Finnegans raises 30K with Kickstarter

The crowd funding trend is alive and well in craft brewing. The latest news comes from the Minneapolis-based beer company Finnegans, which achieved its funding goal of $30,000 to help bring the Dead Irish Poet to life.

The Dead Irish Poet will be sold as part of a Saintly Sampler Pack that includes six of the stouts, three Finnegans Irish Amber and three of their Blonde Ales.

It was a close call on whether the Dead Irish Poet would breathe life, but thanks to the 255 backers, the first ever stout from Finnegans will hit shelves, stores and taps this October 1. With set prizes for donors like personalized limericks to full on Finnegans swag for dressing like an Irish poet, the highest level backers won an invitation to the Dead Irish Poet private release party and a chance to be the first to taste the stout when they help package the beer at Summit Brewing Co.

“This is seriously the best birthday present ever,” exclaimed Jacquie Berglund, Finnegans chief executive officer. “We are beyond grateful to our supporters, partners, backers and volunteers and could not have done it without each and every one of them. We love good beer and giving back and now we can do both thanks to our hundreds of supporters who came out to help us this past month. We truly can’t thank them enough.”

With multiple match programs where anonymous donors matched up to $1,500, backers from all over stepped up to help reach the $30,000 goal. Money raised will go to cover all costs related to developing and launching the new stout including recipe formulation and ingredients, packaging and tap handles.

Finnegans has teamed up with Damian McConn, head brewer at Summit, to create the Dead Irish Poet. With a full body and robust flavor of dark chocolate and cherries, it’s bound to be the perfect drink for the colder months.

Finnegans is a self-sustaining and inspirational social business. Through the sale of its Amber Ale and Blonde Ale, Finnegans has created an innovative business model that allows the company to create community wealth. How? One hundred percent of the profits are donated to the Finnegans Community Fund (501c3) to support hunger alleviation programs in every market where Finnegans is sold. Finnegans has scaled giving programs to Minnesota, Wisconsin North Dakota and South Dakota.

If you’re thinking about launching your own crowdfunding campaign to support your budding brewery, don’t miss our crowdfunding feature story.