Dead Bird Brewing Raising Funds To Expand

Dead Bird Brewing, 1726 N. 5th St., is fundraising to support an expansion.

The vegan brewery was founded in Madison in 2015, relocated to Milwaukee’s Halyard Park neighborhood in 2019 and added a one-and-a-half barrel brewhouse in 2020.

Now business partners Nick Kocis and Jeremy Hach are looking to raise $50,000 to add cellaring and fermentation equipment as well as funding on-going operations.

The partners are using crowdfunding platform Mainvest to raise the funds. Investors, through an unsecured revenue sharing note, are being offered $160 by January 1st, 2028 for every $100 invested.

“Our plan with Mainvest is to buy some three-barrel fermenters,” said Kocis. “With our one-and-a-half barrel brewhouse, we will be able to brew twice a day.”

The brewery, with a motto of “outstanding beer by upstanding gentleman,” specializes in high-alcohol craft beers with a focus on local ingredients. It has secured the necessary federal and state permits to add alcoholic cider to its product offerings. It also offers craft soda and vegan food at its taproom.

Dead Bird will pair the funding with existing capital from its investors and a private loan to fully fund the expansion.

Like many other breweries that are heavily reliant on tap room revenue, Dead Bird was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company, according to a publicly posted profit-and-loss statement, reported $137,000 in revenue in its 2020 fiscal year, but a net loss of $57,000.

The taproom was closed for in-person patronage from March through May 2020, reopening for outdoor business last summer and closing again in October. Curbside pickup has been available in the intervening months, with a plan to resume full operations in May.

But things in a pre-pandemic environment were going well.

“Within 6 months of opening weekly sales were above $5,000 on a consistent basis and were continuing to climb. Due to COVID, our 2020 sales are substantially lower than predicted and do not represent future sales numbers,” writes the company in its offering.

Dead Bird reports new on-site brewing, canning and labeling equipment have allowed its production price (cost of goods sold) to be maintained below 38% of the beer sale price. “Canned sales have increased week over week since January 1st, 2021,” says the company’s offering. A projection estimates a jump to $325,000 in revenue this year.

Dead Bird currently partners with MobCraft Beer to use its larger equipment on a contract basis to produce larger quantities of beer for distribution. “Anything that’s available in a six-pack is made at MobCraft,” said Kocis.

Most of those six packs end up in Dane and Milwaukee counties, but the self-distributed brewery’s range covers most of southern Wisconsin.

The brewery has also found success making soda. With more than a dozen created in the past year, carbonated soft drinks currently represents about 30% of sales revenue, said Kocis. Soda has the benefit of not needing to ferment, avoiding the current production bottleneck.

The company launched a series of partnerships in the past year, including a soda partnership with arts organization TRUE Skool and a new beer with neighbor Pilcrow Coffee.

The company isn’t the first in Milwaukee to attempt to use the Mainvest platform. Unlocal Beer Company, a proposed craft beer taproom, attempted to raise $50,000 through the platform in late 2019. That effort was unsuccessful and those that did contribute were refunded. Dead Bird faces the same risk.

The fundraising round closes May 26th, 2021.

For more on the brewery, see our coverage of its 2019 opening.

Disclosure: Urban Milwaukee publisher Dave Reid contributed $100 to the campaign.