Two Scots are behind a charity project that sees money go to great causes every time someone drinks their beer.
Alan Mahon and Josh Littlejohn are behind craft beer BrewGooder, with profits going to fund clean water projects in developing countries.
Their work has already raised huge sums, and we turn back the clock to when they were first starting out. This feature originally appeared in our June 2016 edition.
How did you come up with the idea?
We really did come up with the idea in the pub. Josh and I have a background with Social Bite, a café that employs homeless people in the production and selling of sandwiches in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea if the beer we are drinking could help people and not just do the usual thing where the profits go to shareholders.’ We decided to test this in 2015. The beer was great and sold out.
Who’s involved with BrewGooder?
Myself and Josh pitched our idea to James Watt at BrewDog, who had the ability to make the beer at zero margin. Then we could sell it and make as much money as possible for the projects. The Hunter Foundation supported us through the crowd fund.
So have you stopped fundraising?
The crowdfund is closed, although this is just the start of a journey to provide a million people with fresh water over the next five years. We’re talking to supermarkets, bars and restaurants, and a lot of places in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews have backed us, so people do want to help.
Who benefits from the project?
Initially we’ve identified The Norah Docherty School in Dedza in Malawi. The existing water sources they have are just shallow wells. Sometimes the water was contaminated and there was no way to test it regularly, so we asked what we could do to help. They said solar-powered wells would be ideal as they would reduce the time burden on women collecting water and would work well in the summer, when it was hardest to source water. Our crowd fund will provide around 2000 people with improved access to clean water.
Is it just Malawi for now?
The more beer we sell, the more places we can help. We’d love to go into Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, plus places where there’s a real need for water as a first bridge out of poverty.
Where can we buy the beer?
Our first production run is starting now and it’s round about 200,000 cans. It will also be on tap in BrewDog. (Since the original publication, Brewgooder is now on sale in Tesco).
What’s next?
Planning how we can get national supplies and looking to export markets. We’ve done a lager but we want to have a product range. This is what’s happening in the craft brewery market. We’d like to take on America and we should be brewing in Brewdog’s Columbus Ohio brewery by this time next year. It’s important to myself and Josh not just to have philanthropic intentions. We need to create a viable business that people want to support and want to spend their money on.
Visit www.brewgooder.com for the latest on the enterprise.
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