Executive Summary: Licensing and Rent/Purchase costs for a building to sell beer in Ontario, Canada are significant.  With a blended family and legal dependants, savings are slow; so we need help reaching our goal and dream.  If you’re interested in helping, read below.

As many of you already know, the costs of starting a nano/micro brewery are significant and, licensing-wise, difficult.  As such, the intention for the coming years has shifted from a 3-year plan to a “as soon as we can” plan…Unfortunately, as optimistic as that sounds, this is a result of financial strain we are sure most of the population is feeling as well.

We have looked at crowdfunding sites like Kick Starter and Go Fund Me, but both added stress and strain because each of those came with deadlines that we were not able to solidly commit to in order to see the project become successful (or may have been outside our control).  For example, in one crowdfunding program, if we missed our anticipated deadline (lets say, because of licensing delays), the funds would expire or be removed from access; thus adding significant financial burden that would bankrupt our family…So we were advised to pivot to a quasi-crowdfunding option whereby patrons or a supporting community would donate “to a cause” or “to the future” until funds were sufficient to open the business we had dreamed of…Kinda like a Dream-Funding.

Where it gets tricky is the transparency in funds.  We would commit that the funds would be used to maintain or grow the business with the intention of obtaining licensing and a brick-and-mortar location in southwestern Ontario (specifically, and hopefully, near Guelph/Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge).  If the business idea folded, our intention would be to donate any remaining funds to a local charity or cause that is linked to the business’ mantra of story (for example, to Men’s Mental Health in the Trades Industry).

If that is something you are interested in being a part of, and you wish to donate, please send your eTransfer to skal.brew.co@gmail.com 

Thanks in advance!  We will continue with this dream because, without dreams, what else to we have? (Besides Friends, Family, a great community, a decent job…you get the picture!)