Marquette Students Partner With Stone Creek On New Coffee Product
Blue & Gold Brewing LLC will design the beverage for release ahead of winter holidays.
’77 Golden Ale cans and Stone Creek Coffee logo. Submitted photos.
After the successful release of its ’77 Golden Ale this past winter, Blue & Gold Brewing LLC is shifting to a new kind of brew, with plans to develop a Marquette University-affiliated coffee product in collaboration with Stone Creek Coffee.
The student-run business venture was formed in 2022, recruiting a four-person team of undergraduate students to flex their entrepreneurial skills as part of an undergraduate applied learning program in Marquette’s College of Business Administration.
The program exposes students to various aspects of business, offering hands-on experience in leading market research, product selection and naming, supply chain and logistics, finance, graphic design, advertising, marketing, distribution, and entrepreneurial and start-up processes.
In February, the team collaborated with local breweries Gathering Place Brewing Company, Good City Brewing and Broken Bat Brewing to release ’77 Golden Ale on Feb. 4, National Marquette Day. The brew sold out at Fiserv Forum on release day, with 2,000 cans of beer sold.
For the upcoming project, students will be tasked with coffee blend selection, branding and marketing, sales and distribution of the product, set to launch just before the winter holiday season.
“Marquette is excited to not only expand its student-run business venture portfolio, but to partner with an industry-leading and mission-aligned organization in Stone Creek Coffee,” said John Knapp, executive director of Innovation Alley, Marquette’s cross-campus innovation accelerator, in a statement.
“Stone Creek is a Certified B-Corporation, which signifies its values and ethical leadership, which align with the mission of Marquette Business. We look forward to this collaboration.”
Founded in Milwaukee in 1993, Stone Creek is a craft coffee roaster and operates eight cafes in the county, including two in the city of Milwaukee.
Drew Pond, director of development at Stone Creek Coffee, said that the upcoming project aligns with the company’s locally-minded philosophy.
“Initiatives like this match our ‘Never Stop Learning’ motto perfectly,” Pond said in a statement. “Creating opportunities for learning and growth around coffee is part of our mission statement. We’re thrilled that the team behind Blue & Gold would choose to work with us as a coffee guide, resource and partner.”
More information regarding the collaboration, and future sale of the coffee product will be announced at a later date.
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