Texas Beer Co: Texas-brewed craft beer and brewpub based in Taylor, TX

Ian Davis

Co-Founder and CEO

A proud 5th generation Texan, Ian believes that Texans should join together to take back Texas beer and support local businesses. Ian is married to Amy Everhart, and together they have two boys.

JD Gins

Co-Founder and Brewmaster

JD's lived in Texas since college and is married to Megan Klein. He loves craft beer and has been an avid home brewer for the last six years. JD and Megan have 3 dogs, Smokey, Elephant and Biscuit.

Cliff Olle

Board Member

Cliff started a rural wireless Internet company, Eccentrix Wireless, to service those without high-speed connection options. He now owns ON Technologies based in Taylor and is married to Kaitlin Olle.

Investor Q&A

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What does your company do?

We are a locally-owned, people-powered, solar-powered brewery in historic downtown Taylor, Texas. Our brewpub features a variety of Texas craft beer paired with BBQ, pizza, tacos and more. We have live music every weekend, and we've hosted numerous community events and charity fundraisers. Our taproom opened last year, and we did $230K in 2016 (May-Dec.) revenue with just on-premise sales. Now we've reached maximum capacity, so we're expanding from a 3-barrel brewhouse to a 30-barrel brewhouse.

Where will your company be in 5 years?

At Texas Beer Co, we are all about the people. We originally launched with the generous support of over 300 Kickstarter supporters and have quickly become a staple of Taylor. Now, we want to put our beer on shelves all across Texas and beyond by building an expansion brewery and canning facility that will enable widespread distribution. Our ultimate goal is to become the Texas beer, paying tribute to our beloved state with every sip.

What is Texas Beer Company?

Texas Beer Company is a locally owned people-powered brewery in Taylor, Texas. We built our pilot brewhouse last year through the support of a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Things have gone so well we can no longer keep up with the demand on the pilot brewhouse. Now we are launching another crowdfunding campaign to expand to a much bigger production and distribution brewery.

How big is the market?

The U.S. beer industry’s total economic impact totals $250 billion, and the Texas craft beer market totals $2 billion. Texas is #2 in overall craft beer sales, but only #44 in per capita breweries. Thus there's still room for plenty of growth in the Texas craft beer market.

What's new about what you're making? How is it different?

We are the Texas Beer Company. We're TX brewed, TX owned and TX proud. Our craft beer lineup includes pales, reds, IPA's and porters, and we also brew light lagers because we want all Texans to feel welcome at Texas Beer Co. Our expansion brewery also has rooftop solar panels, and we're excited to brew solar-powered beer. People have been brewing beer for over 9,000 years, and we want to do everything possible to protect our environment so that folks can enjoy delicious beer for many generations to come. Unlike Lone Star -- the self-proclaimed "national beer of Texas" -- we're actually locally owned. Our mission is to always pay tribute to the great state of Texas, reinvest our profits into the local economy and take back Texas beer from foreign-owned corporations.

Who are your competitors? How are you different?

The Texas craft beer movement has a collaborative culture, and we're forever grateful to our brewery mentors who have offered invaluable advice. We proudly served other local Texas beer on our tap wall, and we enjoy hosting regular tap takeovers. All of the Texas craft breweries are united in trying to take market share from the foreign-owned corporations like AB InBev, and while we can't afford million dollar TV commercials, we have a big grassroots network of supporters who promote local craft beer via word of mouth.

What do you understand about your business that others don't get?

Our Kickstarter-funded pilot brewhouse has given us a head start to experiment with different recipes and get customer feedback before our beer ever hits the shelves.

What's your biggest risk? What keeps you up at night?

We used our Series A investor funding to purchase a bigger, more efficient 30-barrel brewhouse than most startup breweries need. Over the long term, this will help us brew more beer and grow our business. But, our biggest risk right now is that we made the assumption that our follow up Series B crowdfunding raise would indeed be successful. So, if our crowdfunding campaign flops, then we will regret having purchased such a big brewhouse.

How will you make money?

While we do run a popular taproom in Taylor, our business plan focuses on high volume distribution to grocery stores and bars across Texas.

How do you acquire customers?

Most of our customers hear about us either through word of mouth or from social media and news stories. We have over 1,000 supporters on our email list and over 10,000 supporters on Facebook.

What's your Cash Flow?

Our cash held as of April 21st was $477K. Monthly burn rate is around $25k. With the next rounds of expansion equipment, build out purchases and investments in marketing and distribution, we project that cash on hand will decline significantly in 2018. The general brewery rule of thumb is that breweries turn a profit around 6,000 distribution barrels in, and we anticipate following a similar path to profitability. Our short term and mid term expenses are around $500k including $250k for equipment purchase, $50k for ingredients, $50k for cans and packaging, $150k for buildout.

