Border X Brewing and Mujeres Brew House founders, David and Carmen Favela, are both first generation Americans, born to immigrant parents from Mexico. Throughout their lives they flowed back and forth across the border on a regular basis, absorbing inspiration from the delicious drink, food and traditions found on both sides of the border.  However, as they grew older they realized that not all cultures or genders were treated or represented equally.  There were few people of color and even fewer women in the craft brewing industry. They felt that the brewing industry as a whole was still very Euro-centric, limiting their beers to a few specific and defined European styles. David and Carmen's perspective is that brewing is a human right, practiced in nearly every culture across the globe and should be accessible to all.  So, when they created Border X Brewing, they sought to innovate and add their own Mexican culture, flavor and traditions.  Then when they started Mujeres Brew House they followed a similar approach, but focused on what brewing could mean to women and what unique beers they can create.  It was during this research that they found an equally deep claim for women's  legacy in brewing. Prior to the industrial revolution, women were the original "home brewers", creating their own ales from as early as 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, or even as late 1700's in Europe and the US.  

Mission: To radically influence and shape the future of craft brewing by establishing breweries that innovate from the Latino and Female perspective, making delicious beer and food, while celebrating culture and creating community. 

Problem: The initial resurgence of craft brewing in predominately white communities, tied with the extremely high cost of production equipment has resulted in an industry that lacks diversity and representation that reflects the nation as a whole, and the world. 

Fermenting liquids into delicious and intoxicating drinks has been a nearly universal practice across the globe.  Whether from Mesopotamia where recipes for beer and grain inventories were tracked on cuneiform tablets, or in the Incan highlands where indigenous tribes discovered that by chewing corn and spitting into a clay container, they could ferment "Chicha" beer, fermenting has been an ancient and universal practice. However after the industrial revolution, fermenting and making modern beer became the dominant industry, putting many traditional drinks out of business. For example, in Mexico city there were over 1,000 pulquerias in the early 20th century that nearly disappeared when beer was introduced. With the advent of modern brewing and refrigeration techniques,  Mexican lagers or more correctly, Vienna lagers came to dominate the Mexican market. 

Border X Brewing and Mujeres Brew House seek to reverse this trend by expanding what craft beer can be, made by people who have their own palate and traditions to guide them. We believe that by tapping into different cultural flavors and traditions, we will enrich our industry and world by representing and exploring the Latino and Female palate.

Solution: Rather than waiting for the craft industry to change, we decided to create our own spaces where we could innovate and create beers that were free from traditionalist approaches. By controlling the total experience, we could create both Latino and Female spaces where everything from the beer, decor and events could reflect our unique perspective and tastes.

From the beginning at Border X Brewing, we wanted to bring our roots to our brewing passion. A whole world of brewing traditions and flavors were right in front of us. We grew up with Jamaica, Horchata, and Abuelita's Chocolate as well as unique tropical fruits and spices from Latin America. Our mission was crystal clear: we would bring something new and different to our community by fusing our love of brewing, with our culture – and it was delicious!

For Mujeres Brew House, we wanted to explore both the rich legacy of women home brewers from history, as well as the natural preferences of the female palate. While the history of female brewers is fairly well documented in its use of a variety of herbs, vegetables and fruits, we don't pretend to know what the natural preference of the female palate might be!  But that's the point! What would women prefer if they weren't told they had to "like" what their male counterparts told them to. Would they like fruited sours more than West Coast IPA's?  Would their tastes, unfettered by industry fads or trends, be allowed to explore and create new categories of craft beer?  Can they reclaim their own space in the brewing world and brew their own beer, which has been by right theirs for over thousands of years?  

Opportunity: Border X Brewing and Mujeres Brew House are taproom-centric business models that sell 95% of  production in tap room at maximum profit. Our growth opportunity are to optimize current tap rooms with (2) new kitchens, adding three more tap rooms, and lastly activating our new canning line to grow in tap room, to-go sales of canned beer.  

Both Border X Brewing and Mujeres Brew House are located in Barrio Logan, one of the most exceptional neighborhoods in the country. Chicano Park is down the street, and is filled with historic murals celebrating Chicano history. Barrio Logan residents are proud of their heritage and contributions. Our brewery's environment reflects that: graffiti and fine art stand side by side, and our music goes from Latin Jazz to Rock en Espanol. We host fundraisers, Lucha Libre and art shows that celebrate Latino artists. We host a Chicano version of ComicCon dubbed ChicanoCon. We've even had Guillermo Del Toro (director of 2018 Oscar Best Picture winner The Shape of Water ) and actor John Leguizamo come to our events. We are not only delicious beer, but we celebrate and share our history, our culture and our community with all.

Our brewery in the heart of South East Los Angeles, in the City of Bell, is a massive production and tap room capable of serving 235 people inside, and a beer garden that fits 100. With a large potential market of over 5 million Latino residents in LA County, we knew we had to expand to Los Angeles first. 

Collectively, between our current three brewery network, we expect to complete the year with nearly $3M in sales. This would more than double our sales over 2020, proving our resilience despite the pandemic.  As we write this report, we have been maxed out from customer demand. We could sell more, but our brew system cannot keep up!

Investment: While the traditional craft beer market is somewhat flattened out, Border X Brewing and Mujeres Brew House is attracting a whole new demographic to the industry. To keep up with demand, we need $1M to build out brewing capacity, finish two kitchens, expand three more taprooms in Riverside, Orange County and North County San Diego, and operationalize our canning line. 

Our brewing system is capped currently at about 2,000 BBLs, which is insufficient for even current demand, let alone support future growth. We will use $200k to install (6) 30 BBL fermenters and (2) Brite Tanks in our Bell brewing facilities to maximize production. With this system, we should be able to support growth to $8M in 2022. 

Border X Brewing on Logan ave in Barrio Logan has a full service kitchen with outside wood fired grill to produce a broad and delicious menu. This has enabled that location to produce consistent sales and returns. We seek to do the same to both Mujeres Brew House and Border X Brewing in Bell. Our customers want delicious food with their favorite craft beer, and will stay longer and spend more.  With our unique kitchen design, we believe we can complete both for $200k.

To fully develop our market presence in Southern California, we seek to finalize our taproom ecosystem with the largest Latino populations. Riverside, Orange County near Santa Ana, and North County San Diego, preferably on the Hwy 78 corridor.  We predict about $150k for each taproom as we are looking to repurpose either a restaurant or former brewery tap room for ours. We will not be interested in "green fielding" a brand new taproom, nor shall we insist on restaurant on premise. 

Lastly, the remaining funds will support our canning strategy designed to maximize to go sales at all of our taprooms.  Can inventory, merchandising refrigerators at each location, label design etc. will help to add at least 20% in incremental sales straight from tap rooms.

Join us on this incredible journey!  Invest today!