Twenty-five years after Rob Tod founded Allagash Brewing Co. in Portland, Maine’s largest craft brewer in terms of annual production celebrated the occasion with 25 days of giving to charitable causes in July. Mainebiz caught up with Tod, one of the pioneers in Maine’s craft scene and a 2019 James Beard Award winner, to see how the effort went.
Mainebiz: What inspired this initiative?
Rob Tod: We had originally planned to celebrate our 25th anniversary in a much different way, pre-COVID. But, given this new reality of social distancing, we still wanted to celebrate, but in a way that was in line with our core values. 25 Days of Giving became a big celebration of giving back to the community that has supported us for 25 years.
MB: How much were you able to raise and for what causes?
RT: You can find all of the results in this blog. Also in the blog, you can find all of the organizations we supported, as well as write-ups about them. In the end we supported 14 different organizations total. On our first day [July 1], we raised $1,000 in one day for Falmouth Food Pantry in profits from the release of Along the Way, our 25th Anniversary beer. On our last day [July 25], we raised over $2,400 for Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital in profits donated from all Allagash on the Fly pick-up and to-go sales for that entire day.
Our online tap handle raffle raised over $2,100 for In Her Presence [a Portland nonprofit that empowers immigrant women through educational programs that teach the English language]. We also received 554 #allagashpetpics [pet photos on Instagram] from the public over the course of a single weekend helping us hit our $500 donation goal for the excellent folks at the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland.
MB: What items were the biggest earners and why?
RT: The tap handle raffle was definitely my biggest highlight, since I got to make the actual tap handle. It was definitely our most successful raffle; we ended up raising over $2,100 for In Her Presence. I think its success was due to the fact that we put together so many rare pieces of memorabilia including: a hand-turned tap handle, business cards of mine from 1995, original invoices from 1995, and a couple limited-run bottles like an empty 750 ml bottle of Allagash White, which we haven’t made for a long time.
MB:How many participants did you have and who bought the $2,000 Tap Handle? And what is it a tough thing to part with that?
RT: We ended up with 64 participants in that tap handle raffle. I had a piece of pine in my barn that I turned on a lathe a couple of days before the raffle. And it wasn’t that tough to part with mostly because I was excited that it could help to raise a lot of money for a great cause.
MB: Might you do something like this every year or do 50 days of giving when you mark your 50th anniversary?
RT: We haven’t even discussed it yet, because we’ve just wrapped this one. But now that you mention it — and because this one went so well — we’ll absolutely consider it.