If you're looking to start a successful craft beer festival anywhere in America, look no further than the St. George Island Brewfest and Pints For Paws models.

Both offer a unique experience — one's held on a beautiful island and attracts breweries from all over the country, while the other is filled with only home brewers serving small-batch beers you can't get anywhere else and will likely only be able to taste one time ever.

And both have raised over $100,000 each for charity.

But they also have one other important thing in common: Both festivals benefit neglected, abused and homeless animals, which just about everyone has a soft spot for.

The SGI Brewfest just wrapped its fourth year in April by raising a record $40,000 for the Franklin County Humane Society, and this Saturday at the Centre of Tallahassee, Pints For Paws will celebrate its 10th year. And in those nine years prior, the event has raised a total of $136,000 for the local Tallahassee Animal Shelter Foundation.

Pints For Paws' founder and organizer is local homebrewer Jeff Nielsen, a member of the North Florida Brewers League, which helps put on the event every year. Nielsen will be one of 30 homebrewers pouring their locally made beer Saturday.

And to commemorate their 10th anniversary, Pints For Paws will feature — for the first time ever — an actual brewing demonstration by fellow NFBL member and homebrewer Elijah Elkins for those who are interested in both drinking beer and learning how to brew it.

"It's a great event, for a great cause, and you get to talk to the actual folks who brewed the beer, which I feel really makes our festival unique," Nielsen said. "It's also the only homebrew festival in town all year with an average of 700 to 1,000 people. We almost always sell out because it is a one-shot deal on most of these beers and people really love to support the Animal Shelter Foundation here in Tallahassee. These homebrewers craft small batches just for our event, so the earlier you get there, the more stuff you'll get to try before it runs out."

The event runs 4-7 p.m., and your $20 donation gets you eight sample tickets, which you can use for any beer — or cider or mead — being poured at a homebrewer's table. Want to try more? Simply donate another $20. 

Every cent goes to the ASF, which is a nonprofit organization created by volunteers to support the animals in the care of Tallahassee Animal Services, more commonly known as the Animal Shelter at Tom Brown Park. ASF supports the area's homeless animals by supplementing the Shelter’s veterinary team for funding procedures like x-rays and specialized surgeries.

ASF also funds the heartworm treatment for shelter dogs, making them more adoptable, and that reason alone was a driving factor in the creation of the Animal Shelter Foundation in 2007. And it continues to save the lives of hundreds of homeless dogs and cats every year.

You know we'll be there — and we hope to see you too!

Proof bottle share for Hang Tough Foundation a record-breaker

Speaking of charity, our latest bottle share fundraiser that we told you about two weeks ago — for local nonprofit, The Hang Tough Foundation — went down Wednesday, May 22, at Proof Brewing. And it was another huge success, both in terms of attendance and amount raised. 

We wanted to start by thanking Proof for donating their private event space for the gathering, as well as the Proper Brewpub for donating food, And another thank you goes out to all those who came and donated money to Hang Tough, which offers support services for families dealing with children with illnesses or special needs. 

You helped raise $2,335 that evening for Hang Tough, and that's a new single-night bottle share record in the year -plus we've been hosting these.

May 22 marked our ninth bottle share and brought the total amount raised to just under $20,000 for local charities. And while organizing these philanthropic get-togethers — all centered around craft beer and community — wasn't part of the original plan when we started the TLH Beer Society in July 2017, we're certainly happy it's become a part of our purpose here in Tallahassee.

So when and where is our milestone 10th charity bottle share going to being held? Stay tuned to our social media, because we'll be announcing it soon!

The Tally Brew Bus has new owners 

And it's us! 

Well, not just us. 

We partnered with Eastpoint Beer Company in Eastpoint to take it over from Growler Country, which is expanding its growler fill station and eatery brand throughout Florida. With no time left to focus on the Bus, which Growler Country launched in 2016 as a way to safely visit our area craft beer scene, GC owners and brothers Mike and Bobby Carbonell needed someone to not only keep their hard work alive, but keep it IN Tallahassee.

And who better to handle that then our craft beer scene's biggest cheerleader, as well as a local brewery owner himself in EBC's Josh Parker? It was a no-brainer, and we are very excited to unveil our awesome new schedule soon.  

In addition to the Bus still being available for private tours any day of the week, we have big plans to expand the types of trips offered and places we can take you. No excursion is too big or too small!

OK, so we aren't going to take you to the Florida Keys to snorkel in the Dry Tortugas and visit Islamorada Beer Company — or maybe we will! 

Email us at info@tallahasseebrewbus.com and ask us anything! (Except the square root of 178 is. We don't know that).

The TLH Beer Society is a group of avid craft beer lovers co-founded by Danny Aller, who is also the co-host of the Saturday Morning Bottle Share, a radio show dedicated to Tallahassee’s craft beer scene on 97.9 ESPN radio. Follow TLH Beer Society at Facebook.com/TLHBeerSociety or @TLHBeerSociety on Twitter and Instagram, or email them at tlhbeersociety@gmail.com.