• by Aaron Baar , March 6, 2015

Summer may be months away, but there’s no reason to hold off on priming taste buds for the tastes of summer suds.

Shock Top this week launched its summer marketing effort this week, deploying its fleet of bright orange Volkswagen Beetles “Shockmobiles,” which are outfitted with the brand’s recognizable “wedgehead” mohawk to offer tastings of its Lemon Shandy summer brew.

Beginning at the Limoneira Citrus Ranch in Santa Paula, California, the cars will hit nine markets across the U.S. (including St. Louis; Columbus, Ohio and Washington) with tastings before converging on Boston — arguably the hardest hit area of this winter — with a beach party including hot tubs, heaters and celebrity appearances.

“We’ve heard from many that this timing is right on point, given everyone’s desire for warmer weather and a summertime mindset,” Jake Kirsch, vice president of Shock Top, tells Marketing Daily. “Given how bad — and how long — winter has been this year, we wanted to find a creative way to bring relief to our fans.”

The so-called “72 degrees and Shock top” is inspired by the citrus groves of Southern California where the brew gets its lemon and orange ingredients and is the brand’s way of expressing many Americans’ desire to be done with this winter.

“The campaign is celebrating the return of Shock Top Lemon Shandy, designed to bring a summertime vibe to cold weather cities in desperate need of escaping winter’s frigid grip,” Kirsch says. “Shock Top is all about innovation and introducing unexpected ways to drive trial and keep our fans informed and engaged. The campaign took months of proactive and nimble reactive planning to ensure we were keeping our finger on the pulse of cold-weather and targeted markets across the country, while delivering relief to our fans in the process.”