Champion Beer of Britain brewer launches £750k crowdfunding target
Founder of Siren, which took home the Supreme Champion Beer of Britain award at this year’s Great British Beer Festival for its stout beer, Broken Dream, Darron Anley outlined his plans to The Morning Advertiser and why he decided to go down the route of canning.
He said: “The primary thing we want to do is put Siren into cans, which we haven’t done since we started.
“While cans are hugely popular, I wouldn’t put anything in them until we could have the highest level of quality.”
Capital spend
Anley added: “For the canning line, we are looking at a capital spend of anywhere between £750,000 and £1m, which is a pretty big investment.
“We have got a tapyard (tasting room and bottle shop) at the brewery [in Wokingham] and we are doing really well with it so if we get to £1.5m, we want to take that concept to a couple of city centres.”
Anley laid out the reasons why he believes crowdfunding is the way forward for growth and why it seems to be a popular option for financial backing with breweries.
He added: “The two things we have been asked for a lot over the past two to three years is ‘when are we canning?’ and ‘when will we do crowdfunding?’.
“Now is the right time. We have got a really solid reason for wanting to do it and, talking to some of our friends in the industry, it is a really good way to get your fans more on board with you.”
Joint benefits
Crowdfunding is beneficial to the business and its investors, according to Anley because both parties receive something back.
“For them [investors], the advantage is they get to put money into something they are interested in, something they are passionate about and at some point, there will be a way for them to get a return on the money they put in,” he said.
“For us, it is a good opportunity to get the fans that bit further in with us. When people invest in you as a business, they are passionate about it enough to tell their mates so to have a good few thousand people doing that for you, is good for your business.”
For more information on Siren's crowdfunding, visit their page here.
