SweetWater Helping Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper 'Save the Hooch'

on the cusp of Midtown and Buckhead is gearing up once again for their 6th annual “Save the Hooch” conservation campaign in support of West Midtown's Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (UCR). Since joining forces with UCR in 2006, the efforts are now more important as ever as the river was just listed No. 3 on the nation’s top 10 most endangered rivers list by American Rivers. 

SweetWater’s campaign efforts will begin Memorial Day weekend and continue through July 4, offering beer drinkers, bar patrons and residents of metro Atlanta the chance to “Give of Your Liver to Save the River” by visiting participating accounts and purchasing paper fish, commemorative t-shirts or SweetWater’s seasonal Waterkeeper ale. Proceeds from these efforts will go towards patrolling, protecting and preserving the Chattahoochee River.

“I have spent a lot of time on Atlanta’s waters since moving to Georgia in ’96 to start the brewery, and I’ve seen a lot of the issues firsthand,” said SweetWater Founder Freddy Bensch. “Keeping our water clean is a cause I think we can all believe in, and we’ll continue to do anything we can to help raise awareness and funding for the great folks who are out there every day protecting our water.”

SweetWater raised $93,000 last year, a substantial increase from years prior. SweetWater has proudly raised more than $350,000 since campaign conception.

The success of the “Save the Hooch” campaign inspired SweetWater to expand their reach throughout the region to other communities and their local Waterkeeper organizations with their distribution markets, including: the Neuse Riverkeeper and French Broad Riverkeeper in North Carolina, the Charleston Waterkeeper in South Carolina, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper and Mobile Baykeeper in Alabama, and the Apalachicola Riverkeeper and St. Johns Riverkeepers in Florida.

Raising the bar even higher, SweetWater will host their first-ever regional concert series this year featuring the headlining act and bluegrass band Railroad Earth. The concert series will hit the road June 20-24 touring Raleigh, Charlotte, Charleston and Jacksonville. All proceeds benefit each city’s local Waterkeeper organization.

For more information on the “Save the Hooch” campaign, to learn more about SweetWater’s efforts throughout the Southeast or to make a donation, please visit www.waterkeeperbrew.org.