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Creating inspiration through fermentation

Phillips Brewery seeking charity for third annual Benefit Brew
8026mondaymagBenefitbrew
Phillips Brewery's special events co-ordinator, Matt Lockhart.

Phillips Brewery is taking its company slogan, “inspiration through fermentation,” to a whole new level. The local micro brewery is offering beer drinkers a chance to donate to their favourite charity, just by drinking beer.

By partnering with a local charity, Phillips plans to give the proceeds of the third annual Benefit Brew to a non-profit of the public's choice.

“We've always felt so supported by Victoria and we want to support them back,” says owner Matt Phillips. “Beer is such a social thing that it didn't make sense not to include the drinkers.”

Charity supporters should encourage their favourite not-for-profit to fill out the online form on the brewery's website. Charities need to be B.C.-based and not have any association with children (because of drinking-age laws). They need to fill out basic information about their mission, including what type of beer they would be and why. “We try to be a fun brewery and we hope charities have fun with this as well,” says Phillips.

Nominations are open until Aug. 21 and the 10 finalists will be announced Sept. 8. Drinkers will have a chance to vote for their favourite Benefit Brew through an online poll, Sept. 9 to 23. The winner will be announced Oct. 1 and the beer will be released shortly afterwards.

“We've found that the Benefit Brew works very well as a fundraiser, but also as a public education and awareness campaign for the charities,” says Matt Lockhart, Phillips' special events coordinator. “All 10 of the shortlisted charities will have their profile raised in the community because we'll have their profile on our website, so they'll get extra exposure.”

Charities to benefit in the past include Tour de Rock and Madrona Farm. “My wife was heavily involved with The Land Conservancy at the time and they were doing tons of fundraising and we just started thinking about ways the brewery could help out. It was awesome because they had tons of blackberries we could use, so they did the juicing for us and we made the beer,” says Phillips.

They couldn't decide which charity to use for the third edition, “because there are just too many good charities to chose from,” so they decided to let their customers choose.

“We like the idea of letting our drinkers decide what charity is important to them. At the end of the day, they are the ones supporting the charity,” says Phillips.

To find out more about the 2011 Phillips Benefit Brew, visit http://phillipsbeer.com/benefitbrew. M