Bartending isn’t the only tradition in David Esdaile’s family.
The manager of the Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company’s tap room in Bulleton, Calif., keeps up a tradition his grandfather started by making towers out of quarters for charity, he told the Huffington Post in an email.
Esdaile calls them “Scane Towers,” named after his grandfather, George Scane, who owned a pub in London and collected pennies for a local hospital.
Esdaile’s sixth and latest tower, started in October, will benefit a polio foundation in honor of brewery owner’s sister who has the disease. Once completed, Esdaile says he will have raised more than $16,000 for charities -- all in quarters.
“Beer is the glue, in more ways than one,” Esdaile told the Santa Ynez Valley News describing how the brewery’s ale funds and cements the project together.
Quarters, which are donated from bar patrons, raffle proceeds and quiz nights, get dipped in the brewery’s Stagecoach Stout before being stuck around a 4-foot tall pole in brick formation, he explained to HuffPost.
“When the tower reaches the ceiling we give it a good whack and the tower comes tumbling down,” he explained to the Santa Ynez Valley News.
Mickey, Esdaile’s son, posted a photo of the brewery’s latest quarter tower on Reddit and has received more than 48,000 views as of Wednesday.
Each “Scane Tower” raises approximately $2,300. Past tower proceeds have been donated to the Make a Wish Foundation, the Lung Association, the Cancer Society and the Scleroderma Association, according to Santa Ynez Valley Magazine. The last tower, toppled in October, raised $2,540 for the Spinal Cord Injury Research Advancement, the Santa Ynez Valley News reports.
ABOVE: Will Ambler, founder of the Spinal Cord Injury Research Advancement, takes a mallet to the last "Scane Tower" in October, knocking down 10,000 sticky quarters for his foundation.
ABOVE: David Esdaile’s grandfather, George Scane, photographed at his pub in Lambeth, London, where a bell ringer asks patrons to donate to the "penny pile" that benefits a local hospital.
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