THE new owner of the Scottish beer giant BrewDog has said he’s poured more than £50 million into the business since taking it over in a bid to stabilise it.
The chief executive behind the American firm, Tilray Brands, which bought BrewDog in March in a deal worth £33m, revealed the multimillion-pound investment and also teased plans to open bars worldwide.
Tilray, which owns a raft of craft breweries in the US, closed 38 bars across the UK, leading to 484 redundancies, when it took over the Ellon-based firm.
Simon previously outlined plans to slim down BrewDog’s craft beer range, which he said had “way too many” variations, in a bid to cut costs.
Now, he has revealed that after a £50m cash injection into the business, which recorded a £37m loss in an update to shareholders in September, BrewDog is “in a good place” but conceded that there’s “still a lot of work to do”.
“It’s four months into it and I am real happy we acquired this. It’s a phenomenal brand, phenomenal assets, phenomenal opportunities,” Simon told The Times.
“We probably put another £50m back into this business from a cash flow and an investment standpoint.
“We were the ones funding payroll and inventories, ingredients and stuff like that. It’s in a good place, but there’s still a lot of work to do.”
BrewDog collapsed into administration owing £500m to a raft of companies including brewers, hospitality firms and sports organisations before it was bought by Tilray in March.
But Simon said that he plans to expand BrewDog internationally as he aims to open bars in parts of Canada and the East Coast of the US.
The firm is also reportedly in talks with potential partners in places such as China, Japan, India and the Middle East.
He also shared plans to re-open the firm's distillery, which closed in January along with the shuttering of all of its spirit brands.
“We’re sitting with 1700 barrels of whisky. The good news is it’s one of the few products in the world where age is OK,” Simon said.
“I am very much looking for what is the right opportunity to get back into that business.”
BrewDog was founded in 2007 by James Watt, who stepped down as the firm’s chief executive in 2024.
The National revealed that the company’s other founder, Martin Dickie, left “out of the blue” for personal reasons in August last year.
BrewDog bought its first bar in 2009 and then proceeded to build a £7.8m brewery in Ellon in 2013. At one stage it operated 78 bars worldwide.
