Canning Contributions

Now is the time to contribute to help me start canning and exchange, get to try some of my homebrew and help me get even better.  Here’s a breakdown of the contribution levels:

Local Investors

• $25.00 – One Six-Pack in First Year
• $30.00 – Two Six-Packs in First Year

Out-of-Town Investors

• $30.00 – One Six-Pack Delivered in First Year
• $35.00 – Two Six-Packs Delivered in First Year

 

If you’d like to buy a double membership (4 six packs) – double the amount and take $10 off.  That would be $50 for local and $60 for out-of-town.  If you’d like to contribute any above and beyond to help me out, that is greatly appreciated.

I am asking that you contribute via PayPal.  My email address is m_hines_84@yahoo.com.  Be sure when you send it to say that you are ‘sending money to a friend’ which will avoid fees.  In the message, please put your name.  If I don’t personally know you, please let me know your Instagram handle or Facebook name.  I don’t mind if I don’t know you.  In fact, I encourage it because it will help me get a well rounded and perhaps more honest review of my beers.

If you can’t or don’t want to use PayPal, contact me and we will figure out another way to arrange for payment to be made.

After i get your contribution, I will try to contact you one way or another via text, email or IM to let you know that I received it.  In the near future I will be creating a Facebook group for those who contribute.  That’s where I will post updates about which beers I’m brewing, what’s getting canned and how to choose your beers.  If you’re not on Facebook, I’ll make other arrangements to make sure that you get all the updates.

Thank you all for your help and I hope to be sharing my canned beer with you very soon!

Homebrew Canning Fundraiser

Homebrew Canning Fundraiser

I am trying to crowdfund the money to buy a personal can seamer which will allow me to can and distribute my homebrew to wider audience.  I am looking for friends, family members and beer lovers who would like to help me on that goal and in return, you’ll be able to receive and sample my homebrew while giving me valuable feedback to help me continue to improve my recipes and brewing techniques.

What Will I Use The Money For?

The main expense is the can seamer.  Can seamers have been extremely expensive but recently some new models have dropped in price significantly to an amount that is affordable for some homebrewers.  The money I raise will go towards buying the seamer I have my eye on. This manufacturer also makes many of the Crowler machines that craft brewers use. In addition, funds will be used to buy the cans, packing supplies, labels and to also offset the initial costs of shipping.

All funds will go directly towards the canning project.  I am not allowed to charge anyone for my homebrew as I don’t have the proper license.  I am only crowdfunding to be able to get you my homebrew without a significant expense to myself.  

 

Investors

I am looking for a mix of people both local and out-of-town to invest.  Initially I’m looking to have 20 to 30 investors. 20 investors should be enough to fund the purchase of the seamer and a shipment of cans.  Initially 30 will be the max investors. After I have 30 investors I will temporarily stop donations. Most initial investors will be receiving 2 shipments of six-packs in the first year as a result of your investment.  To make sure that I’m able to do that I have to be careful how much I promise.

After the initial investment round, I will evaluate my ability to add additional investors.  Likely I will be able to add up to 20 more investors but possibly with more restrictions.
Investment Amounts

The investment amount I’m asking for is what I will need to get this project going.  There will be a slight difference between local and out-town investors simply to help offset some of the shipping costs.

Local Investors

• $25.00 – One Six-Pack in First Year
• $30.00 – Two Six-Packs in First Year

Out-of-Town Investors

• $30.00 – One Six-Pack Delivered in First Year
• $35.00 – Two Six-Packs Delivered in First Year

These are the minimum amounts to get those rewards.  If you choose to, you may invest more to help me get closer to my goal but that is certainly not expected.

 

How To Invest

Rather than using a crowdfunding site, I will try to use PayPal.  If you choose ‘sending to a friend’, this will eliminate the fees and allow all of the money to go to the canning project rather than losing some fees.  When I’m ready for this to go live, I will make another post detailing how to make the payment.

 

Benefits of Investment

The main benefit is clearly the homebrew you will receive.  The amount that you get is just what you are guaranteed in the first year.  Depending on inventory, you may be able to get more than that. I’m also hoping to get some SWAG – stickers, t-shirts, coasters, etc that I can send out when you get your 6-packs.

After your initial investment, you will continue to receive shipments only for the cost of shipping – $10.  Or if you are local, there will be no additional charge!

 

Expected Timeline

Depending on the progress of the crowdfunding, I hope to get the seamer and cans by early summer.  Early summer I will do some small test runs to make sure the cans are being sealed properly, eventually working up to some test mailings.  Due to the extreme heat in Arizona, I’m hesitant to put anything in the mail during the summer as quality could suffer.

Towards the end of the summer, I hope to do my first full batches but due to the heat, I may only give those out locally.  Once the temperature goes down, I hope to get onto a regular canning schedule.

 

Canning and Selection Process

When the beer is finished fermenting, I will keg the beer and force carbonate it as I have previously.  Then I will put the beer on tap so that I can make sure that the flavors are good and the carbonation is at the level I’d like.  From there, I will fill the cans off the keg using a ‘beer gun’ or in the future I may make something to allow me to fill multiple cans at once.  Canning runs will be timed so that it’s right after an IPA or a fresh fruit beer is made, that way I can get you that as soon as possible.

I will be posting a tentative brewing schedule that will let you plan ahead for which beers you’d like to try.  Once I get onto a regular canning schedule, I will be doing double 5-gallon batches each brew day with 1 to 2 brewdays a month.  Every month or two, I will do a canning day where I will can 2 to 4 beers. The week prior to the canning day, I will post which beers I’m canning and see who is interested.  In most cases, I will limit it to 2 to 3 beers of each style just make sure it gets spread out to everyone. When I’ve got everyone’s orders, I will finalize canning plan. Most beers I’m going to only do 24 cans but I will see how this goes.

Beer Styles

I make a wide variety of styles, so there will be plenty to choose from.  Of course I do a lot of IPAs ranging from west coast to NEIPA to white IPAs.  I’m also doing a lot of fruit sour beers. But I do traditional styles as well including Belgian styles like Saison, Wit, Quad and Golden Strong and I’ve been working on improving on my German lager styles.  Some of my more innovative beers are my Asian inspired series. These are recipes that use Asian ingredients and flavors to make unique beers that aren’t seen very often. I’ve made beers using Jackfruit, a saison with Indonesian spices and attempted to make a Vietnamese Coffee Milk Stout.  In the plans I have a Green Tea IPA, a sake-beer hybrid and a Chai Spiced Porter with other ideas coming soon.

Delivery and Pickup

Most packages will be sent out on Monday or Tuesday.  The reason for that is to make sure that the packages don’t sit around over the weekend and cause more heat damage than I’d like.  For the local investors, I can try and meet up with you to get you your cans. I also hope to have 2 to 4 tasting events to share the beers with everyone and have them available for pickup.

 

Untapped

One of the main reasons I want to do this is to get more feedback on my homebrew.  To do that I’m going to start entering all my beers onto the app Untapped. All I request is that you download the app, rate the beers and give me honest feedback on my beers so that I can keep improving them.  Most importantly, I need honesty because it does no good to hear my beer is good if it’s not. Flaws need to be pointed out and fixed and I can’t always find them myself.

 

Questions
If you have any questions, send me a message on Facebook, Instagram or email me at m_hines_84@yahoo.com.