
{"id":11014,"date":"2010-06-16T13:01:49","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T21:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=11014"},"modified":"2010-06-16T13:01:49","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T21:01:49","slug":"get-yer-beer-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/06\/16\/get-yer-beer-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Get yer beer here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Margot C. Lester<br \/>\nBIZ BEAT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an old story that Wall Street still isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t helping Main Street when it comes to lending to small business. And even though the folks in Washington say they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working on that, tangible results are still a ways off. <\/p>\n<p>But the current economic climate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not dampening the spirits of Erik Lars Myers. The Chapel Hill resident plans to secure $40,000 in start-up funding for his craft beer-making business, Mystery Brewing Co. (mysterybrewingco.com), via a campaign on the micro-financing site Kickstarter.com. To date, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s raised about 20 percent of the total. Myers will only get the funding if he reaches his goal by July 23. (Myers isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t alone in thinking now\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the time for microbreweries. The mid-south region boasted the largest growth in craft beer sales in 2009 and the state is currently home to more than 40 breweries. Three more are slated to launch this year.)<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My preference is for capital investments and slow growth via cash flow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Myers explains. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That means that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not necessarily starting off with my ideal business \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for instance, somebody else will be making my beer for me for a short time \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but I think that the lack of crushing debt ultimately gives me a better chance to succeed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The decision to use Kickstarter was partly driven by friends wanting to support Myers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 venture but lacking the funds to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d investors. Via the site (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mysterybrewingco.com\/kickstart\/\">mysterybrewingco.com\/kickstart\/<\/a>), folks can put up as little as $5. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It sounds ridiculous and clich\u00c3\u00a9, but every little bit helps,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he notes. Myers also was drawn by the sense of community the site creates. In return for their contributions, donors will get gifts ranging from stickers and bottle openers to access to beer tastings and video chats. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fantastic opportunity to grow a community around the product \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and beer is a social product \u00e2\u20ac\u201c while getting help with getting the business off the ground.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In addition to funding, Myers is scouring Orange County for space. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been looking at Hillsborough for a while now, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ultimately love to have a space there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an awesome town with great locavore culture I think a brewery could thrive in. I have visions of collaborations with local farmers and dairies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c beer and cheese is a mind-blowing combination \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to complain about being situated on the corner of I-40 and I-85 when it comes to distribution.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nMystery will feature seasonal, small-batch brews that Myers plans to sell in $8 six-packs and reasonably priced growlers\/refills and kegs. The first beer will be a Belgian\/French-style farmhouse ale made with unmalted wheat and rye.\u00c2\u00a0Other candidates for early lineup include an English-style best bitter, a peat-smoky Scottish-style beer and a hefeweissen made with a particularly flowery variety of oolong tea.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also been planning to buy used barrels from local wineries to do lines of wine-infused beers and sour beers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Myers says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My wife works part of her time on Documenting the American South at UNC and has run across a few recipes from pre-Prohibition North Carolina plantations. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to work those into production, as well as explore some European styles that have fallen out of existence, like Lichtenhainer, a German-origin smoked sour beer. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The window for investment is open through July 23. For more information on Mystery Brewing Co., or to invest, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mysterybrewingco.com\/kickstart\/\">mysterybrewingco.com\/kickstart\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an old story that Wall Street still isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t helping Main Street when it comes to lending to small business. And even though the folks in Washington say they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working on that, tangible results are still a ways off. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11015,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11014\/revisions\/11015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}