Bend-based Drink Tanks is tapping into the growler craze, offering beer drinkers a way to keep their beer fresher, longer.

Drink Tanks, formerly known as Pistol Creek Bottle Cooperation, has developed a vacuumed-sealed vessel with the option to inject carbon dioxide and dispense the beer without opening the container, essentially transforming a growler into a miniature keg that keeps beer carbonated for up to a week.

“We didn’t know that the growler industry was going to blow up like it did,” said Nicholas Hill, CEO and founder of the company. “It was just good timing I guess. Growlers are starting to blow up all over the West Coast.”

About two years ago Hill and his father, Tim, thought of the idea for a double-walled growler, while eating lunch at Country Catering.

“We were discussing the craze for vacuumed insulation in water bottles … and how it would be beneficial for beer drinkers to put their beer in a vessel that didn’t sweat and would stay cold,” he said.

During the design process for the growlers, he said competition started to unfold. So Drink Tanks shifted the design to create a growler that would not only stay cold for 24 hours, but also dispense beer while keeping it carbonated.

When Hill started the company with his father in 2009 he said the company produced double-walled water bottles, similar to Hydro Flasks, and targeted the promotional market.

Now, Drink Tanks is marketing its new growler in the retail world, promoting the brand Drink Tanks instead of selling products with other company’s names on them.

Drink Tanks launched a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign in mid-March offering funders the opportunity to purchase the first batch of growlers for a discounted price.

“Within two days we were funded. We raised around $140,000,” he said, noting the goal was only $30,000. “It floors me the power of crowd funding… What we did on Kickstarter would have taken me nine months or a year to generate.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the campaign had raised a total of 152,349, with 17 days to go.

Hill said the Kickstarter campaign produced a whole other level of attention the company wasn’t expecting.

“We’ve have to open national distribution channels,” he said. “We thought regionally we’d do well, but we weren’t thinking national when we started the campaign.”

Since the launch, Drink Tanks has presold its growlers to Growler Guys and Worthy Brewing Company in Bend, as well as refill stations and breweries across the country from Alaska to Florida.

The Kickstarter money will go towards the company’s first official order of growlers, with the majority of funds being used for production, and the remaining covering shipping costs, he said. The growlers will be assembled in Bend, but the parts are being made in factories throughout the U.S. and China.

He said Kickstarter customers will receive their growlers by July, and shortly after consumers will be able to buy them online and, he hopes, at just about any brewery in town.