BrewDog, the fast-growing Scottish brewer and bar operator, has said it is on track to achieve full-year turnover of £12m as it announced plans to open three new sites in the next three months, complete its new £8m craft brewing facility and launch a new graduate recruitment programme.
40 new jobs will also be created the group’s network including bar managers and staff for its next three openings in Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds, as well as brewing staff at it’s new facility in Scotland.
BrewDog said it expects to achieve a turnover of £12m in 2012, an increase of £6m in one year, following growth in domestic on trade and off trade markets as well as export sales.
It said that growth could have been more, had it been able to produce enough beer to “meet the insatiable demand of its customers”.
The group said that it expects sales to increase at an even faster rate once it completes its new brewery a few miles from the existing premises in Aberdeenshire later this summer.
It plans to open 10 bars in 2012 and has so far opened three, in Nottingham, Newcastle, and most recently in Manchester. The company is also looking at the possibility of expansion overseas, with Dublin and Tokyo muted as possible location
The graduate programme will see both cofounders, James Watt and Martin Dickie each seek out a young protégé to help expand their craft beer revolution in the years to come.
Watt said: “Five years ago, BrewDog was, Martin Dickie, myself, some second hand equipment and Bracken the dog. Now we’re Scotland’s largest independent brewery, selling our craft beer in 27 different countries and owning eight amazing craft beer bars across the country. We’re opening three more bars in three months adding 40 new members of staff, yet all we hear about in the media is redundancies, downturns and Lady Gaga.”
In July last year, BrewDog began a campaign to raise funds for the brewery and the expansion of its bar network by selling shares to its own craft beer fans. The Equity for Punks scheme saw 6,000 ‘fanvestors’ jump on board in under six months, raising the maximum possible total of £2.2m.
Watt said: “The economic crisis has been our biggest catalyst for success. This is an environment for the innovators, for the misfits and the mavericks. There is a revolution happening, and heads will roll. We can see the empires of old crumbling, and the winners will be the people with the passion and commitment to make great products and make their companies work no matter what.
“People are fed up of having the wool pulled over their eyes; of being told their beer is from Australia when it’s from Burton-on-Trent, or that it tastes better because it’s ‘extra cold’, or because it has a QR code on the can.
“When times are tough, people see through the thin veneer of corporate ad-speak and seek out genuine quality and value. The media say the beer market is in decline – but sales of good beers are going up and up. It is the global monolithic mega corporations peddling lame, tasteless lagers that have their head on the block, and the craft beer revolution is wielding the axe.”
