Wawa and 2SP Brewing will release a Sunfest Strawberry Lemonade Shandy this week

Wawa and 2SP Brewing Company, two Delco institutions who typically team up over the holiday season, are hoping their new limited-edition collaboration — the Sunfest Strawberry Lemonade Shandy — will be a Shore thing this summer.

Given that it’s got alcohol and a can featuring a bearded Delco dude surfing on a hoagie, the odds are in their favor.

Since 2018, the Delaware County-based companies have released limited-edition beers each winter that blend Wawa’s coffee with 2SP’s stouts. The first year, the Wawa Reserve Coffee Stout, sold out in a day, and when it was released the second year, hundreds lined up outside of a Wawa store in Chadds Ford for a chance to get their hands on the special brew.

This new boozy summer collaboration, which rightfully and refreshingly threatens to challenge Twisted Tea Light’s bizarre popularity in the Philly region, uses a “unique yeast that showcases the spectrum of flavors of Wawa’s Strawberry Lemonade,” and “sings summer crusher,” 2SP’s director of sales and marketing, Michael Contreras, said in a news release.

For the uninitiated, a shandy is a beer cocktail mixed with a nonalcoholic drink, typically lemonade in the United States (across the pond in Britain it’s often mixed with lemon soda). So if you’ve felt your lemonade doesn’t have enough beer for you, or your beer doesn’t have enough lemonade, you are in luck.

The Sunfest shandy, which sells for $8.99 a six-pack, will officially debut at 4 p.m. Thursday at a launch event at Wawa’s newest location, 2600 Penrose Ave. in South Philly. Festivities will feature a ceremonial first pour, samples, sales, and “beach-themed giveaways,” the release said.

The Sunfest Strawberry Lemonade Shandy will also hit shelves in Chadds Ford, Middletown, Blakeslee, Emmaus, and Horsham (the only other Wawas in Pennsylvania to sell beer) on Thursday.

At noon on Saturday, 2SP Brewing will hold a beach-themed release party at its brewery in Aston with live music, boardwalk games, food trucks, and a mechanical surfboard (which we imagine will play out like the Delco version of the mechanical bull at Xfinity Live!).

On June 28, the Sunfest shandy will also go on sale at select distributors and beer retailers in Southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Eastern Shore Maryland (sorry Florida man, no Sunfest shandy for you).

“There’s no better time than now to reunite with our friends at 2SP to provide a perfect summer beverage to our community to enjoy after the past year we’ve all had,” said Mike Sherlock, Wawa’s chief product marketing officer, in the news release. “This light and refreshing shandy is perfect for sipping with friends and family in your backyard or on the beach. We hope this beer brings the community together and adds a little extra positivity after a tough year.”

If there’s anything that can bring the community together from Delco to the Shore, it’s Wawa and beer.