Controversial Scottish microbrewer BrewDog is to stop selling its beer to some national on-trade groups and distributors as it struggles to meet demand.
In a statement, the company said the start of 2011 took them “completely by surprise”, with a 400% increase in orders for this year, which also saw the firm reach the milestone of turning over £500,000 in a month.
“It puts a massive amount of strain on our resources, on our people, on our production capacity and furthermore seriously inhibits our ability to deliver to our customers on time.
“We are not at all happy with our current level of customer service which falls far below the standards we set for ourselves in all aspects of our business. At the moment it feels like we have almost reached the tipping point but have no beer to tip the bloody thing with!
“Consequently we have decided to stop trading with some of our larger customers. We have decided we can no longer sell to UK on-trade national groups and distributors for the time being due to capacity constraints. We will however look to develop this part of our business again once we get to our new brewery.”
BrewDog said it hopes to start building the new brewery just outside Aberdeen in “late 2011”, with plans to get the site operational by “late summer 2012”. However, the company admits that there’s been a “big stumbling block” over treatment of effluent at the site.
In the meantime, the company said it’s adding more capacity to its existing brewery, adding to its operations team, installing new stock management software systems. It has also sourced some external warehousing.
A number of BrewDog brands, mostly lagers for export, are brewed at the Meantime brewery in Greenwich, London. But the Scottish company said this only accounts for 8% of current production.
Earlier this month BrewDog announced it would open its third craft beer bar in August, with a site in Argyle Street, Glasgow.
