In the beginning, there was no grand plan, no corporate backing, and no safety net—just a couple with a bold idea and a willingness to risk everything on a hunch. Kym and Joe Toner had spent years watching the craft beer movement sweep across America, and they realized something simple yet powerful: people love great beer, but they often struggle to give it as a gift. A bottle of fancy wine or a box of chocolates is easy, but a really good craft beer is personal, exciting, and full of character. So in 2014, with only $10,000 from selling their boat, a modest 1,000-square-foot warehouse, and a name that Joe had come up with one day—GiveThemBeer—they dove headfirst into an adventure they could not have predicted. Kym brought experience from the gift industry, while Joe kept his corporate insurance job to make ends meet. Their first creations were simple: six carefully chosen craft beers placed in metal buckets, wrapped in shrink-wrap by Joe himself, and shipped to the very first customer on February 23, 2014. There were no employees, no expensive marketing campaigns, and no detailed business plan. There was only the belief that if they could make giving beer feel special, people would respond.
Those early years were a blur of busy days and late nights, especially for Kym, who stayed home with their young children. Once the kids were finally asleep, she would tuck them in, then tiptoe to the kitchen table to flip open her laptop—answering customer emails, printing order labels, and packing whatever needed to be ready for the next morning’s pickup. Joe would come home from his office job, eat a rushed dinner, and join her in the garage, where stacks of boxes and bottles filled every spare inch. For a long time, the business was not profitable. There were no investors to report to, no mentors handing out advice, just a couple trying out ideas and paying close attention to what customers actually wanted. They initially assumed people would fall for clever beer names, flashy labels, and themed packaging—anything that looked fun and unique. But the real feedback stripped that assumption away. What people cared about wasn’t the frills; it was the quality of the beer inside. They wanted a box they could proudly hand to a friend, knowing each bottle would deliver an exceptional taste experience. So Kym and Joe pivoted, focusing all their energy on curating assortments of the highest-rated craft beers from small breweries across the country. Their mission became beautifully simple: to make gifting great beer effortless and memorable.
Life, however, had other plans. In late 2015, GiveThemBeer’s Beer Briefcase got a spot on national television, giving the little company its first wave of major attention. For five short weeks, the Toners celebrated that breakthrough—until the phone call that changed everything. Their 15-year-old daughter, Hannah, was diagnosed with leukemia. In an instant, the business was no longer the center of their universe. Joe practically lived at the hospital with Hannah, holding her hand through treatments, while Kym stayed home with their 6-month-old and 18-month-old children, trying to hold together a world that was spinning off its axis. Between hospital visits, diaper changes, and sleepless nights, Kym found moments to keep GiveThemBeer alive—answering a customer email while the baby napped, packing a box after bedtime, and whispering to herself that she would get through it. It wasn’t about money or career ambition at that point. It was about the simple, stubborn refusal to let go of something they had built. As Kym later put it, “The thought of the business not working or Hannah not making it didn’t even cross my mind. We just took it one day at a time.” And that is exactly what they did. The orders kept flowing, the business survived, and after two grueling years, Hannah reached remission. Today, she is healthy and an indispensable part of the family company—a constant reminder that determination can topple even the darkest fears.
The pivotal moment for GiveThemBeer came in 2017, when adult advent calendars started creeping into the American holiday market. Kym and Joe recognized a golden opportunity: instead of giving one lump gift, they could turn the entire month of December into an experience of daily discovery. They created their first Beer Advent Calendar, a handsomely designed box filled with 24 hand-selected American craft beers. When customers peeled open the first door on December 1st, they weren’t just pulling out a can—they were being invited into a ritual. Each evening became a new celebration, a new flavor to talk about, a new memory to share with friends or enjoy alone. The calendars flew off the shelves, and the couple’s curiosity expanded. They started making advent calendars for hard seltzer, then cocktails, then spirits—riding every wave of consumer excitement. In 2019, their Hard Seltzer Advent Calendar went viral, catching a nationwide craze at exactly the right moment and cementing GiveThemBeer’s reputation as a brand that listens. The lesson was clear: pay attention to what people are buzzing about, and move quickly. Kym and Joe had learned that the calendar wasn’t just a product—it was an emotion, a nightly pause in the chaos of December, a tiny gift to oneself that kept on giving.
As the years passed, GiveThemBeer settled into its role as a beloved fixture in American holiday traditions. The Toners didn’t stop at beer—they began crafting advent calendars for pickles, bacon, hot sauce, and other indulgent treats, each one curated with the same care and attention to quality. Families started returning year after year, not because they needed another calendar, but because opening a door every night had become as much a part of their Christmas as hanging stockings or baking cookies. For Kym, that was the most profound achievement. “What makes it really special is seeing people come back year after year,” she said. “These calendars have become part of their Christmas traditions. We might be creating the calendar, but they are creating the memories.” The business had grown far beyond the couple’s original dream. They now offered 21 different advent calendar varieties, shipped gifts across the entire country, and employed a small team. But they never lost the intimacy of their early days. Every calendar still felt like a personal gift from the Toner family, because it was. Hannah, now fully recovered, worked alongside them, adding her own youthful energy and perspective. The company had not only survived; it had become something that touched the lives of thousands of families, one door at a time.
Then, in October 2024, as GiveThemBeer was gearing up for the busiest season of the year, Hurricane Milton slammed into their warehouse. The building was flooded, the inventory was destroyed, and the facility lost power for days. It was a devastating blow for a company whose entire annual revenue depended on the holiday rush. But the orders kept coming in—customers who had no idea that behind the scenes, everything was falling apart. Rather than giving up, the Toner family and their employees, along with friends and relatives, waded into the mess. They ripped out soaked carpet, hauled away debris, and salvaged every bottle and box that could be saved. Hannah, undeterred, set up a makeshift command center in her apartment, printing order labels and driving back and forth to the warehouse so that shipping wouldn’t skip a beat. The damage was too severe to stay, so within two weeks, they had relocated the entire operation to a larger warehouse and resumed fulfilling holiday orders at full speed. Most customers never knew the chaos that had occurred; they simply received their calendars on time, oblivious to the frantic efforts behind the scenes. To Kym, the answer to how they pulled it off was almost matter-of-fact: “Not pulling it off was never even a thought.” It was the same mindset that had carried them through Hannah’s illness, through the unprofitable years, through every late night and early morning. GiveThemBeer was never built on a master plan. It was built day by day, decision by decision, by a family that refused to let circumstances define their destiny. Today, the beer calendars and pickle calendars and hot sauce calendars that arrive on doorsteps across America are not just products—they are proof that with love, grit, and a willingness to learn, two people with a boat and a dream can create something that brings joy to the whole world, one small door at a time.
