Scottish brewer BrewDog has revealed the location of its first production facility in the US, two months after it unveiled plans to establish a North American operation.
The company will invest more than $30m in the construction of a 100,000 square foot facility in Canal Winchester, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. The site will be the main brewing location for all of BrewDog USA’s beer and will boast a restaurant, taproom and visitor centre when it is completed in August next year.
The plant will initially serve the US market with potential to export to other countries later, with 85,000 barrels of beer being brewed at the site in the first year alone. BrewDog has said that this could increase ten-fold after years two and three.
The announcement has been made two months after the company launched its Equity for Punks crowdfunding platform in a bid to find £25m’s worth of financing. The offer of 525,000 shares at £47.50 per share valued the business at more than £283m and represented BrewDog’s most ambitious crowdfunding campaign to date, we reported at the time. In its prospectus to investors, the Aberdeenshire-based brewer had set aside £3m to establish an operation in the US, where it already exported beer.
Its prospective success in the market will be built on the reputation it generated from a documentary that first aired on the Esquire Network in 2013, which followed BrewDog founders James and Martin as they travelled across the US visiting various different beer towns and celebrating the distinctive craft beers that they found locally.
BrewDog co-founder James Watt said: “The people of Ohio have absolutely bowled us over with their enthusiasm, passion for beer and warm welcome! Their reaction has been incredible, it’s awesome to know we’ve made the right choice with where to lay the foundations for our American home, and we’ll be throwing one helluva party to thank the locals for their support!
“Our international expansion plans have always been ambitious, but our intentions stateside are probably up there with some of the most ambitious, bombastic, exciting ventures we’ve ever embarked upon. America has one of the world’s most eclectic, energetic beer scenes imaginable, and we’re psyched to be pledging allegiance to the craft beer revolution in the USA. Planet BrewDog just gained a continent.”
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