Support Tally's Beer Archive
One person started it. It is worth keeping.
The Smithsonian began with a gift from James Smithson.
Tally's Beer Archive began with a gift from its founder: time, research, resources, creativity, and the determination to build an independent record of the world's brewing history.
What started as one person's work is now a record of breweries, beers, owners, ingredients and places that anyone can read. Its future can be shared.
Both open an email to [email protected]
An independent archive
The record follows the evidence — not whoever pays for the research.
10,990 breweries in 159 countries, 28,345 beers, 2,519 dated ownership events and 4,537 medals, every claim graded and most of it cited to a source you can follow. None of it is behind a paywall, and none of it is for sale to the breweries it describes. Where we do not know, the record says UNKNOWN.
Four ways in, kept apart
Support from a person, a company's partnership and a paid research service are different things, and each works on its own terms.
For anyone
Support the Archive
For historians, collectors, brewers, travellers and anyone who thinks this record should exist. Write to us and we will tell you how to help directly. An online option will follow.
Write about supporting →For individuals
Founding Supporters
People who want to help build the Archive in its first chapter. The programme is still being set — what it asks and what it offers will be published here before anyone is asked to commit. Write and we will keep you informed.
Become a Founding Supporter — inquire →For companies
Founding Industry Partners
One company per supply-chain category, for all of Canada, on fixed public terms. A partner is credited on its category. It does not buy a better record.
See the open places →A separate service
Tally's Verified
Independent research into where one beer's ingredients came from, published as a permanent Record. A brewery pays for the checking, never for the result.
How a beer is verified →What the money does
- Research. Each region is researched as a master workbook — breweries, beers, owners, sites, suppliers, closures — then checked against sources before a record goes public.
- Keeping it live. Hosting, builds and the daily source watch that re-checks the cited links, so a dead link becomes a research task instead of a silent error.
- The record that outlives us. The export is a folder that can be deposited with an archive or a university. Support keeps it that way — no database login, no commercial data inside it.
What it never does: buy a better entry. The editorial policy is that no brewery, company or supporter can pay to change a record, and the open questions stay published until evidence closes them.
Share a piece of history
You do not have to give money to give something valuable.
An old brewery photograph, a label, a ledger, a newspaper clipping, a family story, a site nobody has written down. Send it through the tray. A verified tip improves a record, and the person who told us is credited on it.
Institutions: the export is depositable as it stands. Write, and we will talk about what a deposit looks like. The archive posters and the Shazebo's merch are in the store.
Tally's Beer Archive is operated by Tally's Beer Universe Inc., an independent Alberta company. It is not a registered charity, and support is not a tax-deductible donation. Financial support of any kind does not influence research findings.