Tell us about your first taproom.

When we started, going back to the name Texas Beer Company, we thought this is bigger than just an Austin brand. We started looking at the horizons around us. Where else would be a good place? We were looking at a number of cities and heard about a building in Taylor. A friend told us there was a great space right at 2nd and Main streets and how a woman was revitalizing this whole block and was looking for a craft beer concept. The building really spoke to us. It’s a great historic spot and has the original facade, but it’s kind of forward looking in that it's got new infrastructure inside. We opened up as a craft beer taproom. We didn't quite know exactly what to expect. There was no comparable establishment to us. One funny story is that a distributor came in and said very matter-of-factly, "Here's your Miller Lite handle. You're going buy a bunch of Miller Lite from us," and was just very matter of fact. I said, "No, we are not going serving Miller Lite, we want local craft beer." He laughed, and he said no one’s going to drink craft beer, so we need to sell Miller Lite or we’ll go out of business. He gave me the handle. I took it but said I was never going to order Miller Lite. Here we are eight months later, and we've still never put Miller Lite on the wall. One thing that is really great about our space is we've been converting a lot of beer drinkers. A lot of folks come in and say they're excited to see us on Main Street, because this historic town has had a big economic downturn. Its Main Street was demolished by Walmart. There was nothing there. A lot of people come into our space and say they remember when it used to be a department store. Now they are proud to see it coming back. They just didn't quite know what to do about the beer. We’d encourage them to try something and they’d be skeptical. We were giving a yellow-looking beer to a grown man who essentially thought we were asking him to jump out of a plane without a parachute. Then they'd drink it and they'd like it. As part of our brand, we want to produce beer that is local, that is easy to drink, that tastes good, and that can bring people into the craft beer revolution. If people try Texas Beer Company because it's familiar branding and it's easy drinking, then we can be that gateway beer. The customers can start on their craft beer journey. In our taproom, we do that every day.

How will your prepare your distribution network?

As of right now there has not been any distribution to retail stores or other restaurants. We were able to do the taphouse and the pilot brew space with the help of Kickstarter and sweat equity. What we've done up to this point is raise money for our production space. We are off to the races building that production space. People joining through Wefunder would be joining the effort to take our model statewide. It's not building the brewhouse, it's participating in launching of the company’s distribution angle. Keeping up with the locals is fun and our product space will always be a creative outlet for us to make lots of different beer, but exporting the brand around the state requires more production space. We've raised $1.2 million from accredited investors in our series A offering. That bought us a four-vessel, thirty-barrel brewhouse. Going forward, we have other expenses. Then we're building the production brewery for the distribution potentials.

What are your next steps?

We feel like the Texas Beer Company can appeal to all Texans. We want to brew hand-crafted Taylor-made beer that all Texans can enjoy whether they are in west Texas or east Texas or north Texas or south Texas. What has been incredibly helpful in this launch phase is that the good people of Taylor have given us feedback on which recipes they like most. Whichever beer recipes we end up distributing statewide, the rest of Texas can be rest assured that Taylor has put their stamp of approval on them. When we say this is a people-powered brewery, yes part of that was a Kickstarter campaign, but it really was the people of Taylor who helped build this business because from the time we got the trademark reserve from the Secretary of State in 2013 to the time that we actually opened the taproom in 2015, we did two years’ worth of informal tasting in Taylor, all in our building as it was being renovated. We gathered petition signatures, and we gathered feedback, and we gathered support. By the end of that two-year effort, we had over 800 people who were willing to sign our petition addressed to the city council in favor of an economic incentive package. There was truly a Taylor community effort behind build this brewery with us.

Why raise money through Regulation Crowdfunding?

There are two key points. The first is we truly feel we were blessed to get the Texas Beer Company name. That’s when we knew this was bigger than us. I'm a fifth generation Texan. Whether you are born here or moved here as fast as you could, you can feel Texas. We want this to be more than just a company, more than just a brewery. We want it to be a movement. It's in our nature to share this experience, and share this journey, with others. Regardless of the investor deal, we would love to have more people be part of the Texas Beer Company family. The second point is that the more capital we have, the more efficient we can become. That means a lower price point that gets us closer to meeting the mission of the company...to truly be an affordable, approachable beer for all Texans. This community made a $400,000 investment is us in the hope of putting Taylor back on the map and revitalizing the downtown. That’s other people clearly saying we can do this. Now we have the courage to do more. We are very community-focused in that we are trying to be a community brewery. To the investors at Wefunder, this isn’t just asking for help to start a beer company. We are asking them to help us maximize our potential. The more people who join us right now, the stronger footing we will have, the more marketing we can do, the more freedom we will have to do all of the things that we need to do. This isn't launching a beer company, this is helping to maximize the company’s potential.

Where can I find a description of the waterfall payment scheme for investors?

