Well, and a hoola hoop, of course.

Last Friday, while the rest of us were off devouring turkey and stuffing and then later more turkey and stuffing, the US Postal Service continued the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Maybe you got some junk mail or an early Christmas card. We received the receipt for our SLA application.

We applied a while ago, it’s true, but this is very, very good news. What it means is that our application has made its trip down the stack that is New York’s State Liquor Authority queue, and it’s begun being processed. Community Beer Works is in the system.

So too will the rest of us be soon enough: it also means we have to get fingerprinted. Tomorrow morning we’re all heading down Delaware so The Man can get our prints. Presumably they will be used for comparison when Seeley Booth finds a partial on a pipe. I will henceforth refrain from murdering people in the DC area.

Speaking of pipes, do you see what happens when you cross us, pipe? DO YOU SEE?

Seriously though, this is great news. It means progress is being made. We’re that much closer to opening. This morning we all sent a flurry of emails about glassware and growlers and coozies, oh my! Some of them will be for Kickstarter and some for when we’re open and producing, and damn if it doesn’t feel like picking out curtains. This is happening.

Oh, speaking of Kickstarter. You heard we reached our funding goal, right? You’re all amazing, amazing people. And you haven’t stopped, either: we’re now at $15,535. This brings me to our next point: let’s keep this going.

I need to take a minute before I get into this next section to make something very clear: we asked for $15,000, and you gave it to us. We are incredibly thankful for that, and if we get no more backers between now and December 14 we will still be ecstatic and unbelievably grateful.

But what if it didn’t stop?

Here’s the thing: Kickstarter takes a portion of the money donated to a successful project. That’s understandable: they have to make money too, after all. Then Amazon takes a hit for processing the payments (like any credit card company, though a bigger percentage than Square). So, while we’ve met our goal and that is the only important thing about this discussion, the amount of money that will be deposited in our account is currently less than $15,000. By my calculations (see the below paragraph) we’ll need to reach about $16,400 before we see $15,000. Now that we’ve met our goal, why not set a soft second goal?

Sing it, Barbie.

An aside: This exercise made me realize how terribly out of practice I am at math. I’ve spent more time trying to work out the simple algebraic equation to figure out this new goal than I have writing the rest of this post. I’m kind of ashamed of myself. Did you know there are websites that will solve quadratic equations for you? I didn’t need to solve a quadratic equation, though I briefly thought I did. Or maybe I do: I didn’t get the exact answer and just fiddled with the numbers until I got close. I gave up when I realized I needed to actually finish this up and publish it. I’m not going to let something a sophomore in high school could do best me, though, so I’ll come back to it later. I will eventually tweet the number with no context.

Now then, back on track. What if we could not only be funded but break the record for the most overfunded brewery on Kickstarter? That doesn’t mean the total amount pledged: that would require us to beat Mystery’s $44,259. We’re currently at 103% of our goal. What if we could get the highest percentage of any brewery thus far? We think that would be pretty awesome. The bar is currently set by Pipeworks out of Chicago, with 133% of their target. 134% of our goal is $20,100. We’ve got 13 days left: think we can do it?

Think of it this way: if you’ve been meaning to donate and haven’t yet, it’s not that we’re set and you don’t need to. As seen in our update about the goddamn water pipe, things have gotten more expensive than we anticipated. By backing our project you’re helping us buy conditioning tanks, pay for the construction of our brewery and helping better Buffalo’s beer culture. We’ve reached our goal; any further donations are guaranteed to go to us, and you still get some pretty cool stuff.

Some pictures of reward prototypes in next week’s update. Stay tuned.