CRAFT beer maker Brewdog is to build a brewery, restaurant and visitor centre in the Australian city of Brisbane.
The first beer from the site in the Murarrie area of the Queensland capital is expected to reach bars and shops across Australia and New Zealand in 2019.
The long-planned brewery, which will ease capacity at Brewdog’s Ellon headquarters, will see the craft brewer invest £17 million (A$30m) and create 150 jobs over the next five years.
Brewdog choose Brisbane over the New South Wales city of Newcastle, with bosses James Watt and Martin Dickie saying that they are looking forward to become a part of the city’s existing vibrant beer scene.
The business is rapidly growing its international presence following a £213m investment by US private equity house TSG Consumer Partners in April last year, with its first overseas brewery in Columbus, Ohio, producing its first beer in July 2017.
The Brisbane brewery will serve as its Australian headquarters and will make it quicker and cheaper to import to growing Asian markets, including China, where Brewdog grew sales by 117 per cent last year. Brewdog has plans to open a brewery in mainland Asia in 2019.
READ MORE: Whisper it, but madcap Brewdog is getting serious about its global growth plans
Construction on the Brisbane brewery, which will be located on the city’s riverfront, is set to commence in the second half of the year. The site will incorporate a 50 hectolitre 3,000 square metre brewing and canning facility, a restaurant, a taproom and visitor centre.
Beers from the company’s core range, such as Punk IPA, Dead Pony Club and Jet Black Heart will be made there, in addition to small-batch brews specifically for the regional market.
Brewdog said there were no plans for these small-batch beers to be exported to the UK.
Zarah Prior, director of BrewDog Australia said: “We’ve been so humbled by the support from local businesses as well as the local community who have shown a real passion for BrewDog to call Brissie home.
“It’s a city that’s on the brink of some incredible growth, and we can’t wait to be a part of that.”
Ms Prior said she there were a number of “amazing” local breweries that the company was looking forward to collaborating with: “From local brewing pioneers Green Beacon and Newstead, through to up and coming breweries like our mates at Range Brewing,” she added.
Collaboration is a common practice in craft brewing with companies, often based in different countries, coming together to make small-batch beers.
The company also said it would be able to take advantage of the brewery’s proximity to Australian and New Zealand hop farms, which it said produce some of the best hops in the world.
Brewdog announced last July that it narrowed its search for an Australian site down to Brisbane and Newcastle after a public call to submit ideas for a suitable locations, which the company said resulted in hundreds of proposals, including a video pitch from the Government of South Australia. “We are hugely appreciative of the support we received from Brisbane Marketing, Austrade, and the Queensland Government all of whom played a role in sealing the deal for Brisbane,” said Ms Prior.
Brewdog did not disclose whether the brewery would benefit from grant funding.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said: “Brisbane is a place where market-leading and innovative businesses can thrive, and I’m certain BrewDog will feel at home in our welcoming and progressive city.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here