Johnathan Wakefield, the mastermind behind J. Wakefield Brewing Company, is on the path to establishing Miami's next production brewery, and he is close.
To help raise the remaining capital needed to start J. Wakefield Brewing, the firm has established an account with CrowdBrewed, the Kickstarter-style answer for the craft beer industry.
See also: Florida Weisse: Our Own Style of Beer
Through CrowdBrewed, brewers use "crowdfunding" to raise the cash necessary to get their projects off the ground. This is a way for brewers to seek small financial donations from large groups of people rather than huge amounts from small groups of investors.
Wakefield's CrowdBrewed beta profile goes live today (September 9) and the actual fundraising site goes up a week later. Wakefield and crew have gone to great lengths to try and convince you to throw a little cash his way. This is not to say that the rest will cover absolutely everything Wakefield needs, but it's going to give him a little push.
Wakefield told Short Order that he needs about $50,000. This amount will be used to cover the cost of the bottling line and tasting room.
Last January Wakefield began a collaboration with Cigar City Brewing in Tampa and just recently he started brewing for them.
The Miami brewer is known for his highly-rated dragon fruit passion fruit Berliner Weisse, which was a pilot series brew at Cigar City Miami is the country's largest exporter of tropical fruit. Taking advantage of this, Wakefield was able to develop a style known as the Florida Weisse.
Wakefield recently finished brewing about 30 barrels of Mango IPA for Cigar City, which should available within a couple of weeks at your local World of Beer.
If you want to throw a few bucks in support of an up-and-coming brewery, check out J. Wakefield Brewing's Crowdbrewed.com account. For every donation, contributors are in for some J. Wakefield Brewing swag in return for their investment, including access to JWB's "The Originals" Membership Society.
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