Beer walk draws younger crowd to Mt. Pleasant main street

Lots of folks showed up for the Save the Green Beer Walk hosted by Main Street Mt. Pleasant. The event saw more than 100 participants visit the participating 14 local shops around the Mt. Pleasant square.

'We've had a great turnout,” Main Street Mt. Pleasant Executive Director Lisa Oetken said. 'Instead of holding the beer walk around St. Patrick's Day, when lots of folks are usually hitting up certain restaurants and bars in the middle of the week, we wanted to wait until the end of March. It usually guarantees a bigger crowd, and it tends to be warmer like it is today.”

Main Street Mt. Pleasant has hosted the beer walk a couple of times now, and many people have noted the younger crowd the beer walk draws in.

'I've noticed that the beer walk tends to have more people than the wine walk, which might partially be due to the weather,” Oetken said. 'But the beer walk really brings out the younger generation into the community, and that's great to see.”

Kathy Eklund of A Little More Country Charm mentioned the increase of young adult participants.

'There's been a nice amount of younger people in and out for this event,” she said. 'It's great to see that because Mt. Pleasant needs those younger folks to keep us going and alive.”

From 5 to 7 p.m., people were walking into participating businesses, sampling beer and snacks, and browsing the local shops. Jarryd Fernades of Iowa Wesleyan University spoke about his experience with the beer walk.

'I love it,” he said. 'I've been here for four years now, and there are so many stores that I haven't been to until tonight.

'It's been really cool getting to see all the stores have to offer and the town, too. This has been a cool event, and I am looking forward to more things like it.”

The next Main Street Mt. Pleasant event will be the Sip & Shop on April 17. Mt. Pleasant's downtown businesses will host pop-up vendors in and in front of their shops from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, visit mountpleasantiowa.org/ or contact Main Street Mt. Pleasant via email at info@mpiowa.org or phone at 319-385-3101.