We’re launching a Kickstarter campaign today to help us hit the ground running. The text of our press release, which includes a link to the campaign, is below. Please watch the music video—which we tried to make fun and entertaining—and share the campaign with friends. We’ve put together a good package of rewards, so we hope you’ll also consider donating. We have until April 9 to reach our goal. Thanks!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Stratford’s next brewery launches Kickstarter campaign
STRATFORD, Conn., March 10, 2016—Fairfield Craft Ales, a music-inspired nanobrewery under construction on Honeyspot Road in Stratford, has just launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.com (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1740197116/fairfield-craft-ales) to help fund its opening. The three-barrel brewery will have a tap room where up to eight different varieties of beer will be available in pints for onsite consumption and in growlers to take home. The company’s owners, Fairfield residents Mike Borruso and Joe Bow, have already invested over $100,000 of their own money into the project and have set an initial fundraising target of $15,000 to help them cover some of the remaining expenses that will help them open right before summer. They have until April 9 to meet their target. If the campaign doesn’t attract enough donors, the brewery gets no funds from Kickstarter.
Borruso and Bow are avid, award-winning home brewers who met when Bow was coaching both their sons in youth baseball. They started talking about brewing when they ran into each other on their Metro North commute to New York City, and hatched a plan to start a brewery in the summer of 2014. That began an extensive search for properties throughout Fairfield county, and a little bit in New Haven. They looked at buildings in Bridgeport, Fairfield, Milford, Norwalk, Stratford, Trumbull, and Westport. “We probably saw more than two dozen spaces,” says Bow, “and every time we thought ‘this is the one,’ some problem would come up, like the zoning wasn’t right, there wasn’t enough parking, or the landlord just didn’t want a brewery.”
But in the fall of 2015, everything came together and they signed a lease for 724 Honeyspot Road in Stratford. Borruso says, “This space really has everything we were looking for—the right size and layout located in a diverse and creative community, not to mention a thriving craft beer culture created by our neighbors up the street at Two Roads Brewing Company. Stratford has it all, as far as we’re concerned.”
Since signing the lease, Fairfield Craft Ales has been hard at work acquiring equipment and building the brewery and taproom. Almost all the equipment needed is already in the space and construction is almost complete. Borruso and Bow plan to get their equipment hooked up and the space painted by the end of March. But even assuming all that gets done on time, they can’t start brewing without government approval.
“To quote Tom Petty, ‘the waiting is the hardest part,'” said Borruso, who notes that they filed for their federal brewer’s permit in October. “We’re hoping to get our approval by the end of March, start brewing in April, and open in May. Then we can start serving our beer, which is the whole point.”
In the meantime, they’re paying rent and utilities, and continue to incur startup expenses. Those expenses include professional installation fees for some pieces of equipment, brewing ingredients and supplies, barware, and merchandise for resale like T-shirts and growlers. “This Kickstarter campaign is all about getting us through this initial startup period so we can deliver the amount of beer and brewery experience that our customers deserve,” says Bow. “The best part of this whole thing will be seeing people enjoying our products.”
CONTACT:
Mike Borruso
President
Fairfield Craft Ales, Inc.
(203) 767-8811
Facebook: facebook.com/fairfieldcraftales
Twitter: @fairfieldcraft
Instagram: @fairfieldcraftales
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