Oklahoma City-area breweries try hand at online fundraising

Oklahoma City's Black Mesa Brewing Co. and Midwest City's Roughtail Brewing Co. both recently launched independent Kickstarter projects with aims of receiving enough financial pledges to achieve their goals.

Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) allows businesses, musicians, artists — anyone really — to post a project with a stated financial goal. Potential backers can elect to make a pledge toward the project. If the project reaches full funding by a specified date, the financial pledges are collected from donors. Applicants will typically offer prizes or goods in exchange for collected pledges.

If the project fails to reach its funding goal, no pledges are collected and potential donors are off the hook, while applicants are out the time and effort used to create the project.

For Roughtail brewmaster Tony Tielli, using Kickstarter to try to fund a $30,000 automated canning line makes sense.

“We decided to do Kickstarter because we believe there is a growing grass-roots craft beer movement in Oklahoma right now, and we believe that the craft beer lovers in our state will band together to help bring more great brew to the masses,” Tielli said.

Tielli and partner Blaine Stansel still have work to do to reach their goal. As of Friday afternoon, Roughtail's Kickstarter project had 59 backers pledging $5,215. The deadline for the project is 5 p.m. Monday. In exchange for pledges, they're offering prizes ranging from T-shirts to handblown pint glasses to interactive brewing experiences.

Tielli and Stansel, homebrewers who are attempting to turn their passion for beer-making into a successful business, say they are not daunted by what appear to be long odds against reaching their funding goal.

“Of course we'll be disappointed if we don't fund the project,” Tielli said. “However, we have been fighting long and hard to open this brewery ... and I can say with unwavering confidence that nothing will stop us from achieving what we have set out to do.”

The two have already faced numerous hurdles. They initially planned to open shop in Dallas, but found the market was beginning to flood with breweries, driving startup costs up. They secured a building near downtown Oklahoma City, but met several roadblocks in bringing the building into compliance with local codes. Now, they've settled in Midwest City, with plans to have their first beers on tap in local establishments by the end of the month. If the canning line is funded, the plan calls for having beer on liquor store shelves later in the year.