Testing Drone Beer Delivery on the Frozen Northern Lakes

As reported by GIS User: What’s a beer company to do when it realizes its customers are located in isolated ice fishing shacks miles away from the nearest liquor retailer… and they’re thirsty?

Most beer companies would give up. But not Lakemaid Beer, the Fishermen’s Lager. Having recently launched its new Lakemaid Frosty Winter Lager, the perfect beer for ice fishing season, Lakemaid Beer has turned to new technology to meet the needs of its thirsty customers.

The answer: the Lakemaid Beer Drone.

Inspired by Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, which has been testing the drone delivery of its products, Lakemaid Beer has been testing a new drone delivery system on some of the top ice fishing lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Below is a video from their web site:

“Amazon faces a lot of obstacles,” said Lakemaid Beer Company’s president, Jack Supple. “Dense urban locations present a host of problems to drone delivery. But our tests are on vast, wide-open frozen lakes free of trees and power lines. Our drone can fly as the crow flies, straight to our target, based on GPS coordinates provided by an ice angler. Fish houses are very uniform in height, so we can fly lower than FAA limits, too.”

“It’s the perfect proving ground for drone delivery,” said Supple, “Our initial tests on several mid-size lakes have been very successful. We’re looking forward to testing the range of our drones on larger lakes.”

“We’d be happy to share our research with Amazon,” Supple added.

It may be awhile before Lakemaid Beer can officially deliver its beer by drone. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) currently restricts the commercial use of drones by small businesses, and remote verification of the legal drinking age of ice anglers will need to be addressed. The FAA is expected to issue new regulations governing the commercial use of drones by 2015.

“Our customers, distributors and retailers appreciate the extra effort we’re willing to go to get Lakemaid Frosty Winter Lager to them,” said Supple. “Even if our customers are located 4 miles out in one of the 5,500 ice shacks on Lake Mille Lacs (one of Minnesota’s largest lakes).”

To learn more about Lakemaid Beer, the official beer of Rapala, visit http://www.lakemaidbeer.com.