A link to Texas Beer Co’s Form C is found under the Risks section and can also be accessed directly here. Our method for distributions to unit holders can be found in the link labeled “document_3” which is Texas Beer Co’s operating agreement. The waterfall payment scheme is explained in Section 5.1(a) and (b) and Section 9.2 of that agreement. The second to last link of the Form C, “documents_list.htm”, will take you to Texas Beer Co’s WeFunder application. The waterfall is again explained there under “Ownership and Capital Structure.”

1	$236,452 in 2016 (May-December) revenue.
2	$400,000 Taylor economic incentive deal.
3	$1,200,000 Series A investor raise.
4	Brewed 200+ experimental batches on our Kickstarter-funded pilot brewhouse.
5	Won Governor's Small Business Award, Taylor Press Readers' Choice Award, and Chamber of Commerce Member of the Month Award.
6	Anchoring the revitalization efforts of historic downtown Taylor.
7	Powered by 20,000 watt rooftop solar array.
8	Featured on PBS's Daytripper TV show, KXAN TV, KVUE TV, Austin American Statesman, Taylor Press, Spectrum News, Texas Monthly, Thrillist, Georgetown Sun, Wide Open Country. Recruited the most Facebook fans of any Cen-Tex brewery launched since 2013.

1	The founders will transition from political grassroots marketing to managing, operating and leading a business. The strategy to mitigate this risk is to engage an appropriate group of successful and experienced advisors to assist the founders during the launch of Texas Beer Company (the “Company”). This will require experienced brew masters, successful business executives, legal experts and marketing/branding specialists.
2	The City of Taylor, Texas, and its Economic Development Commission (the “EDC”), will be providing forgivable loans to the Company to help finance completion of the brewery. If the city or the EDC choose not to follow through on their commitment, it could adversely impact our business. Additionally, if we breach any of our obligations to the city or the EDC, we could lose a portion of our equipment, and potentially need to be evicted. The city could change its local regulations to prevent, or hinder, or ability to do business in the city, and moving to another location could materially and adversely impact our business.
3	The financials in the business plan reflect the founders’ best estimation of what is required to successfully launch the Company. The intention of the initial raise is to begin with enough capital that additional raises are not needed, but there are yet many unknowns and assumptions that may make this unfeasible. Achieving positive cash flow as early as possible is critical. Without sufficient capital to handle unexpected challenges, the Company could fail even if sales are growing.
4	The competition in the Texas alcohol industry is growing quickly, and the window to enter the market before saturation may be closing. The craft brewing market in Texas is highly competitive with over two dozen breweries in central Texas alone. The Company’s current or new competitors may have better resources or spend more on marketing which may adversely impact the Company. Increased competition could result in a reduction in revenue or the loss of existing taps and stores, or market share. Many of our potential competitors enjoy substantial competitive advantages, such as greater name recognition and larger marketing budgets, as well as substantially greater financial, technical and other resources, along with more experienced personnel. As a result, these competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than the Company can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, laws, standards or customer requirements. For all of these reasons, the Company may not be able to compete successfully against its current and future competitors.
5	Texas’ 3-tier alcohol laws require us to hire a distributor once we reach 75k barrels per year, and even before that annual barrel production, the Company will probably need to hire a distributor to help scale up. The Company will be dependent on the distributor’s success in creating retail placement for the Texas Beer Company brand. Picking the wrong distributor could have long-lasting consequences. Additionally, the Company may not find a distributor willing to agree on terms acceptable to the Company.
6	The craft brew market could plateau, and the increasing competition will create an oversupply of craft brewed products. It may be impossible for our business to thrive if the customer base does not continue to expand.
7	Given that brewing costs heavily derive from natural ingredients, spikes in agricultural prices could slow production and materially and adversely affect our working capital and our ability to meet our budget. There is also an ever-present risk of product spoilage, requiring destruction of the beer product.
8	We have already secured its Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau permits for the pilot brew house on Main Street and is in the process of making the same permit applications for the expansion brew house at 1331 W 2nd St. If permits are delayed, additional costs could be incurred. Furthermore, construction costs beyond expectation and budget may require additional fundraising or debt. Fire or other weather extreme could also destroy the property and our equipment.
9	Texas Beer Company has little to no evidence of market demand for the product outside of its tap room. We have not begun distribution and may not be able to obtain the number of taps and storefronts that the business plan anticipates, which could adversely affect our business.
10	We could experience difficulty in retaining management staff. The costs of hiring and training new employees may also prove a burden to the Company. Though all staff will be required to sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements, terminated employees could still steal trade secrets and the resulting legal fees could be substantial.
11	The Company’s brewing process involves a high amount of copper material, something which is often the target of theft.
12	Serving alcohol on the premises of Texas Beer Co property means we are at an increased risk of customer complaint or injury lawsuit. It is also a risk that a customer may leave the our premises intoxicated and be involved in a crime or accident.
13	As we develop additional products and trademarks, the we may face claims of infringement of various trademarks and intellectual property rights by third parties. In the event of a third-party claim against us, we may be required to pay substantial damages, to stop marketing the infringing product, to develop non-infringing technology, and to obtain licenses, which could result in us paying substantial royalties. We may not be able to obtain licenses from other parties at a reasonable cost, or at all, which could cause us to expend substantial resources, or result in delays in, or the cancellation of, new kinds of beer products.
14	Local, state or federal laws, especially Texas’ state alcohol laws, may change in a manner that adversely impacts the Company’s business. As a result, we may be required to spend additional capital to change our business to be compliant with such changed legislation. This could adversely impact our working capital and our business plan, and even require us to cease operations.

