As brewery taprooms across the country looked to alter their business models, the team at Craftpeak — a web design studio catering to the craft beer industry — was overwhelmed. With fewer than 10 employees, Craftpeak was at capacity. Still, they were trying to offer creative solutions to their clients’ problems.
“The worst part was it felt like there was nothing we could do,” shares John Kelley, CEO and Co-Founder of Craftpeak. “There was limited bandwidth but we wanted to do something.”
Enter Matt Tanaka, founder of Stout Collective. A frequent collaborator of Kelley’s, the visual designer suggested an open-source beer that anyone could brew. Sort of a collab beer without borders. Like Sierra Nevada’s Resilience IPA or Threes Brewing’s People Power, participating breweries would donate a portion of the proceeds to a charitable cause. Moreover, it would give craft breweries a new form of business when they needed it most.
“The idea started from a multi-brewery virtual collab,” explains Tanaka. Breweries would use the same recipe and release identical beers to their local markets. “We thought, How can we help breweries keep down costs and create something that’s accessible worldwide?”
In order to provide a long-term solution, Kelley knew that breweries needed a more significant bump than tips and gift cards. But, he also knew they needed a brewery partner to spearhead the liquid side of things. But, Tanaka had been workshopping the idea with one of his brewery partners. The solution came to Kelley in the form of a text from Other Half Brewing’s Andrew Burman: “John, call me back ASAP.”
The resulting conversation yielded “All Together,” a beer that would be brewed to support hospitality professionals. Other Half would handle the recipe. Stout Collective would manage the product’s marketing and branding. Kelley had only one answer.
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