Office hours at your brewery
Preferred Shares
Preferred Shares are here. Come out on May 12th from 12-3 at the Lake Street location to purchase some and help fund YOUR BREWERY.
The Brewery Co-op is, as all co-ops are, 100% owned by its members. As an owner, your financial investment will help Marquette’s next microbrewery achieve its goal of pouring awesome craft beer by December, 2018, while earning interest in the process! By purchasing Preferred Shares, you are investing in your business, and later we pay you back with interest (please see our disclosure document for more information HERE).
The brewery is already on its way, but the time has come to fund it. Your money goes to support construction, equipment installation and all the rest that goes along with building the business. The only missing piece is YOU!
Members Only T-shirts
2nd Annual Membership Meeting! Bring a chair!
Dear Owners of the Marquette Brewing Cooperative:
We have exciting news, and we want to tell you all about it at our Annual Membership Meeting on Tuesday, March 6th at 6:00. This year’s meeting will actually take place at the brewery! We have finished most of the demolition, and while we can’t promise that it looks beautiful, at least we have a wide-open space where the future brewery and taproom will be. This is your chance to see the brewery for yourself, get the latest updates, and learn how you can help build your brewery.
We are looking to fill three positions on the Board of Directors: Secretary, Treasurer, and General Board Member. The election will take place at the Annual Membership Meeting where you the members will vote. Any member can run for the board, there are no requirements other than being a coop member. This is a great time to serve on the board as we move from concept to reality. For more information about the board positions or to become a candidate, please contact Board President David Gill at dgill1108@gmail.com or (906) 251-0545 (after 4:00). Be prepared to give a short oral introduction at the meeting prior to voting.
Mark your calendar! March 6th, 6:00 PM, 501 Lake Street, Marquette. We will serve home-brewed beer and refreshments, give tours, and update you on what’s been done and what is yet to come. Elections will take place at the end of the meeting.
We look forward to seeing you there. We’re all in this together. Remember, it’s a cooperative! Membership is ownership. Come on down and OWN IT! March 6th at 6:00 pm.
PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN CHAIRS TO SIT ON, AS WE CURRENTLY HAVE VERY FEW THINGS TO SIT ON AT THE BREWERY!
Spread the Word
We have welcomed our first 100 members (and more) into the Marquette Brewing Cooperative family, and it’s time to push it to 200! Become an “Inner Circle” member and get in on the ground floor. Members number 101-200 will receive this stainless steel “Inner Circle” growler as our special appreciation gift for being willing to take the plunge. Click on JOIN US, to, well, join us!
September Board Meeting Progress
Your Board of Directors met at the brewery on September 6 and we made progress on several fronts. Here’s a quick rundown:
– We will soon be able to sell “Preferred Memberships”, which are essentially shares of stock in the cooperative. This is an investment opportunity and how we hope to raise a large portion of the capital needed to build your brewery. One of the regulatory hurdles we’ve been trying to jump for several months is setting up an escrow account, which is a state requirement. Range Bank has agreed to help us with this and we’ll be moving the cooperative’s bank accounts to Range Bank in the near future. When the investment opportunity is available we’ll announce it here and on FaceBook. There will be lots of details to share then.
– You may have notice that our big sign outside the brewery, featured in the last board meeting update, is not up. We’ve been waiting on approval of our sign permit application from the City of Marquette and hope to have that permit and have the sign up in a few days.
– We will soon be launching a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of raising the money needed to buy our brewhouse equipment. We hope to purchase a dual single vessel, electric, 2 barrel capacity system from Colorado Brewing Systems that costs about $10,000.
– We currently have 120 members. We will soon be launching another membership drive and have decided to offer an insulated stainless steel growler to the next 100 members. The growler will have an “Inner Circle” logo on it and all existing members at the end of this campaign will be designated “Inner Circle” members. Existing members will have an opportunity to buy one of the Inner Circle growlers.
We have a lease!
We have a lease! The Coop Board of Directors approved and signed a lease for the 501 S. Lake Street building today, which means we can actually start working to build your brewery! Coming soon: our Preferred Membership offering (essentially preferred stock, but we are a coop, so it’s called memberships, not shares of stock) so we can raise the money to actually start working to build your brewery!
SmartPrize!
Your brewing cooperative is an exhibitor in the Marquette SmartPrize competition. We can win a substantial grant to help us build your brewery. There is a Crowd Favorite category that’s based on public votes. You can register to vote at the SmartPrize website from April 1 through April 8.
New Board Members!
Thanks to everyone who came to the first membership meeting. About 1/3 of the membership were in attendance. It was great to meet you all. Some good questions were asked and answered, we shared some tasty beer, and we have three new board members to help guide us on our journey to producing great craft beer professionally for our community. The voting results are:
Paul Wright – 30 votes
Chris Holm – 29 votes
Jim Suksi – 29 votes
Welcome Paul, Chris, and Jim to the board, and thank you for serving!