Innis & Gunn founder – principal aim of £1m crowdfunding campaign is to roll-out The Beer Kitchen brand: Dougal Sharp, founder of Scottish brewer and retailer Innis & Gunn, has told Propel the principal aim of its £1m crowdfunding campaign is to roll-out The Beer Kitchen brand. The company, which was founded in 2003, is offering a 2% equity stake in return for the investment on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube. Innis & Gunn intends to double its turnover to £25m during the next three years and the capital raised through the Adventure Capital campaign will be used to accelerate its immediate growth priorities. Sharp said its main aim was to fund the roll-out of The Beer Kitchen brand, which was launched in Edinburgh in July 2015. It has since opened a second site, in Dundee, while bars will follow in St Andrews next month and then Glasgow, which will house the company’s first micro-brewery, before its first international venue in Toronto, Canada. Sharp said: “We are focused on rolling out The Beer Kitchen in Scotland for the time being. We believe there is plenty of opportunity and it is working fantastically well for us. It is a question of ‘when’ we head south but we need to work out what the right route is for us. We are in ongoing negotiations on a site in downtown Toronto. Canada has long been our biggest market abroad so it makes sense to take The Beer Kitchen there. We will be looking to work with an experienced hospitality partner and, if it is successful, then we will look at other markets.” The company also plans to expand beer production at the Inveralmond Brewery in Perth, Scotland, which it acquired earlier this year and is now to be named the Innis & Gunn Brewery. Production volume is forecast to triple in the next two years to 30,000HL. The company will also install a barrel-ageing hall and new filtration technology that will expand the development, giving it the capacity and capability to “brew some of the beers we’ve not been able to”. Sharp said: “We’ve been brewing since 2003 and we’ve gone on to become one of the biggest craft beer brewers in the UK. Craft beer still only accounts for a fraction of the beer consumed annually. This means we have substantial opportunities for growth. Since we did our mini-bond last year, where we raised £3m, we’ve been having conversations with our investors about another crowdfunding campaign. With Adventure Capital, we are building a community of like-minded, passionate beer lovers who care deeply about quality, innovation, flavour and integrity. We can’t wait to begin the next chapter of our journey with them.” Since its foundation, Innis & Gunn has reported continued year-on-year volume and sales growth, with an annual group turnover of £12.5m in 2015 – a 36% increase since 2012. In 2015, Innis & Gunn sold more than 23 million bottles of beer globally.

Marston’s launches radical image change to attract new generation of drinkers: Marston’s has given its beer brands a striking new look in a revolutionary departure from its traditional imagery in a bid to attract a new generation of drinkers. The company is putting the Marston’s story in Burton, the spiritual home of UK brewing, at the heart of the new campaign. In rejuvenating the positioning and identity so fundamentally, Marston’s is investing more than £1m during the next 12 months on a new assertive position that is “100% Burton”. The range, which includes Marston’s Pedigree and the newly created 61 Deep, will boast new packaging, pump clips, point-of-sale materials and younger tone of voice to convey a compelling meaning behind each of the brand’s stories. And a new consumer campaign, “From Burton With Love”, will depict the brand’s proud Burton roots and brewing back-story using local people scouted from the streets, in everyday locations and situations. In addition to a new beer range, Marston’s brewery will develop its new product development pipeline in “DE14”, a new 600-pint innovation brewery inspired by the brewery’s postcode. Marston’s marketing manager Lee Williams said: “The harsh reality is that, as a brewer, we’re not resonating with the next generation of drinkers who are attracted to the authenticity and simplicity of the new beer scene. For them it’s real and it resonates. Talk to anyone working at our brewery in Burton, though, and you realise we’re no different and share the same passion and love for what we do. So you could say this is just about us presenting ourselves in a new and honest way, as only a true Burton brewery can. We need the next generation to consider our beers, perhaps for the first time, and discover they love the taste too – just as generations before have done, and still do.”