We truly live in the future, friends. Food on demand. Love on demand. Uranium ore on demand. Now you’ve got growlers – essentially buckets – of beer on demand.
This new app, created by Sebastien Tron, Andrew Perroy, and Bodie Paden, is called Hopsy and offers 32oz growlers of microbrew beers on demand.
The company has raised $450,000 in pre-seed from angels and are looking to go to seed in April. They have been running for 20 days and they’ve already seen 600 orders and $20,000 in revenue. This means that the world loves beer and wants to put it into their mouths.
“I’m a big beer lover,” said Tron. “I was born and raised in Belgium. When I moved to the US, I was amazed by the craft beer miracle that was happening. In Europe, we’ve been brewing beer for hundreds of years with the same recipes. The US has taken every style of beer in the world and experimented every variation possible, giving birth to some of the best beers in the worlds. This is the result of the hyper fragmentation of the market: large brands milk the same recipes on and on, when small craft brewers experiment and invent new styles.”
The goal for Tron, then, was to bring real craft beer to folks who drink it directly from the brewers. Tron, Bodie, and Perroy all worked for NakedWines and Tron worked for Munchery and Spoonrocket. The service is only available in SF for now but they are looking to expand this year.
The most interesting thing about Hopsy is that they are bringing beer directly from the makers to the drinkers. This cuts out the middle tier of distributors that have driven prices up and fought for legislation that made them an integral part in the whole system. Thankfully, California is a state where the distributors are slowly grasping the potential for change.
“In the Bay Area alone, within 50 miles of SF, there are 160 breweries. The problem is: only a fraction of these local micro breweries are distributed in retail, where shelf space is dominated by the big beer companies that have been able to strike the best distribution deals. By going directly to the source, we give our customer online access to local breweries they usually don’t find in traditional retail,” said Tron. “That’s how I started thinking about how I could create a startup to shake up this industry. I came up with a first idea that I pitched to few brewers. They said it was crap. So I came up with a second idea, that I pitched again. They said it was better but not good. Then I came up with the idea behind Hopsy. They loved it.”
So here’s to that funky monkey, that funky monkey. Put your left leg down your right leg up
tilt your head back let’s finish the cup and you, too, can enjoy some fine craft brews with your friends Mike D and Ad-Rock and pour a little out for MCA.