Long time no see, fellow gluten-free homebrewers! Some of you may know me, some of you may not, it's been a while since I was posting obsessively here. The reason: I've turned pro, and my brewery is a few months away from opening!
We're called Ghostfish Brewing Company, and we are gluten-free start to finish. Our beers are made with Grouse gluten-free malts and I have been obsessively perfecting our flagship recipes over the last several months. The results have been nothing short of incredible--I am completely confident that all of our beers could enter competition against barley beers and the BJCP-certified judges would be none the wiser.
However, as is the case for most homebrewers-turning-pro, banks have been rather shy about lending to us. My partners and I, along with a lone angel investor, have ponied up enough to get everything we need to get rolling--a 15 bbl steam brewhouse, 6 tanks, an awesome building with a sweet taproom, and ingredients for our flagship brews. The one thing we couldn't quite stretch for was a pilot system and lab to develop new beers. I'm brewing my R&D batches on a 5-gallon homebrew setup in the brewery kitchen, but I'm about to get kicked out so that the kitchen can resume being "just a kitchen". This means that I'm basically going to be unable to brew anything but our flagship beers, and while these ARE three of the best beers I've ever made, I'd really like to be able to offer a broader range. My dream is to someday offer amazing gluten-free versions of nearly every BJCP style, not just for my personal enjoyment but so my fellow gluten-intolerants can experience the full range of beer styles.
So we've launched a Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/898556630/ghostfish-brewing-company-100-gluten-free-beer.
I'd like to draw your attention to a couple rewards that may be of interest to those of you with a bit of interest in turning pro yourselves. For $1500, we'll invite you in to the brewery to brew a 1/2-bbl batch of collaborative beer with us to be served in the taproom. This could be straight-up YOUR recipe, I call it "collaborative" because some potential backers may not have the brewing experience to put together a recipe of their own. But anyway, that brew session also includes a tour of the brewery and all the Q&A you could want, as well as all the rewards below it (a 64-oz stainless insulated growler, 4 pint glasses, 4 coasters, a poster of our can art, and an instrumental song composed for you by me!).
But it gets better. For $5000, we'll take that taproom beer, refine it, and brew it on the 15 bbl system as a limited-release beer that will actually be sold, AND we'll put your name on the label as "Co-Brewer". If you're in Washington or can make it to Seattle for the brew day, you can actually participate in the brewing of it. So you actually get two brew-days with us, one in the lab that you helped fund, one on the brew deck.
For those trying to turn pro, let me tell you that a bank will look at your SBA application a little more favorably if you can tell them that you co-brewed a commercial beer and have the labels to prove it. Heck, I'll even write you a letter of recommendation.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to be able to share a pint with all of y'all in my taproom soon!
We're called Ghostfish Brewing Company, and we are gluten-free start to finish. Our beers are made with Grouse gluten-free malts and I have been obsessively perfecting our flagship recipes over the last several months. The results have been nothing short of incredible--I am completely confident that all of our beers could enter competition against barley beers and the BJCP-certified judges would be none the wiser.
However, as is the case for most homebrewers-turning-pro, banks have been rather shy about lending to us. My partners and I, along with a lone angel investor, have ponied up enough to get everything we need to get rolling--a 15 bbl steam brewhouse, 6 tanks, an awesome building with a sweet taproom, and ingredients for our flagship brews. The one thing we couldn't quite stretch for was a pilot system and lab to develop new beers. I'm brewing my R&D batches on a 5-gallon homebrew setup in the brewery kitchen, but I'm about to get kicked out so that the kitchen can resume being "just a kitchen". This means that I'm basically going to be unable to brew anything but our flagship beers, and while these ARE three of the best beers I've ever made, I'd really like to be able to offer a broader range. My dream is to someday offer amazing gluten-free versions of nearly every BJCP style, not just for my personal enjoyment but so my fellow gluten-intolerants can experience the full range of beer styles.
So we've launched a Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/898556630/ghostfish-brewing-company-100-gluten-free-beer.
I'd like to draw your attention to a couple rewards that may be of interest to those of you with a bit of interest in turning pro yourselves. For $1500, we'll invite you in to the brewery to brew a 1/2-bbl batch of collaborative beer with us to be served in the taproom. This could be straight-up YOUR recipe, I call it "collaborative" because some potential backers may not have the brewing experience to put together a recipe of their own. But anyway, that brew session also includes a tour of the brewery and all the Q&A you could want, as well as all the rewards below it (a 64-oz stainless insulated growler, 4 pint glasses, 4 coasters, a poster of our can art, and an instrumental song composed for you by me!).
But it gets better. For $5000, we'll take that taproom beer, refine it, and brew it on the 15 bbl system as a limited-release beer that will actually be sold, AND we'll put your name on the label as "Co-Brewer". If you're in Washington or can make it to Seattle for the brew day, you can actually participate in the brewing of it. So you actually get two brew-days with us, one in the lab that you helped fund, one on the brew deck.
For those trying to turn pro, let me tell you that a bank will look at your SBA application a little more favorably if you can tell them that you co-brewed a commercial beer and have the labels to prove it. Heck, I'll even write you a letter of recommendation.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to be able to share a pint with all of y'all in my taproom soon!
