The founder of a local brewery has shared more about a partnership honoring a music icon from Wisconsin.
Grant Pauly’s 3 Sheeps Brewing Company has partnered with the Les Paul Foundation to honor the man credited with the invention of the electric guitar through their Wisconsinitis beer.
Pauly tells SeehaferNews.com, “As we get older and as we get to explore more of Wisconsin, through all our retail partners, we just fall more and more in love with the state every year. So, when we have a new beer coming out, we really want to lean into that feeling, that like insatiable pride of just everything Wisconsin. So, we thought Wisconsinites was a great name for that.”
Last year, the first namesake for the beer was Packers and NFL Hall of Famer, LeRoy Butler.
However, when making the choice of who would represent Wisconsinitis this year was decided right away.
“Very quickly, we realized, well, who’s more iconic than Les Paul? So, we reached out to the Les Paul Foundation,” Pauly explained. “They loved the idea, jumped on right away, and we started buying different ideas for how to do this one.”
After mulling ideas on what to do to represent Les Paul and the things that make Wisconsin so great, Pauly, 3 Sheeps, and the Les Paul Foundation landed on a battle of the bands between music groups that call our state home.
Pauly also told us that there will be a pretty significant prize on the line.
“We knew if we’re going to do this, we wanted to go big with it. So, you know, there’s nice prizes for each the winners of those three. But the big one is getting the Les Paul Foundation to offer up a day of recording in the Les Paul studio in LA,” Pauly told us. “So, we’re throwing in $3,000 for the group to fly out there for flights, lodging, and they just get a day to record with their techs, have the rights to all the music off it, and just kind of take it full circle.”
Not only will the winners get that experience, but the recording equipment they will use are original pieces also used by Paul himself. Battles are set to be held on July 11th at the Milwaukee Vivarium, on July 25th at Harmony Bar in Madison, and at Appleton’s Gibson Music Hall on July 25th.
The battle of the bands event will then culminate with the championship round, which will be held on August 15th at 3 Sheeps in Sheboygan.
Pauly noted that the bands selected for each respective battle will be announced on Tuesday (June 2nd).
More information on 3 Sheeps Brewing and its Wisconsinitis partnership with the Les Paul Foundation can be found on the 3 Sheeps Facebook page.
