From Innis & Gunn:
The Innis & Gunn Brewing Company, one of Scotland’s largest independent brewers, has today
announced the acquisition of The Inveralmond Brewery Limited, in Perth, Scotland. Innis & Gunn,
famous for its oak-infused beers and unoaked Scottish lager, will be investing substantially to further
develop the Perth Brewery and to create a new state-of-the-art Innis & Gunn brewing and
maturation facility. This will also extend the capacity available to grow both the Inveralmond and
Innis & Gunn family of beers. This investment marks an exciting period of growth and evolution for
both businesses.
Dougal Gunn Sharp, founder and master brewer at Innis & Gunn, said:
“The acquisition of Inveralmond gives us the dedicated brewing facility that we need to meet the
growing demand for our beers. It gives us a home where we can innovate and experiment with some
of the new brewing processes we’ve been dreaming up. This is more than an Innis & Gunn brewery;
we’re building a totem for innovation and a launch pad for our continued expansion at home and
abroad.”
“We’ve been friends with Inveralmond for years and I have huge respect for the beers that they
make. Ossian, their lead beer, is available on draft at all of our Beer Kitchen bar-restaurants and sells
brilliantly because of its amazing flavor, clarity and consistency.”
“As we searched for a site for our new brewery, it became clear there was an opportunity to
combine the strengths of both businesses and for us to acquire their brewery and brands,”
continued Sharp. “Taking over an already fantastic brewery gives us a rolling start in the
development of our new state-of-the-art equipment and processes, meaning we can grow much
faster than if we started from scratch. It means we’ve avoided a lot of the red tape and planning
issues around building a site from the ground up and we can concentrate on what we do best –
brewing beer.”
The purchase has been entirely funded by £3.1m of capital raised through the Innis & Gunn
BeerBond™ crowdfunding program, whereby craft beer ‘fanvestors’ invested in the business last
year. Those BeerBond™ holders will now see Innis & Gunn’s ambitious expansion plans accelerated
by the brewer choosing to invest in developing an existing brewery, rather than building a new
facility from scratch. The Inveralmond brewing team – longstanding friends of Innis & Gunn – will
remain unaffected by the acquisition.
Innis & Gunn will embark on significant investment in the Perth facility to support its innovative
brewing processes and continue its reputation for experimentation with ingredients and flavors. The
new brewery will be fully equipped with a brand new oak barrel maturation warehouse as well as
Innis & Gunn’s unique proprietary infusion equipment, which in the past has been used to infuse
beers with aromas and flavours from oak, bergamot, coffee beans and other artisanal ingredients.
The company is also planning to install new ‘Hop Gunns’ to maximise hop aroma in certain beers
through an amplified dry-hopping technique, and is assessing the feasibility of installing a small
bottling line in 2017.
Additional beer tanks will be added to the brewery to facilitate the expanded production volumes,
but also to supply the brewers’ growing number of Award Winning Beer Kitchen retail outlets,
already open in Edinburgh and Dundee and soon to arrive in Glasgow, with unpasteurised Innis &
Gunn Lager fresh from the brewery. The new production scale will allow Innis & Gunn to meet the
growing demand for its beers, and the site offers room and flexibility for further expansion in the
future as the company continues to grow – making the purchase an integral component of its long
term growth strategy.
Fergus Clark, founder and Managing Director at Inveralmond said:
“To me this feels like a real win-win. Our Inveralmond beers will gain access to a sales and
distribution infrastructure that will massively accelerate the growth of our beers both at home and
Internationally, while at the same time Innis & Gunn gets the brewery they want 18 months earlier
than if they had to build it themselves. We are really looking forward to starting to brew Innis &
Gunn beers on site and seeing where this exciting stage of our combined development will lead.”
Since its foundation in 2003, Innis & Gunn has become one of the UK’s most successful international
craft beer businesses, with an annual turnover of £12 million in 2014 – up from £10.5 million in
2013. In 2014, Innis & Gunn sold over 20 million bottles of beer, making it the second biggest
supplier of craft beer to the UK off-trade. From its headquarters in Edinburgh and the new brewery
in Perth, to be called The Innis & Gunn Inveralmond Brewery, the company will continue to expand
its scale in the UK and abroad, where the business already successfully exports to over 20 countries.
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