take out of here with you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. Paul, Minn. \u2014 Around four years ago, Kevin Bowles and the Minnesota Wild food and beverage team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7522,7524,575,85],"class_list":["post-665315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}