Director	Occupation	Joined
Ian Davis	Texas Beer Co @ Texas Beer Co	2013
JD Gins	Texas Beer Co @ Texas Beer Co	2013
Cliff Olle	President ON Technology @ ON Technology	2016
Char Hu	Director @ Georgetown Living	2016
Dick Moeller	Consultant @ Ennovate Enterprises	2015
Amy Everhart	Policy Director @ Cityhall in Austin	2016

Holder	Securities Held	Voting Power
JD Gins	Common Units	29.5%
Ian Davis	Common Units	29.5%

Date	Amount	Security
05/2018	$570,780	Priced Round
02/2017	$1,200,000	Series A Preferred

$100,000	$100K will provide us with funding to pay for ingredients and help finance our boiler and water filtration system.
$250,000	$250K will help finance our keg shells, cold storage, fork lift, mobile canning and shrink-wrapped cans.
$500,000	$500K will help finance our canning machine, packaging applicator and bulk orders of pre-printed cans. Moving from shrink-wrapped cans to pre-printed cans, and moving from a mobile canning service to owning our canning machine, will help reduce operational costs and increase profit margins.
$750,000	$750K will help us hire more staff to increase brewing capacity to support broader distribution. The additional funds will also add some contingency funding to help reduce overall risk for investors.
$1,000,000	$1 million will help us pay for the increased marketing and sales staff necessary to scale up our brand and reach more customers across the great state of Texas.

Class of Security	Securities (or Amount) Authorized	Securities (or Amount) Outstanding	Voting Rights
Class B Units	4,077	4,077	No
Common Units	50,000	50,000	Yes
Preferred Class A Units	24,000	24,000	Yes

Why you may want to support us...

Our Team

And Our Major Accomplishments

Why people love us

Some of our investors

we've raised $1,770,780 from 532+ investors since our founding

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WE ARE TAYLOR, TEXAS

Texas Owned. Texas Brewed. Texas Proud.

WE ARE A DESTINATION FOR TAYLOR LOCALS

Our brewpub opened in historic downtown Taylor in May 2016, and already we can’t keep up with demand.

Craft Beer

Texas BBQ

Live Shows

MEET OUR BEERS

Using our current three-barrel pilot brewhouse, we’ve brewed Blondes, IPAs, and more. Now we’re expanding to a bigger 30-barrel distribution brewery to scale up and meet growing demand. Our new brewery will start canning in Fall 2017.

Pecos Amber Lager

Local Blonde Lager

Pace Bend Pale Ale

Hoppy Duck IPA

Blacklands Porter

King Grackle Stout

WE'RE YOUNG AND GROWING FAST

We officially opened our doors just early last year in 2016 but have quickly become a Taylor, TX staple.

OUR CUSTOMERS ARE CRAZY ABOUT US

We've designed Texas Beer Co specifically to become a home away from home for Taylor residents and a destination for daytrippers.

I stopped in yesterday for the first time and loved it right away! Great beer selection and tasty home brewed beers. Friendly atmosphere and staff...we'll be back for sure!

This is a company that cares about their community. They are involved in multiple charities...and have great beer and great staff. Everyone usually has big friendly smiles that are kind of contagious!

As a Taylor native, I remember when downtown Taylor was vibrant and my family would shop at the local stores whenever possible. I'm glad that Texas Beer Co has helped breathe new life into our historic downtown.

OUR JOURNEY SO FAR

In the last year we've focused on building a community footprint with customers coming in-house to enjoy our beers. Now, we want to expand with our own canning system and have our beers all over Texas shelves and beyond.

A TOAST TO TEXAS!

Investor Q&A

Financials

At a Glance

Risks

Details

The Board of Directors

Officers

Voting Power

Past Equity Fundraises

Outstanding Debts

Related Party Transactions

Use of Funds

Capital Structure

Form C Filing on EDGAR

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Upcoming Investor Events

Brewing an IPA double batch

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