Kirin’s Australian subsidiary Lion Brewing has acquired 100% of Fourpure Brewing Co., based in UK’s capital London at an undisclosed sum. Kirin Holdings announced not only to invest into the British brewery and brand but also to use its distribution channels to expand the reach of Lion’s Australian and New Zealand beers in the UK.
Daniel Lowe, CEO of Fourpure, as well as his brother Tom Lowe, who both founded the brewery in 2013, will remain with the brewery. However, they are aware of the fact that the business will not stay the same. "We’re not going to say nothing will change," said Dan Lowe. "What would be the point of doing it if nothing was changing?" he is quite clear about the future of the business.
The brewery invested $2.67m last year in a new German engineered GEA brewhouse and fermentation tanks which increased capacity to 60,000 hl per year.
Fourpure Brewing is the first European based craft brewery in Kirin’s portfolio, which includes Little Creatures in Australia, Panhead Custom Ales and Emerson’s Brewery in New Zealand (all part of Lion) and Kirin’s direct 24.5% stake in Brooklyn Brewery in New York, USA.
Fourpoure Brewing is already the sixth London based brewery to be acquired by a larger multinational brewing. The first was Meantime Brewing Co., which was acquired by SABMiller in May 2015 and following the sale of SABMiller to AB InBev divested to Asahi in April 2016. (inside.beer, 11.10.2016). Next came Camden Town Brewery, which was sold to AB InBev by the end of 2015 (inside.beer, 7.8.2017), followed by Carlsberg’s acquisition of London Fields Brewery in July 2017 (inside.beer, 3.7.2017), and Heineken’s double strike with minority shares in Brixton Brewery in November 2017 (inside.beer, 28.11.2017) and Beavertown in June 2018 (inside.beer, 26.5.2018)
