Innis & Gunn acquires Perth's Inveralmond Brewery

Craft beer firm Innis & Gunn is to swallow Inveralmond Brewery in Perth after opting not to build a new facility from scratch.

Dougal Sharp of Innis & Gunn

The Edinburgh-headquartered firm, which earlier this week announced a new joint venture to push into the French market, said it would be investing “substantially” to further develop the Perth site and create a new state-of-the-art Innis & Gunn brewing and maturation facility.

This will also extend the capacity available to grow both the Inveralmond and Innis & Gunn family of beers.

Innis & Gunn, famous for its range of oak-aged ales, said the purchase of its Perth-based peer had been entirely funded by £3.1 million of capital raised through the Innis & Gunn “BeerBond” crowdfunding programme, whereby craft beer “fanvestors” invested in the business last year.

Those bond holders will now see Innis & Gunn’s ambitious expansion plans accelerated by the brewer choosing to invest in developing an existing brewery, rather than building a new facility.

It said the Inveralmond brewing team would remain unaffected by the acquisition. The brewery is to be called The Innis & Gunn Inveralmond Brewery.

Dougal Gunn Sharp, founder and master brewer at Innis & Gunn, said: “The acquisition of Inveralmond gives us the dedicated brewing facility that we need to meet the growing demand for our beers.

“It gives us a home where we can innovate and experiment with some of the new brewing processes we’ve been dreaming up.

“This is more than an Innis & Gunn brewery; we’re building a totem for innovation and a launch pad for our continued expansion at home and abroad.”

He added: “We’ve been friends with Inveralmond for years and I have huge respect for the beers that they make. Ossian, their lead beer, is available on draft at all of our Beer Kitchen bar-restaurants and sells brilliantly because of its amazing flavour, clarity and consistency.”

Fergus Clark, founder and managing director at Inveralmond, said: “To me this feels like a real win-win. Our Inveralmond beers will gain access to a sales and distribution infrastructure that will massively accelerate the growth of our beers both at home and Internationally, while at the same time Innis & Gunn gets the brewery they want 18 months earlier than if they had to build it themselves.

“We are really looking forward to starting to brew Innis & Gunn beers on site and seeing where this exciting stage of our combined development will lead.”