The story of how one brewer is getting his brand off the ground before he even opens his premises through 'making do' with manufacturing processes.
Have a great idea for a product, but think you need the space and money to create something truly amazing? You're probably right, but if you build the right brand around the right prototype, you get traction before you go down the mammoth routes of planning permission and supply chains.
Dave Robertson of Forth Bridge Brewery, one of last year's Pitch Top 100 has started brewing his beer and producing spirits in a mate's garage while crowdfunding is ongoing for his plan of a self-sustainable brewery & distillery that will also provide almost an entire town with energy.
This will not only help him fashion a customer base and spread the word, it'll attract new crowdfunding investors and help him with market research and shaping his product rather than starting afresh on the clean swept factory floor.
And he's using his fundraising, hospitality and web design background to do so.
'We'll use our waste and turn it into energy in forms of biomass and biogas,' he explains.
The brewery will be able to create 14m litres of craft beer for year at a fraction of the cost of their nearest competitor, they claim. The craft beer industry is worth £2bn.
They have a site identified at Forth Bridge, which is on the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Beneath this, is an old coal mine. They'll drill down into this to provide heat for not only their operation, but for 5,000 homes too.
But first, they're crowdfunding to make their idea a reality.
He's worked as an internal internet marketing manager for a bank, the UK executive bar manager for a chain across the UK and Ireland, and operations manager of a Volvo Ocean Race team, raising £12.5m in sponsorship.
But he decided to give up the exec life as even though the 'money was more amazing than you could ever imagine, you can't have a relationship or settle down. You basically can't have a life'.
So he left, worked on the Royal Scotsman train and after getting bored with that, decided to visit his fisherman uncle in Scotland.
'We had this fish pie, proper Scottish stodge, smoked fish fresh off the boat. He comes in with this beer, brewed just down the road. It was a bottle of Punk IPA and I was like wow, I've never tasted anything like this in my life. This is amazing, why is no one else doing this?'
It was then he decided he wanted a brewery.
'I was cycling past Forth Bridge and I couldn't think of any names. But I thought, yeah Forth Bridge, so it came about and I checked the domain names were available, came home, registered them and started on the design,' he says.
When he was writing the business plan for the brewery, it looked as though he'd have a hard time making money by selling it to large supermarkets. This, coupled with the fact there was an upcoming gas price increase due to diminishing gas reserves meant competitor price would rise.
'So if we had something sustainable it'd be better in our long-term interest,' he adds.
Biomass was something Robertson determined the business could use. Then, he had the idea of using the spent grain, a wood source, to burn and create heat.
'What we planned to do is not the world's first. I found it from someone else so I'm not taking the credit, but I'm putting it together along the lines of 'we're changing what we're doing'.'
And under the site, 160m below, is an old flooded coal mine. Therefore, Robertsonis going to drill two boreholes into the mine, extract the heat and leave the water in it, so it's a pump that goes through heater exchanger. They then get 50 degrees out of the mine which preheats the water that goes into beer before going into the biomass boiler.
'At 50 degrees already, you're using 50% less biomass to preheat the beer. To make spirits you make beer first anyway - just not add the hops - so it's all about the beer,' says Robertson.
'You not only supply them with hot water and heating but you can extract the heat in the summer months and supply them with cool air, so it's a cooling system, and then what you do is take heat out of their building and gets pumped back to brewery, goes back through heat exchanger and back into the mine,' Robertsonexplains.
This then creates a heat storage system, so when he's not brewing beer or distilling spirits, they can pump the waste heat into the ground back into the mine and then it'll create a large storage heater.
'You're going to lose some of your heat, but it's certainly a way to save it. We're taking it and turned it on its head a wee bit. Obviously it costs a fortune to do but we can see it working as a test bed for other towns and maybe it can even be implemented around the world,' Robertson says.
They'll run the campaign on Seeders within the next two months or so, 'it's a long process,' he says.
'The first round that we're doing is basically to establish the beer and spirits in the marketplace so we're producing these on a commercial basis. We've got sales connections with the main buyers for supermarkets and large retailers, however, they're all saying the same thing, we can't commit to anything until we've tried the beer,' Robertson explains.
So he's brewing his beer in a neighbour's garage for the time being, has a still in his own shed, and is gaining experience and 'paying the bills' working in another distillery creating recipes for a friend's business.
This article first appeared on ThePitch.uk.
Have a great idea for a product, but think you need the space and money to create something truly amazing? You're probably right, but if you build the right brand around the right prototype, you get traction before you go down the mammoth routes of planning permission and supply chains.
