CRAFT beer pioneer BrewDog has posted a dip in annual pre-tax profits even though its revenues surged but says it is “very pleased” with its financial results as it invests heavily for future growth.

Its annual report also reveals it has taken a 33 per cent stake in Edinburgh-based Third Wave Coffee, which was founded by Dave Law and Tom Hyde and operates two Brew Lab outlets in the Scottish capital.

A spokeswoman for BrewDog said that the craft beer specialist would offer Third Wave’s coffee in its UK bars. This move would seem likely to be a major boost for Third Wave, which opened Brew Lab in September 2012 after four years of planning, research and development.

Third Wave’s latest annual return indicates that Mr Law and Mr Hyde between them own the other two-thirds of the coffee company. Brew Lab serves single-origin filter, espresso and cold-brew coffees, and artisanal food with local provenance, in its two outlets.

Aberdeenshire-based BrewDog’s annual pre-tax profits fell to £3.48 million in 2015 from £3.65m in the prior year, as its revenues surged from £29.6m to £44.7m.

The craft beer specialist, which employs about 580 people, highlighted its investment in a major expansion of the capacity of its brewery at Ellon in Aberdeenshire. It is also building a brewery in the US, just outside Columbus, Ohio.

And it last year continued its programme of bar openings in the UK and overseas. BrewDog notes in its annual report that it opened 16 bars in 2015, taking its total to 45, with 31 of these outlets in the UK.

Asked if the company had received any takeover approaches from other players in the industry, BrewDog co-founder James Watt declined to comment.

However, he declared: “We believe independence is massively important to great beer. We believe the lack of overbearing parent company is key to being able to make fantastic beer.”

He added: “We are not doing this for money. We are doing this because we love craft beer. We will never sell out.”

BrewDog’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell to £4.89m in 2015, from £4.91m in the previous year.

The company, which has raised finance through major crowdfunding exercises and brews beers including its best-selling Punk IPA, said: “We are very pleased that, despite our strong growth and massive investment in future growth in 2015, we still generated a very healthy trading profit which was comparable to our 2014 trading profit number. The plan is to continue to invest all profit into fuelling further growth as we continue to invest in our beer and our people. We have been a high-growth company since we started, but that high growth has always been underpinned and driven by solid profitability.”

BrewDog declared that its percentage growth in revenues in 2015 would have been “much higher” if there had been greater production capacity to meet the demand for its beers. And it flagged the huge increase in its brewing capacity arising from its investment on both sides of the Atlantic.

Referring to its 2015 revenue growth, the company said: “As well as growing at 51 per cent, 2015 was all about putting the capacity, people and infrastructure in place for our next five years of sustained fast growth, and we are now in a position where we have 1.5 million HL (hectolitres) of brewhouse capacity.

“To put this in perspective, our 2015 output was 134,000 HL so we now have capacity to burn.”

Asked if he was comfortable with the fast-growing BrewDog’s pace of expansion, Mr Watt replied: “We’re still less than 0.1 per cent of the UK beer market, so we’re far from being a ‘big player’ in the grand scheme of things. We’re stoked with how fast we have managed to expand to date.”

BrewDog’s accounts indicate that boardroom pay rose to £654,000 in 2015, from £451,000 in the previous year. The annual report states that the company had five directors in 2015.