Brewdog pushes ahead with Oz brewery

Fresh from appointing a managing director for its US arm, craft beer maker Brewdog has named its “top dog” for Australia as it eyes possible sites for its first brewery Down Under.

Zarah Prior, who previously held the role of “head of people” at the Aberdeenshirebased firm before joining Australia’s Stone & Wood Brewing Co last year as head of engagement, has now returned to the company, tasked with identifying locations for its new production facility. The Ellon-headquartered brewer, which recently opened its 100,000 square foot brewery in Columbus, Ohio, and appointed Tanisha Robinson as managing director of Brewdog USA, is focusing its initial searches around the “fastdeveloping” areas of Brisbane in Queensland and Newcastle in New South Wales.

Over the past eight years, the firm’s “Equity for Punks” crowdfunding initiative has attracted investment of more than £40 million from some 55,000 people around the world. In April, US private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners bought a stake of about 22 per cent in the business in a deal that valued it at about £1 billion.

Prior, an Australian native, said: “Our Australian Equity Punk community has been crying out for Brewdog to set up shop closer to home, so we are excited to finally be making that happen.

“We are open to redeveloping an existing industrial site with a 2,000 to 4,000 square metre built-up facility, or alternatively a plot of land able to comfortably accommodate a new build of that size.” 0 Brewdog’s Zarah Prior is a native of Australia