Scottish craft brewer Innis & Gunn is inviting Canadian consumers to submit ideas for its next flavour of beer.
It’s part of a nationwide competition called Imagine & Gunn, with the winner travelling to Innis & Gunn’s brewery in Scotland in January to brew the limited-edition beer. It will then go on sale in Canada in the autumn of 2018, and will bear the competition winner’s name.
Innis & Gunn’s founder and master brewer, Dougal Sharp, said: “At Innis & Gunn, we’ve brewed beer with raspberries, maple syrup and cherrywood – although not all at the same time, thank goodness. This holiday season, we’re even brewing beer with gold, frankincense and myrrh. But the next great Innis & Gunn beer idea won’t come from us – it will come from the people of Canada.”
The competition is open until 16 October, when Innis & Gunn’s brewing team will select a shortlist of submissions and a public vote will determine the winning flavour.
The Imagine & Gunn programme was originally launched in Sweden; Mika’s Choice, the beer created by this year’s winner, is a bourbon barrel-aged jalapeño imperial stout that is currently being sold across Sweden.
Like many of Innis & Gunn’s beers, the winning Canadian beer will be aged in bourbon barrels. Entrants will be able to suggest everything from the type of hops and malts to new flavours that inspire them.
Sharp continued: “We believe that the possibilities for beer are limitless. Imagine & Gunn is an opportunity for us to explore the exciting opportunities for flavour and innovation with the people of Canada – and we can’t wait to see what they come up with.”
The call comes in the same week as Unilever suggested that collaborations between big businesses and smaller firms – as well as members of the public – would continue to prove popular.
Fonterra, Carlsberg and Coca-Cola have all opened crowdsourcing projects up to the public, and in April then-DSM president Ilona Haaijer told FoodBev that she was ‘really excited’ to offer laboratory and scale-up facilities for smaller businesses and innovators alongside its new biotechnology centre in the Netherlands.
Buoyed by the demand for craft beer with character, Innis & Gunn has itself launched a £1 million equity crowdfunding campaign and issued a mini-bond to finance a new £3 million brewery in Scotland in the past.
Earlier this month, US investment group L Catterton took a £15 million stake in the craft brewer, which traditionally has lagged behind larger rival BrewDog but is now showing signs of promise in the North American market.
That transaction valued Innis & Gunn at around £58 million – still a fraction of the £1 billion valuation plastered on BrewDog earlier in the year, but a sign of progress following 13 consecutive years of volume growth.
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