Tap Handle #841: Ruckus - Hoptimus Prime Imperial IPA

October 28, 2024

Tap Handle #841: Ruckus - Hoptimus Prime Imperial IPA

Tap size: 11.5"

Rarity: 25 or less seen, brewery closed, fragile

Mounting: 3/8" ferrule on 5/16" anchor bolt

Hoptimus Prime from Ruckus Brewing is, at first glance, a very odd-looking tap handle. At the top of the tap is a green, three-fingered "fist", with the fingers appearing to be hop leaves. The fist is emerging from 3 hop flowers, stacked on top of each other, that make up most of the tap. Within each hop flower, the yellow lupulin pods can be seen when viewed from either side. At the bottom is a small sign bearing a decal of the brewery, as well as the name of the beer carved in raised letters. On the opposite side, the same sign appears at the top of the tap. When the fingers of the fist face you, I consider this the front of the tap; it makes the most sense because the imagery invokes an arm and a hand...from the back, you only see the top of the back of the fist so the arm and a hand are less apparent. The design choice of the tap makes sense if you are familiar with the Transformers brand from TV shows or movies (or toys). Hoptimus Prime is a riff off of Optimus Prime, the leader of a faction of the Transformers known as the Autobots. Transformers are able to change their shape into alternate forms of technology or other life forms. If you think of the tap as a hop-based creature "transforming" itself into a human-like form, you're seeing the hops starting to form into an arm and hand.

Despite a fairly wide distribution area, very few of these have appeared on the secondary market, which is due primarily to the beer appearing in bottles far more than it did on tap, largely a function of its contract brew status. The first one appeared in 2016 for $30 (about 1-2 years after the beer ceased being brewed); since then, the price has ranged between $40 and $150. The best deals were found in group tap sales, where this was one of several taps being sold together. Hoptimus Prime is a fragile tap; because there are a lot of exposed edges - mainly sign corners and hop leaf tips - more than a few of these have had chips or breaks. Over the past several years, an average of 3 have appeared per year, although some years you might see 5, and other years you don't see any.

Ruckus Brewing Company was founded in New York, New York in 2009 by Josh Wood and Alex Friedman. Wood and Freeman owned Ruckus Marketing, which had multiple clients. One of their clients was Legacy Brewing Company of Reading, Pennsylvania, and when the brewery announced it would close in 2010, Wood and Friedman saw an opportunity to make a deal with the owners of Legacy, excited at the thought of running their own brewery. They formed Ruckus Brewing Company, taking over Legacy's beer brands and adding new varieties, for a total of 6 offerings. The most notable of Legacy's beers was Hoptimus Prime, a double IPA. The beers were contract brewed by the Lion Brewery, located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Around 2012, contract brewing was shifted from Lion to Mercury Brewing in Ipswitch, Massachusetts, and only 3 beers were retained in the move: Hoptimus Prime, Euphoria (a Belgian ale) and Hedonism Red Ale. Ruckus Brewing also picked up the rights to brew Reading Premium Beer when the Reading Brewing Company closed; this was a beer tracing its origins back to 1886, and was being contract brewed by Sly Fox Brewing Company. Distribution of Ruckus beer was in Pennsylvania, New York, and other Northeast markets, including some areas in Canada.

Due to their unstable contract brewing situation, Wood and Friedman began looking around for a place to open their own brewery location, with the stipulation that the location be in Pennsylvania where their beers had historically been brewed and had a built-in market due to name recognition. While in Allentown, they fell in love with the old Neuweiler Brewery, which was targeted by the city for redevelopment. Wood and Friedman won the contract to redevelop the property, with a proposed $30 million brewery. The plan was to produce about 100,000 barrels of beer a year by 2015, with Ruckus not only brewing its own brands, but flipping the script and becoming a contract brewer, brewing beers for other breweries. The Neuweiler building had been constructed in 1913; the brewery closed in 1968, and the last owner was a pesticide company that left in 1998, with the building abandoned since. Ruckus wanted to initially develop three of the seven buildings at the site, with it becoming the new Ruckus headquarters, complete with a brewpub and a center for tours. The rest of the project was expected to be retail and office space. There was even some talk about bringing the Neuweiler brand back under Ruckus.

