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Cracking Open a Cold One for the Butterflies

A Bartram Scrub-Hairstreak butterfly
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
/
Flickr
A Bartram Scrub-Hairstreak butterfly

A new Florida beer launched last Friday, but the brew is not only for beer lovers. It’s also for butterflies.

Bartram’s Blonde Beer gets its name from the Bartram's Scrub-Hairstreak Butterfly, which is a federally endangered species. Under the Endangered Species Act of 1972, to get that severe of a marker, a species has to be at risk of complete extinction.

 

The unique method of environmentalism via brewing was made possible through a partnership between Gainesville-based First Magnitude Brewing Company and the Florida Museum of Natural History at University of Florida.

Both John Denny, the founder and head brewer at First Magnitude, andDr.JaretDaniels, the program director at the natural history museum’s McGuire Center for Lepidopteraand Biodiversity, join Gulf Coast Live to share the tale of how beer first met butterfly.

 

Copyright 2018 WGCU

RachelIacovoneis a reporter and associate producer ofGulf Coast LiveforWGCU News. Rachel came toWGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.
Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.