Minnesota Gophers: Dinkytown Athletes Reveals New NIL Beer Partnership with Grey Duck

Minnesota Gophers fans have been clamoring for the Gophers NIL collective Dinkytown Athletes to try and figure out a way to get a deal done with a local brewery ever since the University of Iowa’s collective partnered with one and created Swarm Golden Lager. The beer was flying off shelves in IOwa, and Minnesota fans thought that something similar could happen here to benefit the Gophers. Well that day has arrived. Dinkytown Athletes announced this week it has partnered with the people behind Grey Duck Vodka and seltzers to debut on their inaugural beer, Duck Duck Beer.

Duck Duck Beer is an American Light Lager that will remind anyone of their favorite mass marketed beer of choice. It’s easy drinking at 4.5 % alcohol and has a smooth taste. Dinkytown Athletes founder Derek Burns said that was intentional, that they wanted to try and get the greatest crossover of beer drinkers to make this a beer that just about anyone could enjoy. The hope is that Gophers fan who are usual drinkers of the big mass produced American Lagers will give this one a try, and find out it’s just as good if not better than their previous beer of choice and help out Dinkytown Athletes to be able to reward Gophers athletes.

Duck Duck Beer is brewed by Grey Duck Brewing, who has an agreement to contract brew the beer at Surly Brewing in Minneapolis. The beer is currently or will soon be available in liquor stores around Minnesota. Dinkytown Athletes will receive 20% of the revenues from the sale of Duck Duck Beer.

If you aren’t a beer fan, Grey Duck will also be packaging a combo pack of some of their hard seltzers including the popular Bomba Juice flavor into Dinkytown Athletics branded cases, and 20% of the revenue from the sales of those packs will go to Dinkytown Athletics.

In addition according to Burns in late October Gophers fans will be able to see bottles of Grey Duck vodka on liquor store shelves with Dinkytown Athletics cardboard neckers describing the partnership, and 25% of the sales of those bottles will come back to Dinkytown Athletics.

According to the official Gopher Food X account, the beer will be available in Huntington Bank Stadium starting this Saturday for the Homecoming game against Louisiana i any of the popup Surly beer stands.

Plans are for the beer to be carried and available at basketball and hockey games at Williams Arena and at 3M Arena at Mariucci as well. The availability will all depend on the level of interest from Gophers fans. The beer is sold to the wholesaler and food distributors, so if their initial supply goes fast, they will buy more for the next few games. The more Duck Duck Beer that gets sold, the more proceeds that go to Dinkytown Athletics, and the more services they can provide to Minnesota athletes.

As we have seen in the last few days, weeks and months, a robust NIL program is almost becoming a necessity in college sports, and this is another way that Gophers fans can help out. So go out and pick up some Duck Duck Beer and give it a try and support the Gophers!