Dave Robertson of Forth Bridge Brewery, one of last year's Pitch Top 100 has started brewing his beer and producing spirits in a mate's garage while crowdfunding is ongoing for his plan of a self-sustainable brewery & distillery that will also provide almost an entire town with energy.
This will not only help him fashion a customer base and spread the word, it'll attract new crowdfunding investors and help him with market research and shaping his product rather than starting afresh on the clean swept factory floor.
And he's using his fundraising, hospitality and web design background to do so.
What's the idea?
Robertson is on his way to creating the UK's first biomass powered brewery, producing beer with zero emissions and being a 100% sustainable brewer.'We'll use our waste and turn it into energy in forms of biomass and biogas,' he explains.
The brewery will be able to create 14m litres of craft beer for year at a fraction of the cost of their nearest competitor, they claim. The craft beer industry is worth £2bn.
They have a site identified at Forth Bridge, which is on the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Beneath this, is an old coal mine. They'll drill down into this to provide heat for not only their operation, but for 5,000 homes too.
But first, they're crowdfunding to make their idea a reality.
How'd the idea come about?
Robertson has previously been a pro sailor, a small business owner, setting up first his own university course search engine which he sold off after five years, and later his own web design company.He's worked as an internal internet marketing manager for a bank, the UK executive bar manager for a chain across the UK and Ireland, and operations manager of a Volvo Ocean Race team, raising £12.5m in sponsorship.
But he decided to give up the exec life as even though the 'money was more amazing than you could ever imagine, you can't have a relationship or settle down. You basically can't have a life'.
So he left, worked on the Royal Scotsman train and after getting bored with that, decided to visit his fisherman uncle in Scotland.
'We had this fish pie, proper Scottish stodge, smoked fish fresh off the boat. He comes in with this beer, brewed just down the road. It was a bottle of Punk IPA and I was like wow, I've never tasted anything like this in my life. This is amazing, why is no one else doing this?'
It was then he decided he wanted a brewery.
Naming the business
Robertson then began to think of what to call the business.'I was cycling past Forth Bridge and I couldn't think of any names. But I thought, yeah Forth Bridge, so it came about and I checked the domain names were available, came home, registered them and started on the design,' he says.
Why go sustainable?
Robertson says the idea to go sustainable was a mixture between cost efficiency and corporate social responsibility.When he was writing the business plan for the brewery, it looked as though he'd have a hard time making money by selling it to large supermarkets. This, coupled with the fact there was an upcoming gas price increase due to diminishing gas reserves meant competitor price would rise.
'So if we had something sustainable it'd be better in our long-term interest,' he adds.
Biomass was something Robertson determined the business could use. Then, he had the idea of using the spent grain, a wood source, to burn and create heat.
'What we planned to do is not the world's first. I found it from someone else so I'm not taking the credit, but I'm putting it together along the lines of 'we're changing what we're doing'.'
And under the site, 160m below, is an old flooded coal mine. Therefore, Robertsonis going to drill two boreholes into the mine, extract the heat and leave the water in it, so it's a pump that goes through heater exchanger. They then get 50 degrees out of the mine which preheats the water that goes into beer before going into the biomass boiler.
'At 50 degrees already, you're using 50% less biomass to preheat the beer. To make spirits you make beer first anyway - just not add the hops - so it's all about the beer,' says Robertson.
What's the long term strategy?
Their long-term strategy is to put a district heat network around the town.'You not only supply them with hot water and heating but you can extract the heat in the summer months and supply them with cool air, so it's a cooling system, and then what you do is take heat out of their building and gets pumped back to brewery, goes back through heat exchanger and back into the mine,' Robertsonexplains.
This then creates a heat storage system, so when he's not brewing beer or distilling spirits, they can pump the waste heat into the ground back into the mine and then it'll create a large storage heater.
'You're going to lose some of your heat, but it's certainly a way to save it. We're taking it and turned it on its head a wee bit. Obviously it costs a fortune to do but we can see it working as a test bed for other towns and maybe it can even be implemented around the world,' Robertson says.
How's crowdfunding going?
When we last spoke, Robertson was finalising the business plan for the equity partners which are going to be Seedrs.They'll run the campaign on Seeders within the next two months or so, 'it's a long process,' he says.
'The first round that we're doing is basically to establish the beer and spirits in the marketplace so we're producing these on a commercial basis. We've got sales connections with the main buyers for supermarkets and large retailers, however, they're all saying the same thing, we can't commit to anything until we've tried the beer,' Robertson explains.
So he's brewing his beer in a neighbour's garage for the time being, has a still in his own shed, and is gaining experience and 'paying the bills' working in another distillery creating recipes for a friend's business.
This article first appeared on ThePitch.uk.
