Brewer bypasses City with expansion investment

A share issue among fans of the brewer – best known for Punk IPA and a range of high-strength beers such as Tactical Nuclear Penguin – has raised £1.8M and is expected to top the £2M mark by the end of the year.

A spokeswoman for BrewDog said the remaining £5M required for the project in Aberdeenshire would come from the company’s own revenues, rather than bank loans or City investors.

The company will also use the money to establish five craft beer bars across the UK.

The share issue, dubbed Equity for Punks, was launched in July has allowed consumers to take a stake in the company for as little as £95. It raised £1M in its first month and has gone beyond expectations, according to BrewDog.

Co-founder James Watt said: “BrewDog has grown by over 200% in 2011, and through the investment of BrewDog fans throughout the world in Equity for Punks we are planning on exceeding that growth in 2012. The new facility will give us 10 times the brewing capacity, allowing us to meet demand that is growing all the time.

“We are still receiving investment from craft beer drinkers as far afield as New Zealand and south east Asia, as well as all over the UK, so there will be more than 8,000 people behind our expansion in 2012 – all of whom will literally get richer with every beer they drink. We think that’s pretty cool.”

Planning permission was recently granted for a nearby site and BrewDog is in the process of gaining consent for building work at a new location a mile away at Balmacassie, just outside Aberdeen. It has also bought adjacent land to allow for future expansion.

The brewery will create 75 jobs over five years, the company predicts.

Watts added: “It’s an entirely new business model, but we are proving that by turning to your customers, rather than the banks or financial markets, that the future is bright.”