Innis & Gunn plans major new facility in Edinburgh area
Move constitutes ‘final piece of jigsaw’ as firm targets turnover of £40m by 2021
By Craft brewer Innis & Gunn is to build a large-scale brewery in Edinburgh – creating up to 30 jobs – to meet “unabated” domestic and global demand for its lager.
The move, which the firm said will create the first large brewery to be built in the capital for more than 150 years, will also support its aim of nearly doubling turnover to £40 million by 2021.
The proposed site is “strongly preferred to be in the Edinburgh area”, subject to the outcome of planning applications. Innis & Gunn’s core range of craft lager, IPAS and barrel-aged beers would be produced at the new brewery, with a targeted capacity of 400,000 hectolitres.
The site is also to house a “world-class” visitor facility, taproom and offer brewery tours.
Founder and master brewer Dougal Gunn Sharp revealed the news to shareholders at the company’s AGM in Glasgow, and yesterday told The Scotsman that with Edinburgh having seen the creation of the company and home to its headquarters, “it really feels like we’re coming home as a brand”.
In terms of progress, “we’re working on a number of options for sites – our strong preference is to be in Edinburgh and we have gone out to tender on key pieces of the equipment that we’ll be installing”. Work has just begun to get planning applications prepared, and “we are beginning to move at pace with this project now”.
Timescales are realistically a couple of years, although the aim is to be up and running as quickly as possible, with the funding in place to “crack on and do this project”.
It comes after Tennent’s said on Thursday that as of September 2020 it will stop providing brewing and packaging services for Innis & Gunn at its Wellpark Brewery in Glasgow.
The existing Innis & Gunn Brewery in Perthshire, which the firm took on when it bought Inveralmond Brewery in 2016, is to continue to brew Inveralmond’s range of cask and bottled ales, which has seen volume growth of 7 per cent in the last 12 months, and focus on small-scale experimentation and limited edition barrel-aged beers.
Investment in the construction of a new brewery will also include high-speed canning, bottling and kegging capability, and streamline several outsourced brewing and packaging sites to one single location.
Sharp added that new facility will provide the brewing, packaging and warehousing capacity needed to meet demand for its products, with its lager, for example, on track to be the number one craft drink of its kind in the UK.
The plans come as Innis & Gunn celebrates its 15th anniversary, and following a “transformational” year that saw turnover grow by 22 per cent to £22.4m.
“To be building a brewery of this scale in Edinburgh, which used to be one of the world’s brewing ca pitals, is a fitting final piece of our jigsaw, and to be doing that in our 15th year feels incredible,” Sharp added.
emma.newlands@jpress.co.uk