Look, Ma! No hands!

Hoodie holds on to your cold one, leaves your mitts free

By DORIS HAJEWSKI
dhajewski@journalsentinel.com

Posted: June 27, 2007

Just
in time for Summerfest, Brew City Beer Gear is launching a shirt that
will hang on to your drink for you: a hooded sweatshirt with a front
pouch designed to hold a beverage while keeping your hands free."We've been working on it for close to three years," said George
Keppler, a co-owner of the Milwaukee shirt company. He has a patent on
the design.

Keppler said he would have brought the beer-pouch shirt to market
sooner, but his lone sample was stolen from the Las Vegas apparel trade
show where he tried to introduce it two years ago. Keppler
test-marketed the shirt in December with his first order from Hooters
in Florida. The restaurants in that state sold out of 3,000 of the
shirts in 30 days.

Brew City started with a retail store in the Grand Avenue mall in
1986. The company now sells millions of dollars' worth of shirts across
the country to national retail chains and on its Web site, www.brewcityonline .com.

The company found success by coming up with clothing ideas that
sometimes raise eyebrows, including orange jail-style jumpsuits that
many thought looked too realistic a few years ago.

Keppler will have the shirts, which sell for about $38, at his booth
at Summerfest starting this weekend, and they will be available at
Miller Brewing Co.'s and Sprecher Brewing Co.'s gift stores. But he
hasn't had much success in landing orders from mainstream retailers.

Chain stores seem to be worried that they might appear to be encouraging people to drink, he said.

The new pouch shirts aren't designed to help people sneak a forbidden brew into an entertainment venue, Keppler said.

"The neck of the bottle is in full view," he said.

And Keppler points out that the shirts aren't limited to carrying alcoholic drinks.