Cambridge Brewery Making Special Beer in Honor of MIT Officer Sean Collier

Photo via Cambridge Brewing Company

Phil Bannatyne thought the best way to honor a fallen hero was to create a beer with his name on it.

Bannatyne, owner of the Cambridge Brewing Company in Kendall Square, says that his company will brew an Irish Stout-style beer to show support for MIT Officer Sean Collier, who was allegedy shot and killed by Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev in April.

The plan for the beer, which will be called the “Collier Stout,” came from MIT police officer Cheryl Vossmer and her brother, Chris Vossmer, a brewer in Colorado, according to Bannatyne. “She came and talked to us, and I spoke with my brewmaster and he said, lets do something,” he says. “We are all business owners, and have been trying to figure out what we could do to … help the situation, and we hadn’t decided what to do yet as a company. When this presented itself we said, ‘that’s right, that’s what we can do.’”

Cambridge Brewing Company has plans to start making the special batch of beer soon, and have it on tap for a limited time at their headquarters by June. They plan on brewing roughly 300 gallons, which around 2,000 pints, and expect it will last about 10 days, says Bannatyne.

A special beer tap is also being created by someone at MIT, and will feature a police baton with the school’s police emblem emblazoned on it.

A portion of the money from the beer named after Collier will go toward the late officers favorite charity, the Jimmy Fund, according to the brewing company. Bannatyne says he cleared the concept with the family before moving ahead with it, and they supported the idea. “We are in Kendall, and [Collier] was an MIT guy … we felt like this was the right thing to do. It felt a little more personal and neighborly.”