Beer history disappears quietly.

A brewery closes. A website vanishes. An old newspaper is never digitized. Ownership changes hands. A beer is discontinued. A brewing record sits unidentified in an archive. A historic brewery building is demolished.

Piece by piece, the story gets harder to reconstruct.

I’m building Tally’s Beer Universe to help preserve that history.

Tally’s Beer Universe is becoming a global, evidence-backed archive of brewing culture — connecting breweries, beers, brands, people, ownership, historic sites, awards, suppliers, brewing records, photographs, documents and the stories behind them.

But this isn't meant to be another brewery directory.

The goal is to build an archive that can answer questions.

Who founded this brewery?

Who owns it today?

What company owned it before?

Where was the original brewery?

What beers did it make?

What happened when it closed?

Does the building still exist?

Who supplied its malt, hops or equipment?

Are historical photographs, labels, brewing records or other objects preserved somewhere?

And when the evidence doesn't provide an answer, the Archive should say UNKNOWN rather than invent one.

Why I'm asking for help

I've already invested an enormous amount of personal time into building Tally's Beer Universe, researching breweries and developing the Archive.

The project has now reached the point where one researcher cannot reasonably investigate the brewing history of the world alone.

So this C$8,000 campaign has one specific purpose:

Fund the first independent Tally's Beer Universe research team.

I want to hire and test freelance historians, archival researchers, genealogical researchers and data researchers who can work alongside me using strict evidence and sourcing standards.

The first researchers will investigate real brewery records, ownership histories, historic brewing sites, founders and families, beers and brands, old newspaper archives, government records, corporate registries, historical societies, museum collections and other primary sources.

Their job will not be to write filler.

Their job will be to find the evidence.

How the C$8,000 will be used

C$5,600 — Researcher contracts: freelance researchers carrying out brewery, beer, ownership, site and historical investigations.

C$700 — Specialist investigations: difficult archival, genealogy, ownership, corporate or historical research requiring deeper expertise.

C$500 — Records and source access: historical documents, archive services, database access and document retrieval where free sources aren't sufficient.

C$700 — Platform, payment and contracting costs: crowdfunding transaction costs, freelancer-platform fees and applicable costs associated with hiring researchers.

C$500 — Verification and quality control: second-source investigations and follow-up work when important claims need independent confirmation.

Every dollar raised will help increase the amount of historical research we can complete.

If we exceed C$8,000, the additional funding will go toward more research hours, additional specialist investigations and access to historical records and collections.

If we raise less than the full goal, we'll begin with a smaller research team and use the funds for the same research mission.

What supporters will be able to see

I want this campaign to be accountable.

As the research begins, I'll publish progress updates showing what the funding is accomplishing.

You'll be able to see things such as:

Research hours funded.

Breweries investigated.

Historical breweries recovered.

Ownership histories resolved.

Primary and authoritative sources discovered.

Historic sites connected.

Beer and brand histories documented.

Records that remain UNKNOWN and need more research.

And some of the discoveries will become stories through Tally's Beer Universe — but the evidence always comes first.

This is bigger than beer ratings

Beer is agriculture, chemistry, business, immigration, labour, architecture, transportation, advertising, community and culture.

Behind a single bottle can be a farmer, maltster, hop grower, yeast producer, brewer, brewery worker, designer, distributor, publican, family business and an entire town.

Those connections are what I want Tally's Beer Universe to preserve.

The long-term vision is a persistent digital layer over the world's brewing culture — a place where people can discover not only where to drink beer, but why that brewery, beer, building, person or piece of history matters.

Why crowdfunding?

I want the early Archive research to remain independent.

Rather than filling the project with advertising before the Archive is ready, this campaign gives people who believe brewing history is worth preserving an opportunity to help build the research foundation first.

This is an independent project-support fundraiser and is not being presented as a registered-charity fundraiser.

Help us hire the first researchers

If you've ever visited a historic brewery, collected an old beer bottle, wondered who used to brew in your town, watched a favourite brewery disappear, or simply believe cultural history is worth preserving, I'd appreciate your help.

You can support the project by donating.

And if donating isn't possible, sharing this campaign with brewers, historians, collectors, museum people, beer writers, archivists and anyone who loves brewing history would help enormously.

This first C$8,000 isn't meant to finish Tally's Beer Universe.

It's meant to do something much more important:

Build the research team that helps us discover what the world has forgotten.

Thank you for helping preserve brewing history.

Tally's Beer Universe

Discover it. Prove it. Preserve it.