Tim: All right, could you describe the brewing equipment you currently have. How many fermenters, tanks, etc.?

Beejay: Sure. We have two mash tuns that are each sixty-five gallons; we have two boiler kettles that are each seventy-five gallons. So we simultaneously mash twice, transfer to our boils and then start mashing again, so we are able to produce a full seven barrels a day.

On that, we have hot liquor on demand or a hot water on demand system, supplies sparge water and strike water. We have six seven-barrel fermenters, glycol chill-jacketed; and then we have four bright tanks that were actually they’re kind of a grundy tank that was, I think, they were originally used at the Smuckers factory they were all jelly tanks but they sit in our walk-in that’s where we cold-condition our beer and do our carbonation and package out of.

Tim: So how did you go about raising your funds? How much did you aim to raise and how much did you end up raising?

Beejay: We started our Kickstarter campaign, Kickstarter was one of the biggest sources of funding for us, I believe our goal was $30,000; we ended up raising $40,000 through Kickstarter. And then after the Kickstarter campaign had ended we kept getting e-mails about people that were like, “Oh! We missed it. We still want to get in on the incentives and what not.” So what we did is we ended up just setting up a Paypal account to continue and we offered the same incentive that we would have on Kickstarter and I believe we ended up raising another $30,000 that way. So all said I think we raised a good $70,000 that way then a little bit of help from family and savings.

Tim: So a huge part of your fundraising was done via Kickstarter, can you touch on what that experience was like and would you recommend it to other start up breweries?

Beejay: I would absolutely recommend it, it’s incredibly stressful. It was terrifying because you’re really just kind of begging for money in a certain sense. I mean you’re obviously trying to give something back but at the same time you’re just like, “Hey strangers! Help me start a business!” So I mean in theory it kind of sounds little weird but it was amazing. The middle part of your run on Kickstarter is always scary because you’re not getting bids on your stuff or whatever, you’re getting pledges and you’re just sitting there and like, “God, I hope that I can do this.” And then came December, I think we did a 72-day run and in the last two weeks was really when we started seeing the windfall of people jumping on. And right now one of the brewers here is starting a brewery, 18th Street Brewery, his name is Drew Fox and we’re actually launching his. We just helped him do his Kickstarter and he’ll be launching that tonight actually, I believe. So yeah, we’re taking other people through the Kickstarter campaigns as well.

Tim: So of the $40,000 or plus that you raised, how much do you think you actually netted after paying Kickstarter fees, paying Uncle Sam and paying for the items you had to give away?

Beejay: Right. If you include the stuff that we had to give away I would suspect it was between $25,000 and $30,000 that we would have netted. It’s hard to say I’d have to, it’s been so long and we’re, literally, we’re just starting to give out the rewards and stuff. We talked to all the people that had donated and it was really important for us to actually start the brewery and not make a bunch of t-shirts and everyone’s been super understanding with that. Which has been great because if you had to just drop that $7,000 on merchandise, here like, “Oh, I didn’t really make that much money at all.” But people wanted us to make beer, they were in it to get a brewery started and now they can have beer rather than a t-shirt and no brewery. So it worked out well.

Tim: So how much time did you think you spent on it total? Setting it up, admins, fulfillment, etc.? And would you have rather spent that time seeking private investment?

Beejay: How much time do we spend on that thing? I can’t even begin to fathom, I mean countless hours. Because the thing about Kickstarter is you do not just put your Kickstarter up and expect it to make money. You have to be diligent. We were at bars doing flyers, talking to people, doing events.

Facebook was a huge part of what made our Kickstarter work. It was similar to doing a paid advertisement; we spent money to get our advertisement out and built a giant fan base through soliciting fans. It was a crazy idea but Gerrit had this background in marketing and dealt with this kind of thing before and he was pretty confident and he was absolutely right. It worked out amazingly. But would I have rather gotten outside the investment? No, because then right now there’d be a percentage of my company owned by someone that hasn’t put the hard work in. So now I’m stoked that we were able to do it because we own 100% of our company which is a great feeling, we’re owner run. So, it’s good!

Tim: How much if, it all, does social media play into Pipeworks’ marketing and image?

Beejay: You know we’re Ratebeerians; we’re beer advocates; we’re beer nerds before we were professional brewers. I was a homebrew I was a beer geek obviously. So in that regard, I mean we’re very active on beer forums; we talk to the people that are rating our beers; if people are talking about us on the forums we’re glad to answer questions; Facebook and Twitter and these things are obviously playing a big role in it. Sometimes we don’t have as much time as we want to concentrate on Facebook, being self-distributing. Gerrit is the marketing guy and he hasn’t really had as much time to market as he’d normally would because he’s doing sales and delivering beer. But as the company grows and we are able to hire people to have specific jobs, social media is going to grow again because in the beginning it was pertinent to our success and it will continue to be a big part of us.

Tim: You guys have a number of highly rated beers on Beer Advocate and RateBeer. What role do you think they played for the brewery, if any?

Beejay: I think it’s huge. I think it’s really important. When we set out to do this, we wanted to be a great brewery. We weren’t looking just to make beer. We wanted to be something special. When we worked with Urbain, he was just coming off of being the number 1 rated brewer on RateBeer. So you know we came from kind of a little prestigious background, I guess, but it’s really important for us. I love amazing beer, and highly rated beer, and the beer scene it’s important for a business. You can get far with mediocre beer I suppose but I’d rather be known as the guy that’s making “badass” stuff, you know.