Support for New Origin Brewing after Hurricane Helene

We are Dan Juhnke and Brian Fetting, the founders of New Origin Brewing out of Asheville, NC, a grass roots, locals centered brewery that we built by hand in 2019 and poured our hearts and savings into for three years. On Friday, September 27th, 2024 our small business was destroyed by Hurricane Helene, leaving us with nothing but a large debt due to the bank that our insurance will not fully cover. We need your help.

The two of us grew up together in MN and learned to brew beer by the end of high school. In 2019 we pooled everything we had to our names and we set out on a mission to be a part of the community of Asheville. After a year and a half of the two of us woodworking, welding, building chairs, tables, tap systems and towers, and everything we could get our hands on we finally opened on 8/6/21. That day was a wave of elation getting to finally share what we had worked on with everyone in the community.

We spent 3 years active and excited to show our vision in everything from our products to our taproom. Our regulars quickly became friends and our business became our identities. We did our own graphic design for can labels and even screen printed our own merch. Our vision remained intact to grow in the community as a place for locals and a place for the off the beaten path tourists who managed to track us down. Growth was never our focus, in fact our internal ethos was quality over everything. We didn't distribute beer because we wanted it enjoyed in our space the way we intended it. What we didn't plan was for the people who filled our building to become the soul of our business. And we enjoyed it to no end.

Then as many of you know, Hurricane Helene hit. We fought as hard as we could with sandbags and water pumps ready. But we were no match. What we had made and given everything to, was now a pile of blocks and twisted metal.

We had always thought that our flood insurance would cover something like that. We were devastated to learn that was not fully the case for us. We're in a location that we can not build our building in again due to city codes. Without a building and all of our equipment missing, destroyed, and scattered through the river we now have nothing to our name other than an empty lot and a large debt owned to the bank. We're now in a difficult position where we have to ask for help from you, the people who have already given us our dream of being a part of the community the way we have. Any donations would be greatly appreciated in order for us to pay for the debt owed and avoid having to sell our homes to pay it off.