Yukon Brewing has taken two of the Yukon’s greatest loves — dogs, and beer — and combined them for a smashing success in a recent fundraiser.
The local brewery has raised nearly $80,000 for the Yukon Humane Society with a contest entreating pet owners to nominate their pet to be on a the can of a special-edition beer. Voters would have to spend a dollar a vote for a given pet (mostly dogs, as this is the Yukon). The pet with the most votes would win not only the fame of having their likeness on 5,000 cans of beer, but also 24 free cans of beer.
Balto the mini-husky has won the contest, having garnered over $10,000 for his four-legged friends at the Humane Society. Overall, the contest brought in $79,000 — $16,000 of which was generated in the last five minutes of the contest at 11:55 p.m. on Feb. 28.
Bob Baxter, the co-owner of Yukon Brewing, said that the amount raised was astonishing.
“When we first got into it, we thought, well, this is a quaint idea, and you know, who knows might be good for the Humane Society,” he said. He said their initial fundraising goal was $10,000.
Carol McCormack is the volunteer co-ordinator at the Humane Society. She said she approached Yukon Brewing with the idea for the fundraiser after seeing a similar contest in B.C.
“They came back to me and they offered to do the entire thing. We didn't have to do a thing. They took it completely over, and they set up the campaign on the platform, and the money started rolling in,” said McCormack.
Baxter said there was an ulterior motive to taking over the project: “It's nothing like anything we've had out before that's coming, but it still had to look like our product and had to clearly be ours, or we thought that was important, so, had certain design components that we didn't want to lose.”
The design components of those cans are yet to unveiled, said Baxter on March 10. Yukon Brewing enlisted a local graphic designer to design the cans with the winning dog, Balto, emblazoned on the front.
Baxter said he personally has not met Balto, but a few of the guys at the brewery have.
“We were just talking too, this morning, that when it comes time to launch this product, maybe we should have an autograph session,” said Baxter.
“Have him lick your face. I don't know. I don't know what would be appealing to people.”
Speaking of the product, it’s currently fermenting in the tank, said Baxter. It will be a Vienna-style lager, which are fermented at cooler temperatures than ales and thus need to be fermented for longer.
However, the impacts of the fundraiser go far beyond a new beer for Yukoners.
“Every year we struggle to raise funds to just support our operation, keeping the lights on,” said McCormack.
“With this large amount of money, we can do more. We can step out of the shelter and do more community outreach.”
The funds will also help previously unachievable dreams become reality for the Humane Society, like offering one free training class to new adopters.
“It’s something we've always wanted to do. It will be huge to make the adopters successful, to make the adoption successful, but that's something we've always wanted to do, but really could never afford,” said McCormack.
McCormack also hopes to go into local schools and attend local community events.
“We would like to be more out in the community, say at the market or in various activities with a booth, or do more education with our volunteers,” she said.
The idea of running the fundraiser again next year has been tossed around, said Baxter.
“We talked about, you know, if you did it again a year from now, would it be half as successful, because it's kind of been there, done that, or would it be doubles, like, we don't know,” said Baxter. “We don't mind the idea of doing it again, but we also don't want to bore the market.”
Baxter said the Humane Society has been one of the local organizations the brewery wants to support when it can.
“I'm sure that animals, like pet animals, outnumber people in the Yukon. They're pretty important here. And humane society does yeoman's work in terms of trying to make sure that all pets are treated humanely,” he said.
“It means everything to us that we were so supported in this campaign,” said McCormack. “It means that people do support the humane society and ... They're going to help us care for animals at risk in the Yukon.”
The special-edition beer will be launched on April 11, said McCormack, coinciding with national pet day.
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
