Valley brewery wants to give people a chance to invest locally

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The smell of fermenting beer fills the inside of Full Circle Brewing in Downtown Fresno.

Full Circle Brewing CEO Arthur Moye said, "Now it's just about making beer."

Full Circle is using crowdfunding to become community owned. It allows you to invest your dollars in a local company and you can do it all online.

"We see people from San Diego from Texas, the bay area, all the places where a craft beer has boomed and they've kind of missed the boat. So they see our opportunity, they say hey Fresno is going to be there soon," said Moye.

Moye said his investors believe Fresno is on its way to becoming another city with a great craft brew scene and they want in now. Investments start as low as $500.

"As your beer grows, as business grows, the value of your stock grows and also, as we get more cash, we can distribute that cash and you get a piece of that."

So far Full Circle has raised $800,000 of its $1-million goal. The cash infusion has allowed the brewery to get a loan to buy new equipment.

"It feels good. We've been spending that last two months putting that capital to use so we have a new brewhouse, 15 barrel brew house, and new tanks that you can see," said Moye.

The taproom can now produce four times as much beer and get ahead of the demand.

Moye said, "We do a lot of events and the events just sucked up the beer, and every time we thought we got ahead of brewing enough beer to get out into the public, the demand just increased over here. So this will actually allow us to put cans on shelves and have a lot more tap handle accounts on hand."

Moye hopes to get more of their local brew out to restaurants and to local stores and in the hands of consumers.

Full Circle Brewing is getting closer to its $1-million goal. The tap in campaign runs until June and they hope others will join in on their brewing business.