Avoiding the Crowd

There's a new brewery in town set to open seemingly any day now.* Not gonna lie, I'm pretty damn excited to have another brewery in Ithaca. The state of beer around here (Tompkins County at least) leaves a bit to be desired.

A new brewery is opening up you say?!

There looks to be some potential here. I love the location. The guys have a science background which I think bodes well for QC/QA. The branding is sharp. And the tasting room sounds like it's going to be fun (check that first link). But--you knew there would be a but--while having not tasted any of their beer yet, I already have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It comes down to a crowd-funding campaign. 

To me, crowd-funding campaigns are about making something possible that wouldn't exist without the help of us commoners. At the same time there needs to be some sort of return on the investment. Crowd-funding artistic endeavors is cool I think. If enough of us pledge 10 bucks, this band will be able to book studio time and will send us all a CD. We invested and got an appropriate return. Unfortunately, too many crown-funding endeavors don't provide such a return. Liquid State launched what I thought was one of those types of campaigns. Here's what they were raising funding for:

Wait... How Will My Money Help Again?

Each and every dollar that you spend on Liquid State's Kickstarter campaign ends up doing great things. You are helping to create a special sort of beer hall welcoming to all friends, families, kids, visitors and future friends. Well into our project we decided to take a leap and install a sprinkler system throughout the brewery. Did we do this for the maze of pipes, steampunk gauges, valves and red paint you ask? Actually, no. The sprinkler system means more people, more fun, more skeeball and bigger windows looking out onto the shiny stainless steel tanks. It also means more live music nights, more beer events and more community events. We thank you greatly for helping with this expensive addition to our project. This is our Kickstarter goal.

Here's how this reads to me: we found out it was going to be more expensive to build the beer hall we wanted, so instead of building capital by producing and selling a great product we'd like you to just give us the money for it without ever tasting our beer. Oh and we'll give you a high-five! Community! Rad! 

Full disclosure here: I have backed exactly 1 beer-related kickstarter program. It sounded too damn interesting. It was a brewery incubator--small brewery space where a number of different brewers rent out time to brew and they get to put their product on taps in the cafe. Great low-risk way to test out your beer before investing in a full-fledged brewery. For $10, I got a snifter glass. For $20 to Liquid State, I'd get a pint glass...and a sticker and coaster!

If we're going to have a capitalistic system, I'd prefer not to give money away for little worthwhile return. When the brewery opens, I might buy a pint glass. It'll probably cost $5-6. They'll probably be giving away the stickers and coasters for free. I'll be happy to visit even if you don't have your dream taproom the second you open your doors. I'll come as frequently as I can in hopes you continue to grow and expand. Having this kickstarter for folks to give you money while you avoid the inherent risk of opening a business, just seems off. Hopefully the beer leaves a better taste in my mouth.

*I drafted this up a couple days before Liquid State quietly announced they would have a soft opening on 10/25. Grand opening is slated for 11/4.