2015 Craft Beer Calendar By Jess Ducey

We're baaaaack!

03:03PM Wed 21/10/15 on 2015 Craft Beer Calendar

Hello!

Can you believe it's almost been a year of beautiful beer people? Well, get excited because we're back again (we even made a website!) and this time we're getting naked! That's right, there will be TWO calendars - the all occasion version, and the NSFW edition.

The campaign is now live, so pledge now to reserve your calendar(s). If you want to sponsor this year, get in quick - our top Platinum sponsorships are already gone and the months are rapidly disappearing. 

To say thank you to our first supporters, if you bought a day last year, we'll include it in this year's calendar free of charge - just let us know in the notes field of your pledge. 

Thanks for your support, and we can't wait to show you what's in store for 2016. 

Beery hugs,

Jess & Megan

PS. Want to model in either of this year's calendars? Details are on our website. 

PPS. Are you going to be in Wellington for Labour Weekend/The Pacific Beer Expo? Be in our Christmas shoot! Bring your dog! (Seriously. Please bring your dog.). RSVP on Facebook.  

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We did it! 367% funded!

01:28PM Sun 14/12/14 on 2015 Craft Beer Calendar

$14,680 raised by you beautiful people! High five!

Now the fun bit begins. We're scrambling to get calendars printed in time for Saturday's Beer Without Borders Christmas Market and Sunday's launch party at LBQ. Do you have your tickets yet? It's okay, we'll wait while you order now. The party starts at 2:30 when LBQ opens, and we encourage you to trickle in and enjoy a leisurely pre-holiday beer in the sun. The catering and speeches will kick off around 6 PM, and the silent auction will run until 7. Thanks to Stacey and Dan at LBQ for hosting us, and to Yeastie Boys for donating a keg to the cause. <3

If you've pledged for a personalised day and haven't been in touch with us (there are two of you left), please let us know your date ASAP! We go to print on Monday and don't want to leave anyone out. Email us at [email protected], tweet, or send a carrier pigeon to Golding's. We'll be there. (thanks Sean for documenting this very serious office moment for us.) 

If you didn't order a calendar or need more for all your holiday shopping needs, please fill out this handy form so we can plan the print order accordingly. A shoutout to our new friends at Wakefield Digital for working around our frantic print schedule. 

A huge thank you to Merrin Macleod, our fabulous designer who's been working around the clock to bring everything together. She's been infinitely patient with delays, changes, and our questionable choices, and we highly recommend her for all your design needs. 

See you at the launch party!

hugs,

Jess & Megan

PS. In case you missed it, here's an outtake from the Garage Project shoot: Blue Steel-meets-sexy-scientist. 

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It's party time!

08:51PM Mon 08/12/14 on 2015 Craft Beer Calendar

Four days left, more than 300% funded, and yet another incident of public displays of feelings (thanks Dylan!). It's not too late to honor your beloved, mock your nemesis (good-naturedly, of course), or celebrate your own wonderful self with a personalised day on the calendar. Are you a bar or brewery that's arriving late to the party? Snap up a sponorship!

After a busy weekend of shoots with Tuatara, LBQ, and the wonderful people of Nelson, we're in the home stretch. Our designer is hard at work on the layout, Jed & Nicci are spending every waking hour editing photos, Jess is delighting in spreadsheet nerdery, and Megan is earning a PhD in GIF production. If you missed the tweetstorm on Saturday, Tuatara's positively terrifying shoot included some surprise guests.  

On the topic of movie stars, tickets are now available for what is shaping up to become the season's most exclusive event.* If you didn't pledge for a ticket, don't panic - you can still come to the launch party. There will be beautiful beer people, free treats from Sweet Release, music, and lucky dip beer roulette - your ticket gets you a mystery bottle of beer on the door. Something barrel aged? Green-bottled? Hop-laden? Forgotten bottle of a past limited-release? Who knows! There are only a few dozen tickets left, so get yours today! 

We'll have models on hand for high fives and autographs, and a silent auction of signed copies of each month of the calendar. We will also have additional calendars available for sale if you want to buy gifts or didn't pledge for one (if you plan to buy more calendars, please fill out this [non-binding] form so we can get an idea of how many to print). All proceeds will go to SAPN's giant cheque, so consider your holiday shopping sorted. 

Four more days - keep spreading the word!

hugs,

Jess & Megan

PS. Did we mention we're still after Silver Sponsors? Hit up your local and tell them they don't want to be left out!

*citation needed.

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A picture is worth 1000 words (and $12,000!)

09:10PM Thu 04/12/14 on 2015 Craft Beer Calendar

We've delayed this update because we keep getting excessively sappy, and frankly, it's becoming a little gross. We'll try to tone it down, but no promises. 

TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS! 

I mean, we knew beer people were great - that's why we started this silly whim in the first place - but you've blown us away. All the gold and platinum sponsorships are gone and people we've never even met have stepped up to donate, organise shoots, and generally make this thing far bigger than we could have done alone in four weeks. 

A shoot fell through due to a scheduling conflict, and within a few hours, a team in Nelson has rallied to organise a replacement. (get in touch if you're in the area!) We've doubled over with laughter more times than we can count during photoshoots. The growing collection of high five GIFs we're compiling has brought us more delight than a barrel of puppies. 

We're planning a Wellington launch party (21 December - save the date!) that will include mystery beer roulette and decadent treats from Sweet Release Bakery (first made famous at the Yeastie Boys birthday party). We did some intensive tasting research, so we can say with authority that you're not going to want to miss the salted caramel brownies or bacon chocolate chip cookies (or the chance to get your calendar signed!). 

