Man with office window sign asking for beer receives 85 free cans

He has since been nicknamed 'third-floor Sam'

Man has received 85 free beers with office window sign (WNEM)

A man who taped a sign to his office window asking strangers for donations of beer has found his tactic successful.

Sam Hoats, a senior digital strategist from Michigan, was watching football in his office one day when he realised that he could put a sign in his window that would be legible from the Knickerbocker restaurant below, according to WNEM.

The sign, which spans several feet and is decorated with fairy lights, reads: “PLEASE SEND BEER TO SAM ON FLOOR THREE. THANK YOU!”

And, according to the restaurant, Hoats’ plan has worked.

Eli Harper, the general manager at Knickerbocker, told Fox17 that Hoats has received 85 beers and counting this far.

Hoats has received 85 free beers (WNEM)

“We keep the score updated there at 85,” Harper said. “That’s the current count of gifts he’s had in about a year. So, he’s saving some money!”

According to Hoats, the sign originally started much smaller, about the size of a magazine cover, until an intern came up with the idea to make it bigger.

“So, she comes down with this door-sized version of my little piece of paper,” Hoats recalled. “We taped it up, we got the lights around it and everything.

“And then all a sudden, boom beer, boom beer, boom beer. And we’re like ‘oh my god, this is crazy.’”

Hoats has since added a tip jar to his desk, where he collects money to give the restaurant servers for delivering his free beer.

His story, which has earned him the nickname "third-floor Sam," has since inspired New Holland to create a special brew named after him, a response the digital strategist said is “incredibly exciting”.

“I just gotta convince them now to make my own t-shirts and then I would call it a success,” he told WNEM.