Arran Brewery grows its turnover by 15% to £835K last year and saw profits rise by 30%.
Managing Director Gerald Michaluk said “ We have modestly grown the business because of our not wishing to exceed the 500,000 litre half duty production threshold without first upgrading our brewery on Arran to make the savings necessary to be able to afford to pay the extra 24p per bottle in tax that an increase in production would bring”.
We would love to have kept production in Scotland but have now had to implement our “gypsy brewing programme” I did the first brew in England at a plant ten times our size and using our yeast and now wait the outcome of this pilot. The beer brewed in England will be for the English market and will carry the Union Jack instead of our usual Saltire on the back of the label. It prevents us shipping beer which is in fact mainly water around the world, and is therefore environmentally sound strategy. . It involves us taking over other peoples breweries for the brewing day. I felt at 3am to do this brew and did not get back until 1am the next day. A long day!
The beer will only be realised if there is a true flavour match and that will not be known for some days yet.
We are developing plans to open two new breweries in Scotland, a chain of craft beer bars, a distillery and gypsy brews are in the planning phases for Spain and Germany.
These ambitious projects will be funded from a Crowd share offer that is scheduled for release in November and with the support of the beer and whisky loving public we hope to achieve the dream of expanding the Arran Brands and bringing new and exciting craft beers and spirits to the market”.
Arran Blonde is Scotland’s best selling bottled craft ale and the 10th best selling bottles ale overall in Scotland. The expansion of the business will see the brewery making Cider and Scotland’s first Sake as well as a range of spirits should its ambitions plans for the Camelon Distillery be fulfilled.
“We have great potential to grow the business and become an International brand. Currently only 1% of our sales comes from exports but we see this growing substantially and rapidly in 2014” said International Marketing Manager Veronica Michaluk..
The company hopes to raise up to £4m to fund its projects through a cloud flotation similar and hopes to emulate Brew Dogs success with this model of funding.
Managing Director Gerald Michaluk said “Four million is the maximum amount we can raise through this method under EU regulations and we have a staged plan so if we raise only £1M we will undertake a number of our proposed projects if we raise £2m even more and so on. What we will invest the money in is clearly laid out in the documents that inventors will receive in November”.
The Brewery recently received £500,000 in grants from Historic Scotland to help in the restoration of the former Rosebank Distillery site in Falkirk.
