A Halifax brewery is encouraging people to donate blood by offering beer.

All customers have to do is show a selfie from their blood donation in exchange for the beer. The promotion is only running this weekend.

Shean Higgins, the owner of Tidehouse Brewing, said the idea came about after he saw a call by Canadian Blood Services looking for blood donations.

"When we saw them put the call out on social media for blood, we thought we'd just try to pump the tires for them a little bit," said Higgins.

Canadian Blood Services is an organization Higgins said is near and dear to his heart.

About four years ago, he said he wife was ill and in a situation where she needed to rely on several pints of blood to pull through.

"It's always good to just remind folks that it's something you can do that's super easy, doesn't cost you anything and you're helping other people," Higgins said.

He said he would like to see more businesses do it, too.

"For now it's been kind of a fun initiative for everybody," he said.