Loveland booster tickled pink about beer of her own

LOVELAND — To say Dixie Daly is enamored with the color pink is an understatement.

Daly, the business and membership director for the Loveland Chamber of Commerce, is nearly always seen clad in pink, and has invented and marketed everything from pink chocolate bars to Dream Pink perfume, Pink On chapstick, Pink-a-Bella pet shampoo, Pearl Pink soap, pink stationery, greeting card lines and more.

So why not pink beer?

“Dreams do come true, and this one was just waiting for me to show up,’ said Daly, who has lived in Loveland for more than four decades, was among BizWest’s 2015 Women of Distinction, and was voted among BizWest’s Top 50 Influential Business Leaders in 2023 and 2024.

“Thirteen years ago, I dreamed of creating Tickled Pink Beer, but life put it on hold,” Daly said. Then, while attending a retreat in the Mexican resort city of Cabo San Lucas, corporate motivator Danelle Delgado spurred her into action. “To me, she’s a mentor, coach and friend,” Daly said.

Delgado, who also was keynote speaker in October at BizWest’s 40 Under Forty event, “encouraged us to write down what we truly wanted and to believe in it,” Daly said. “Three months later, after the conference, I reached out to Jesse [Sommers] at Grimm Brothers Brewery with an idea: What do you think about a pink beer?

“And the rest is history.”

Creating a beer with just the right flavor and pinkish hue became a team effort for Grimm Brothers and sister company Crow Hop Brewing Inc., which are co-located in Loveland’s Forge campus and owned by Yellow Duck Capital LLC.

“Dixie just approached Jesse Sommers and set it up with him,” said Tyler Allen, a co-owner with several others of the breweries and general manager of Grimm Brothers.

But how to make the beer pink? The answer was easy for Daly, who looked to the region’s heritage of growing sugar beets.

“Beets to me are local in Loveland,” she said. “I didn’t want any dyes in it. I wanted it to be all natural.”

Then it was just a matter of finding the right amount of beet powder for the perfect color and taste. The team started with Grimm Brothers’ Snowdrop, a German honey wheat ale with oats and molasses, Allen said, adding that “head brewer Andy Bartolic did the tinkering with it to turn it pink.”

The concoctions were narrowed down to brews with two different amounts of beet powder, and Daly judged the color and taste to make the final selection. Next came preparing kegs with the correct formula and designing the pump handle and label for the cans of Crow Hop Tickled Pink pink ale.

“It’ll be ready on Friday” in the Grimm Brothers taproom, Allen said, adding that “six distributors are interested, so we need to get it in cans so we can get it to them. That should take about seven weeks.”

Daly described Tickled Pink as “crisp and very refreshing,” and is full of ideas on how to market it, including linking its promotion to breast cancer awareness as well as Loveland’s annual Valentine’s Day festivities.

“I’m really excited to share this with the world,” she said. “Life is fun, and we get to make it what we want it to be.”

Ever the promoter, she encouraged beer lovers to “swing by Grimm Brothers Brewery, grab a glass of this amazing pink ale, and let’s pink the world together — because with every sip, you’ll know dreams do come true.”

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