🎤 Like reading Fingers, but in real life!
I’m excited to finally be able to announce I’ll be delivering the keynote address at the Ontario Craft Brewers’ annual conference later this year!
I’ve got select availability left in 2026 for for speaking engagements. If you’d like to book me to present my award-winning reporting on the beverage-alcohol industry to your conference/retreat/team/etc., get in touch at [email protected] to discuss further!
See Fingers’ ethics statement about speaking engagements here.
Beverage alcohol is a capital-intensive business. Stainless steel tanks, specialized labor, and meaningful scale all cost money, and it’s gotta come from somewhere. One source that’s become popular among booze start-ups over the past decade-ish is equity crowdfunding, in which rank-and-file drinkers buy shares in the brands that they like.
I’m sure this works out sometimes. (Not investment advice!) But other times—as in the case of high-profile booze bamboozles like Armed Forces Brewing Company, BrewDog, and Modern Times Beer—it does not, and what began as an unconventional business opportunity can wind up looking more like a scheme to rinse retail investors, with the persuasive consumer-facing marketing of their favorite drinks brand providing liquidity to cover losses and/or cash out a half-baked company’s founders and inner circle. And when that positioning has a partisan dimension to it? Buddy, hold onto your wallet.
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