Ruckus originally planned to line up financing and close the deal by October of 2013, but had to be granted 3 extensions due to difficulties in securing the $1.7 million needed for the purchase. Ruckus representatives met with the Allentown Commercial and Industrial Development Authority (ACIDA) to request changes to the agreement of sale prior to closing on the site. Among the changes was adjusting the time frame in which the city could repossess the property if at least $3 million worth of development was not completed. The original agreement gave Ruckus two years from signing the agreement of sale. The new agreement allowed until three years from the closing, meaning 2017. If Ruckus failed to meet the three-year requirement, the city could repossess the property for $600,000.

The project fell within the city's 130-acre Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ), which diverted taxes for redevelopment projects downtown and along the city's waterfront. Ruckus applied to receive NIZ funds for the project; the first phase of the project was estimated to cost $15 million, with Ruckus to cover $5 million and the remainder to be covered by a combination of NIZ funds and federal historic site grants. This would prove to be a major challenge to Ruckus, considering the trouble they had raising $1.7 million earlier. Unfortunately, due to the focus and cost that was being spent on the Neuweiler project, Ruckus halted production of Legacy beers, with only Reading Premium still in production. Wood and Friedman formed the Brewers Hill Development Group to attract investors and develop the property.

By 2017, Brewers Hill claimed to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars cleaning up two of the buildings and the main lot. They had also pivoted in their development plans; the revised, scaled-back plan prioritized rehabilitating the 44,000-square-foot bottling house for office or light industrial space only; Wood and Friedman no longer believed they would be able to build their Ruckus production brewery on the site. Their contractors removed about 30 dumpsters’ worth of trash out of the bottling house, power-washed the interior, and installed temporary lighting. They also blew out windows in walls running eight bricks deep in some areas and cleared 50 years’ worth of underbrush from the area in between buildings. Rehabilitation of the six-story brew house and other buildings remained part of a long-term second phase. ACIDA, happy to see at least some progress in the development, gave Brewers Hill another year to complete at least $3 million in improvements to the bottling house, with an extra year if Brewers Hill paid the city $100,000 and all property taxes.

By 2019 Brewers Hill had made little progress on the property due to a lack of investment capital. Further extensions were negotiated, with the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority (ANIZDA), which oversees and manages the NIZ, entering into a funding agreement in 2020 with Brewers Hill and Ruckus Marketing. This agreement would have had ANIZDA provide security for a construction loan to complete the demolition, construction, rehabilitation and fit-out. However, the project never came to pass as Brewers Hill failed to make any progress, and eventually abandoned the project, selling its interest in the property to the Manhattan Building Co. of New York. In 2023, demolition of a large part of the the Neuweiler brewery began. Manhattan Building planned for a seven-story building with 286 apartment units, around 38,000 square feet of retail space, a parking garage and amenities such as a pool, gym and conference space, with a 2025 estimated completion. The brewery’s tower-like structure would remain, but the rest of the complex would be demolished due to the fact that the expense of trying to remodel it was not feasible in its deteriorated condition. While this plan was similar to Brewers Hill's plan, Manhattan Building was able to move forward thanks to their capital resources, development experience, and a firm commitment to complete the project.

Ruckus Brewing no longer exists; both the website and the trademark were allowed to expire around 2022. Ruckus Marketing is still around and is still producing Reading Premium Beer under contract at Sly Fox. On the Ruckus Marketing website, a page for the Brewers Hill Development Group is still active, showing their visionary development plans for the Neuweiler brewery site. The page has not been updated in some time, giving the impression that the project was successful - results are shown that were planned but never actually achieved. One final note: Ruckus Brewing of New York should not be confused with Ruckus Brewing in Garden City, Idaho that just opened in October 2024 - they are not related.

Hoptimus Prime was Ruckus Brewing's signature brew. An Imperial IPA, it was aggressively formulated with five different hop varieties, then dry hopped for two weeks, ensuring a massive hop flavor and aroma. Perfectly balanced with three types of malt, Hoptimus Prime was truly the pinnacle of hop flavor. Recommended food pairings were spicy Thai food, Mexican cuisine, or a big ol’ bowl of chili.