Los Angeles Ale Works is a start-up brewery in Los Angeles owned and operated by John Rockwell and Kip Barnes. The two Partners have been working on a craft brewery business plan for the last 3+ years. In that time we’ve become incredibly integrated into the industry (3/4 of the people at an industry event will know us) by: running a blog , co-founding a beer writers organization , volunteering at breweries, talking shop/getting advice from local brewery owners, and writing a craft beer guidebook for Southern California . Our next step is to open our own dedicated, full-time brewing facility. The founders (my partner and I) are extremely passionate about our business and methodical about preparing and executing our business plan. Together with CraftFund we expect great things.
The Company has also launched the brand ahead of having our own facility open. Earlier this year we started contracting with a local brewer to brew small batches every month. This gets our beer into bars with our own tap handles and our recipes. It’s great exposure for the brand, demonstrates a track record of successful demand for the product to investors, and gets us additional industry experience and recipe development. Starting October we will be selling 80 kegs or $7,000 worth of beer a month. Prior to October, we brewed smaller 1/2 batches for 40 kegs or $3,500/month. This scale up was possible by our hugely successful Kickstarter campaign (raised 152% of our $25,000 goal) in March of this year. We own the tank that the beer is being brewed in. This tank was partially funded by Dollar Shave Club, who sponsored a portion of the tank after hearing about our story and wanting to get involved. This tremendous public support has given us extra confidence that our ideas and execution are strong and that traction for the brand is building the right way.