Beer: The Best Use Of Crowdfunding Or The Most Best Use Of Crowdfunding?

As a man who loves his water, malt, and hops, it’s inspiring to see the high-tech process of crowdfunding be applied to the re-creation of early microbrews. To wit: the daughter of legendary microbrewer Jack McAuliffe is attempting to bring back one of the first microbrews in America, New Albion Ale.

McAuliffe, the elusive grandfather of the craft beer movement, first founded his brewery in Sonoma, California in 1976. Using old soft drink and dairy equipment, he created the first microbrewery but closed up shop in 1982.

McAuliffe’s daughter, Renee DeLuca, has taken to CrowdBrewed to raise money for a reboot of the brand. She will produce a “contract brew” of the New Albion Ale recipe and hopes to add New Albion Porter and New Albion Stout to the mix.

Interestingly, DeLuca didn’t meet her father until 2000 and McAuliffe didn’t know he had a daughter until they met. However, DeLuca says she always knew she had ‘beer in her blood.’ She has been slowly reintroducing her father into the craft brewing scene he left in the 1980s.

From the crowdfunding page:

New Albion Ale is the brew that started a revolution. Acknowledged as the flagship beer brewed by the first United States microbrewery of the modern era, New Albion is the original craft beer. We brew with traditional ingredients like Cascade hops and two-row malt from Jack’s original recipe. Enjoy our golden Pale Ale with a delightful hop note and slight piney body any day of the week!

From a 2010 story on McAuliffe we discover his inspiration to brew odd beers came from his time in Scotland while in the Navy after discovering a dearth of good suds in America. Arguably the 1970s were a sad period for American beer, where the best a connoisseur could hope for was a can of Miller or Pabst. Sadly, the original New Albion brewery didn’t make much money and it wasn’t until the rise of the Boston Beer Company and Samuel Adams that microbrews really took off. By then McAuliffe was sick of the whole thing.

Now his daughter wants to bring back the recipe. Because CrowdBrewed can’t really ship you beer, they offer a number of perks including a pint glass and t-shirts. However, if the crowdfunding effort is successful you can expect to see a nice six-pack of New Albion on a shelf near you and you’ll know you’ve brought back an American legend. As a wise man once said, “Mmmmmm… beer.”

via Crowdfundinsider