Not Your Ordinary Beer
Shrimp beer brewer launches a Kickstarter campaign to live the dream
It's beer — and some of it has shrimp in it. What more do you need to know?Photo via Down Easy Brewing/Facebook
Photo via Down Easy Brewing/Facebook
Down Easy Brewing's Jack Winkler spent 10 months of research assembling a detailed, $5 million-dollar business plan for the brewery he one day hopes to open. Then, he scratched that plan and made his aim just a touch less lofty; he started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $55,000 in a little over a month to get his pilot brewery off the ground.
Winkler's campaign, which launched Feb. 3 and includes a detailed $250,000 business plan, a staffed virtual meeting room and plenty of incentives for potential investors, concludes March 8 at 6 p.m. Per Kickstarter's policy, if he and his five-member board don't make it to the $55,000 mark, they get no funding at all. (As of Thursday, the campaign had raised just over $1,000).
"I'd like to make beer that isn't so common, but is equally as good. The shrimp, obviously, no one else is doing, because it's a fool's errand."
Winkler's plan contains two plans in one — sort of. One identifies the funds needed to get a contract brewing business off the ground (wherein Winkler and company would brew on equipment owned by a third party) and the other identifies the funds needed to build out an in-house brewery. If he gets the more minimal funding he needs to get a pilot brewery and pay for licensing fees Down Easy will brew from Bryan, Texas, although Winkler eventually hopes for a build-out here in Houston.
As for the beer, Winkler's past creations indicate an eclectic bent. Take, for example, his Big Shrimp Ale, which does, in fact, contain shrimp.
"I developed the shrimp beer because I have a friend who owns a seafood company, and he wanted a beer to give to his folks," Winkler says. "I took it as kind of a challenge. Mid-process, he said he meant he just wanted a beer with shrimp in the name, but I took the idea and ran with it. I thought it was going to be god awful, but it was actually pretty good."
Other core beers in Down Easy's Portfolio (Winkler has been home brewing in Houston for a decade) include Elle Pale and Easy Does It Light Ale.
"I'm open as far as what other seasonals or other beers we add," Winkler says. "Ultimately, my goal is to bring on a brewmaster who can add to our model."
To read Winkler's business plan or make an investment for such incentives as eternal gratitude, monthly web meetings, lifetime brewery membership, brew school and more, visit the campaign homepage here.
