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Posted by Admin on 7. February 2012 01:43
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There was a bit of a commotion the other day when we cleared out our list of sponsors from the previous edition of the Untamed New England race -- sponsors web page is here. We are in conversations with several different organizations in terms of sponsorship and we didn't want there to be confusion over any current affiliations.
The commotion developed when one of our reliable race volunteers saw the page essentially empty of sponsors and promptly said "Hold it -- there is no beer sponsor on there anymore. What happened to Long Trail Ale?"
Note that he didn't ask about the food or apparel or footware or any of the other businesses involved with the race . . . just the beer sponsor.
Well it pleases me to report that our sponsor page *now* includes the Kennebec River Brewery and all is right again with the world.
Our affiliation with Long Trail Ale ran 3 years and became very complicated in the end; the liquour laws in NH (the "Live Free or Die" state) are onerous and make it tough for a company to simply donate beer, no matter how thirsty their participants might be. The laws are also tough on a venue to simply give beer away, so The Balsams was in a situation where they had to keep a physical tally of how many beers were distributed as part of the Long Trail sponsorship. When racers finish at 2 AM and start pouring beer everywhere, I don't want to be the bean-counter keeping tabs on the number of bottle tops!
Sooo, we enjoyed a great run with Long Trail and I still really like their beer, but there's a new beer in Untamed town. We're based in a new state for 2012, with different requirements, and our host venue has their own micro-brewery on the premises which changes the sponsorship equation. We're excited to have Kennebec River Brewery partnering with us and, not to worry race volunteers, we will continue to tempt you into the deep New England wilderness with crisp cool beer as your compensation.