Crowd at the bar willing to pump cash into brewing

Craft beer aficionados have invested almost £50 million in their favourite breweries via crowdfunding sites, new research has found.

The number of individual investments around the fastgrowing beer sub-sector now totals more than 65,000, says the research from investment comparisoncompany,off3r.

Itfoundthat40ukbreweries and six craft beer retail operators had tapped crowdfunding to raise capital for expansion over the past four years, and that brewing ventures made up four of the top 20 biggest crowdfunding efforts in 2016.

Brewdog, the Aberdeenshire craft brewer, has received more than half the overall crowdfunding total in the period – £27m. The report, produced with awardwinning UK beer blogger Martyn Cornell, says at least six brewers have raised sums in excess of £1.7m at a time.

Otherbeneficiariesofcrowdfunding include Camden Town Brewery in north London and the Wild Beer Company of Somerset.

Beer maker Brewdog, founded by James Watt, left, and Martin Dickie, is biggest beneficiary