The locally and independently owned, Kettle River Brewing Co, is expanding and is looking for community involvement to help fundraise via a crowd-funding campaign on the popular site, Indiegogo.
Located in the North End of Kelowna, Kettle River Brewing does very small beer runs and have brewed over 200 batches since opening in July of 2016. Being a small team (only 4, including the founders) with a strong DIY-ethos, everything in the brewery has been built by the team. In fact, most of the brewery, including everything from the equipment to the barn wood bar is second-hand or recycled parts.
The current, tiny brewing system is handmade out of used tea tree oil tins and dairy parts, but is not sufficient for the current growth rate and public demand. To keep up, the brewery has ordered a new brewing system that will produce five times the beer.
But the start-up still needs to pay for the rest of it, including all installation costs to get it operational. Additionally, to prepare for the Okanagan summer, they’ve started the process of getting a licensed patio out front, including upgrading their tasting lounge license to a lounge endorsement. The success of this would mean customers can enjoy more than one sample glass, outside in the sunshine!
To achieve these goals, the company is looking to fundraise up to $30,000 with $20,000 covering the remaining cost of buying and installing the new system, and $10,000 to cover building upgrades, re-zoning for the licensed patio.
So far the campaign has brought in just over $4,000.
Beyond the typical brewery fundraiser perks, such as branded swag, bonus beer, a learn-to-brew day, they’ve included tickets to a Brewhouse Backers Banquet beer four course dinner; a “buy-a-brick” option where you can decorate one of the bricks in the wall of the brewery; a portrait painted by a local artist and hung in the brewery, and a custom KRBC kegerator, supplied with beer for a year.
To celebrate the campaign, Kettle River has partnered with Groove Garden Records to have a Mini-Record Store Pop-up Shop day, Sat. March 25th. They will be raffling off artwork, vinyl grab bags, special bottles like the bourbon choc. milk stout, brewery swag like fill vouchers, hats etc and will have some special draft on for samples.
To find out more you can visit the fundraiser page: https://igg.me/at/krbc.