In a more lighthearted story for the weekend, De Halve Maan Brewery in Bruges, Belgium was faced with a problem: How to get beer from its brewery to a bottling plant 2 miles away without forcing large trucks to navigate the narrow and cobbled streets.
So the brewery did what any sensible operation would do when facing logistical issues – it crowdfunded money to help build a beer pipeline. Approximately €300,000 was raised in the effort (to be put toward the $4.5 million project), which broke out contribution into three tiers, all with their own reward for pitching in.
Gold Membership
Costs € 7,500, for which you get one 33cl bottle of Brugse Zot Blond every day for the rest of your life, as well as 18 personalized glasses. You’ll be invited as a VIP to the ground-breaking of the works, and the ceremony to inaugurate the pipeline.
Silver Membership
Costs € 800, and gets you one case of 24 bottles of Brugse Zot Blond a year for life, six glasses and an invitation to the inauguration.
Bronze Membership
Costs € 220 for one presentation bottle of 75cl of Brugse Zot Blond a year for life, one personalized glass and an invitation to the inauguration.
One of the 21 people who signed up for the Gold membership was Philippe Le Loup, who runs a restaurant on the Simon Stevin square, a few hundred yards from the pipeline. Loup's restaurant serves about 1,850 gallons of the brewery's Brugse Zot a year, would have also preferred a direct tap into the pipeline "it would have saved me a lot of keg-dragging" he said. Loup also bought a bronze membership for each of his 12 employees – "I calculated that if I pick up my free beers for 15 years, my investment will be paid back. When I'm 50, I will make a profit."
CEO Xavier Vanneste said "it all started as a joke, nobody believed it was going to work. This beer pipeline means that we'll be able to remain in the city." The pipeline is a now a reality and it will pump more than 1,500 gallons of beer an hour through pipe that runs about 6 feet underground, and even 100 feet under in some spots.
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While it is not a project that will enable people to mine asteroids, it's certainly just as, if not more important – cheers!
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