It’s not yet cut and dried but London’s BeavertownBrewery in the UK is going to sell a minority stake to Heineken, according to a report on Friday of The Times. The brewery was established six years ago by Logan Plant, son of LedZeppelin’s lead singer Robert Plant and has already outgrown its Tottenham Hale site.
The brewery announced last week to brew over the next 18 months two of its flagship beers – Gamma Ray and Neck Oil – in Belgium with family-owned Brouwerij De Brabandere. Beavertown has already transferred some of its production to fellow London brewery Redchurch.
In the meantime the brewery wants to build Beaverworld, “a large-scale production facility and visitor experience” designed and built by Beavertown. Apparently the company needs additional cash for the expansion. Logan built his first brew pub Duke’s Brew & Que, with Beavertown being the brewery within, “with a very small budget … The money we made from selling barbecue and beer was ploughed back into expanding the brewery,” explained Logan in an interview last year. The Times found out that Logan had sought already a new investor for several months.
Even if Heineken is now solving some of Beavertown’s most urgent cash problem it seems doubtful if Logan has not entailed bigger problems with his new partner. Apparently consumers of Beavertown beer are intrigued by the anarchic appearance of the brewery and its products. A well-established partner like Heineken might not be the right fit.