At the party (and online afterwards) we'll have additional copies of the calendar for sale so you can get all your Christmas shopping done. As a special thank you for those of you who believed in us from the beginning and backed the production process, pre-ordered calendars will come with extra surprises. 

Enough chit chat - without further ado, here are some behind-the-scenes photos from recent shoots:

Golding's & Pizza Pomodoro put a Star Wars twist on Da Vinci's The Last Supper.

Beer-loving women take over Sprig & Fern. 

Hashigo Zake plots the revolution, decides to have another pint instead. 

Beer writers stage an underground ginger beard boxing match. 

More photos coming with the official announcement of the launch party this weekend, so stay tuned and keep spreading the word! It's not to late to become a Silver sponsor, so if your bar, brewery, or beer-loving business wants to join the fun, we'd love to have you. 

many feelings-laden hugs,

Jess & Megan

PS If you've sponsored the calendar, please get in touch with us ASAP so we can get logos and other information to our designer!

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We did it!

10:32PM Sun 16/11/14 on 2015 Craft Beer Calendar

It's happening! In just 11 days, you beautiful people came together and funded this thing. Everything after this is just icing on the cake (or more numbers on the ridiculously over-sized cheque we're going to present to SAPN. (Does anyone even still use cheques?) I hope so.)

But I digress. 

Beer - and the people who drink it - often get a bad rap. Newspaper articles about the health risks of alcohol abuse frequently use images of beer to illustrate their point. Some beers are marketed as though women are just sexy props for advertising, not consumers with individual tastes and interests. The notion of women liking beer is still greeted with shock and skepticism in many circles. 

We wanted to challenge those stereotypes and celebrate the beer community that we know and love. The one where bars donate their tip jars to Wellington Rape Crisis and breweries match the funds raised. Where men in the industry are among the first to publicly call out sexist advertising and behaviour. The community that welcomes anyone who is interested in learning more, no matter what they look like. 

The community that banded together and donated more than $4,200 to preventing sexual assault in the places they work and socialise. The people who clamoured for the opportunity to don elaborate costumes to support the Sexual Abuse Prevention Network. 

We first floated this idea to a couple of friends at the Pacific Beer Expo last month. By the time the after party was underway that night, we were bombarded with people volunteering to model and offering ideas for shoots. We thought the short timeline meant we'd have to start in Wellington this year and expand nationally next year. Instead, fantastic people in Auckland, Hamilton, and Christchurch stepped up without a second thought. 

So here's to you, fellow beer enthusiasts. Thanks for pledging, promoting, modelling, challenging stereotypes, and spreading the word. We're just getting started. If you want to join us, pledge or sponsor before the campaign ends, and tell all your friends. 

huge beery hugs,

Jess & Megan

PS. We celebrated with champagne because we were too overwhelmed with love for Kiwi craft beer to choose a single brew. <3

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Much love. Very beer. So beauty.

02:22PM Sun 16/11/14 on 2015 Craft Beer Calendar

We've gone all emotional and sappy over here at production HQ. A massive beer hug to the lovey Ava of Pomeroy's in Christchurch, who became our first platinum sponsor and has been working tirelessly to arrange a city-wide photoshoot. We're gutted we can't be there, but Jess might accidentally impulse grabaseat because she's never been to Chch and the chance to hang out with an entire city of brewers in a picturesque pub is...tempting, to say the least. 

More hugs to Colin and the Malthouse team, who've come on board as a silver sponsor and will also be starring in a marvelously heroic shoot with Soren of 8 Wired. You're not going to want to miss this one, we promise. A further shoutout to the lovely Pete & Co at Craft Beer Capital, who are our fourth silver sponsor. Other shoots coming up involve cuddly direwolves, bikinis, revolutions, and ball gowns. Intrigued? You should be. 

It's been a lively weekend - thanks to Michelle for assistance in Saturday's amateur cartography project. Viva la resistance! This morning, the Lumsden and Schipper's went back in time with an underground speakeasy shoot. 

We're only $305 away from our target - every dollar after that goes straight to the Sexual Abuse Prevention Network, so keep those pledges coming! If your bar or brewery still wants to be part of the calendar, sponsor a month! Email us with questions if you have them, and keep folllowing and spreading the word. 

much love, 

Jess & Megan

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Week 1 Recap

07:47PM Tue 11/11/14 on 2015 Craft Beer Calendar

Howdy pledgers and friends!

Wow. What a week! Less than seven days and we're past the halfway point. Megan and Jess have likely single (double?)-handedly skewed realtime emoji use data in their excitement. There have been many exclamation points and hearts for eyes in internal communications about the overwhelming generosity and beauty of the Kiwi beer community (who also taught a nonsporting-but-enthusiastic American how to play cricket!). 

We got our first bit of media coverage (thanks Craft Beer Capital!). Craft Beer College rendered us speechless with our first Gold Sponsor pledge, but before we could recover, a team including LBQ, Beach Babylon, Bebemos, & Basque pledged the second and Golding's became our first Silver sponsor. 

Stu and Sam of Yeastie Boys set a high bar for our first shoot with their flawless rendition of a classic 1980s pop album (sneak peek below, but you're going to have to buy a calendar to see the final product!). Our passing whim has gone national and we're very excited to annouce that Lumsden, Pomeroy's, Schippers, and Good George will also be featured in the calendar. 

We've now filled all our photo spots, but there's still space for you or your bar or brewery to become a sponsor and support the Sexual Abuse Prevention Network! Photoshoots still in the works include Game of Thrones, boxing, and La Resistance, so get excited and follow us on Twitter for behind-the-scenes shots. 

Until next week, keep spreading the word. We love you all.  

beery hugs,

Jess & Megan

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