TIME TO SCALE THAT ALE

Published in

BrewBroker

5 min readOct 29, 2018

With the help of a crack team of developers and a handful of early adopter breweries, we began our journey at the start of the year to build the industries first global online marketplace for making beer.

Pulling together contract breweries, craft beer startups, retailers, packaging companies and the supply chain under one roof BrewBroker provides tools that enable buyers to be instantly matched to the right type of suppliers based on their requirements and then pushing quotes back for comparison and tools for managing payments.

We are on a mission to connect every part of the global beer industry, for brewers & manufactures, but also businesses and beer lovers, creative industries and enthusiasts. We’ve started to this journey by first focusing on contract brewing in the UK market.

OPEN FOR TRADING

We’ve now been live for 6 weeks and have hit the major milestone of 200 registered users. Our growing database of 100 breweries offering small batch to high volume contract brewing and packaging services have so far been invited to tender for over 15k HL of brewing contracts by our network of 110 beer buyers.

From hoppy pales, session IPAs, sours and wheat beers to the more specialised such as low carb / low alcohol lagers and even a cocoa infused coffee stout, we’ve seen a broad range of styles and volumes been put through the system.

Although we’re focusing on the UK market first, we have buyer sign-ups from across the globe with breweries in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Sweden and Italy using the platform to search for contract partners. We’ve even got one brewery supplier already signed up in NZ ready to trade.

To celebrate hitting the 200 user milestone, we thought we’d showcase the diverse range of our suppliers and buyers we have on the system so far.

THE SUPPLIERS

CAMERONS

Camerons is by far one of the biggest and oldest breweries we have on the system to date. Founded back in1865 in Hartlepool, County Durham, Camerons is one the regions largest employers and one of the UK’s largest remaining regional independents. With a whopping brewing capacity of 1.5 million hectolitres, Camerons are well respected as a provider of high volume contract brewing services and we’re proud to have them on the system.

TINY REBEL

Now stocked in 35 countries, with over 10,000 HL brewed and employing 110 staff, Tiny Rebel are not so tiny anymore. They’ve come a long way from two guys brewing in their garage.

With their German kegging machine, Italian bottling line and their very impressive American canning line, Tiny Rebel have invested significantly in their packaging and can now offer these services, along with their 50,000 HL brewing capacity, on the BrewBroker marketplace.

ILKLEY BREWERY

Ilkley Brewery has roots that go all the way back to 1873, starting life as a hybrid water company and brewery before sadly shutting down in the 1920s.

90 years on Ilkley Brewery was reborn, and since its resurrection, the team have created over 30 beers from sessionable hoppy pales through to wintery thick stouts. They have an uncompromising approach to brewing that has seen them win countless awards and accolades from across the industry. Through BrewBroker they tendered for and won the contract to brew and package for leading national insurer NFU Mutual.

THE BUYERS

FOREST ROAD BREWERY

Forest Road Brewing Co.’s uncompromising approach to quality and scale has seen them contract out production to some incredible brewers from Belgium’s ancient family-owned brewery, Brouweriji, through to the UK’s Camden and Siren Brewery. Their head brewer and co-founder, Pete Brown, has used BrewBroker to set up a brewing contract with the Great Yorkshire Brewery to help them meet the demand for their very popular lager Posh.

GOOD THINGS BREWING

The guys at Good Things Brewing have a clear mission statement. They want to brew beer that tastes amazing and does very little, to no, damage to the environment. Sounds simple enough but the reality is quite the opposite in an industry with a carbon footprint a large as ours.

“Starting out in the brewing world is a daunting prospect, from raw materials to production, brewing location to financials. I found BrewBroker towards the end of our need to contract brew and wished they had existed throughout the past 2 years of struggling. To be able to just put out a tender to the specification of your beer and get instant feedback and results, is an absolute game changer. We will be using these guys for all remaining brews until our brewery opens its doors, of which we will then return the favour and invite others to brew with us. Keep it up guys”

Chris Drummond : Co-founder

Despite the challenges, Good Things Brewing’s goal is to produce the worlds most sustainable beer. Literally, from grain to glass, the brewery is ensuring that their supply chain is as environmentally friendly as possible.

Co-founder Chris Drummond recently used BrewBroker to contract out the production of one the breweries core beers with By the Horns Brewery.

THE NFU MUTUAL

The NFU has diversified from predominantly agricultural and farming into the food and beverage arena as a natural step and follows the path of farm produce to retail. As a result, the NFU can now claim 42% of the food and beverage insurance market and currently 20% of the brewing market. So it only seems fitting that these guys should get their own brand beer made. The events team at the NFU used BrewBroker to hook up with the right type of brewer to brew and package into cans the NFU Mutual Session IPA.

“We run events all year around and we’ve always wanted to do our own branded beer. BrewBroker has helped us find the right supplier at the right price with their effortless system. Looking forward to scaling up next year”

Adam Bloomfield : Partnerships Agent

JOIN US FOR FREE

This is just a handful of the 200+ companies we currently have trading on BrewBroker. Our aim is to have another 100 breweries by Christmas 2018 and another 200 by March 2019. From there we will be opening up the doors to the supply chain to create their profiles ready for trading with the beer world.