Westvleteren XII Coming to “The Festival” 6/23 Full Distribution Delayed Until Sept/Oct

(15 June 2012-Belchertown, MA) Shelton Brothers is pleased to announce that, next weekend, for the first time ever, Westvleteren 12° beer will be legally available for beer lovers in the United States to taste and enjoy.

Westvleteren 12° has consistently topped the best-in-the-world rankings at beeravocate.com and ratbeer.com for many years. Due to its quality and the fact that it is brewed in small quantities and very hard to come by, it is as well the most sought-after beer in the world.

Westvleteren 12° – painstakingly brewed by the Sint-Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren, Belgium – was initially scheduled to debut across the U.S.A. this month. For reasons known only to higher powers, the Abbey has requested that the official public release be delayed until September. However, the Abbey has now given its blessing for a small quantity of the beer to be previewed at The Festival, which takes place on June 23rd and 24th at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Abbey hopes in this modest way to slake the thirst and reward the patience of true beer aficionados as they continue to wait for the Big Release later in the year.

At each Festival session, eight cases of Westvleteren 12° will be poured, with samples limited to one per person.

Better yet, all attendees of The Festival will be offered the opportunity to purchase their own Westvleteren XII gift boxes (6 bottles of beer and two commemorative glasses) from Julio’s Liquors, Westborough MA, which has generously agreed to join Shelton Brothers in donating profits from these sales to fund much-needed renovations of the Sint-Sixtus Abbey.

This is an exceedingly small window of opportunity to buy the Abbey’s special gift boxes in a relatively calm setting. The boxes will not be available again until general release in September – and never again after. (Wait until September, and risk getting caught up in a beer-fueled frenzy.)

The Festival will feature many of the Abbey’s Belgian neighbor breweries and dozens of other small brewers from around the world. For more information, visit www.the-festival.us