MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — A commemorative beer is returning to honor the “hallowed grounds” of the Sunnyside Superette, a convenience store that operated for decades on University Avenue in Morgantown before closing in 2015.

“Superette” is brewed in collaboration with Ocelot Brewing Company and Dynasty Brewing Co. It’s a double IPA sitting at 8% ABV and was first released back in 2019; the beer went on hiatus for several years but has now been resurrected by the two breweries. If the names Ocelot and Dynasty aren’t familiar to you, it might be because these two breweries aren’t from West Virginia at all; both are located only a few miles away from each other in Ashburn, VA. But why would two Virginia breweries want to collaborate on such a niche reference to a closed-down supermarket in Morgantown?

Travis Thompson, an owner and founding member of Dynasty Brewing, said he connected with Ocelot Brewing Company’s founder, Adrien Widman, over their shared experiences at WVU. Both were students there and would spend their money on cheap beer and hot dogs at the Superette on University Ave.

“I had to walk by it every single day,” Widman said. “It was just always there, it was our only spot in Sunnyside that we could go to without going all the way to Beechurst.”

Unfortunately for students and residents, the Sunnyside Superette closed in 2015, which some blamed on the opening of a gasless Sheetz only one block away.

Years later, Widman and Thompson each own breweries and decided to collaborate on a beer to commemorate the store that fueled up generations of college students for more than 50 years. Travis Thompson of Dynasty Brewing said that usually when two breweries collaborate on a beer, they try and make it taste like whichever brewery the beer was brewed at, but that isn’t the case with Superette.

“If we went to Ocelot, it would taste completely like an Ocelot beer, but this one’s truly a collaboration,” Thompson said. “It’s a little sweeter than Ocelot’s normal style of beer, but it has their smoother backend finish on the beer. We hopped it with Mosaic Hops, which is a hop that Dynasty, where we are, likes to use… So it truly is a mashup of both breweries.”

“I would say that’s very accurate,” Widman said. “Their head brewer over there, Favio, has been in the game for a long time, he’s a legend locally around here, and just an opportunity to brew with him and pick his brain about techniques and things like that and procedures is pretty cool. So it definitely has a little bit of their inspiration in it and a little bit of ours and how we do things too.”

Sadly for Mountain State beer lovers, Superette is not distributed in West Virginia and is available in the Ashburn, VA and Washington D.C. area. However, if you’re looking to make a trip, Ocelot Brewing Company will be hosting the WVU Washington D.C. alumni association’s official tailgate at its taphouse for the WVU versus TCU game on Sept. 30.

“We’re Mountaineers through and through,” Travis Thompson said. “We’ll always remain Mountaineers and root for ’em from afar. Always.”