Brewdog published the following announcement regarding their taking stewardship of Stone Berlin as of May 1:
We are delighted to announce that we have completed a deal to acquire an amazing brewery & tap room in Berlin from our good friends at Stone Brewing. We will officially take ownership of our new brewery on May 1st. The brewery we have acquired is in the Mariendorf neighbourhood of Berlin was originally opened in 2016 in a beautiful and historic gasworks building which dates to 1901.
We get the keys to our new European home on May 1st. After a certain time for evaluation we will be closed for a little bit as we turn the building into a BrewDog space, similar to the vibe we have created at our Columbus brewery. Once we reopen, we are looking forward to holding a huge opening party, as well as hosting an epic European AGM for our Equity Punks there later in 2019 and also making Berlin the next destination for BrewDog Airlines.
The brewery itself is a 100HL state of the art system with both a canning line and bottling line and also a 10 HL pilot system too. The main building of the brewery campus features an amazing 2,500m2 tap room with a 13m high glass wall to the brewery and there are also 5,000m2 of outdoor gardens for enjoying a beer outside.
We have a whole host of exciting plans for the building and the space as we focus on community and focus on beer. We will be announcing more of our plans as we get closer to reopening but we wanted to share one element of our plans today. We will be launching the ‘Berlin Craft Collective’ in the 10HL pilot brewery at the Mariendorf site. We will essentially be giving the pilot system over to the craft brewers of Berlin to help them either start their brewing journey or scale up their business. As well as helping them brew on our system, we will also showcase their beers in all of our German bars.
We want to make our new Berlin brewery the hub for the craft beer movement and use it to help elevate the status of beer and craft brewing in Germany.
As part of our commitment to the German market we have had a very popular BrewDog bar in Berlin since 2017 and are we are also due to open a Hamburg location in Summer 2019 too!
The history and camaraderie of Stone and BrewDog goes all the way back to 2007. Since our first collaboration brew in our original brewery in Fraserburgh, we have collaborated many times: from brewing ground breaking beers, to Stone being the only brewery featured twice in BrewDog’s TV show. Furthermore, part of the reason BrewDog ended up building a brewery in Columbus was because Greg generously shared details of locations that Stone had considered in the city with James.
Stone built a fantastic brewery in Berlin, but in the words of their co-founder and Executive Chairman Greg Koch:
“Ultimately the project turned out to be too big, too bold and too early in our growth curve in Europe. Sure, in hindsight maybe we should have started smaller, aimed for the treeline instead of the stars. Today we lick a few wounds, but count our successes too. We are not leaving Germany. Or Europe. We’ve met a whole new country and continent of craft beer fans! Our distribution to more than 30 European countries will continue to grow. Stone Brewing Tap Room – Prenzlauer Berg is still very much open, and pints will still flow. We stand proud, and are heartened that we can pass the Mariendorf beer temple into the capable hands of our friends at BrewDog. They will do great things. And from time to time, as we’ve done in the past, we’ll do some of those great things together.”
You can read Greg’s blog post on the transition here: https://www.stonebrewing.com/blog.
After BrewDog takes stewardship of the brewery we will continue to help and support Stone in Europe by making their beers for European distribution. This is good for the beers, good for the environment and ultimately, good for beer fans.
We would like to thank Stone for their support and camaraderie over the years and that we look forward to our 2 businesses continuing to work together in the future, in the spirit of true craft beer collaboration and partnership. All for the betterment of beer.
We are really excited about being able to brew our beers for the German market in Germany as well as put together an amazing BrewDog Beer Experience in the heart of one of our favourite cities on the continent.
Watch this space.
SOURCE: https://www.brewdog.com/blog/post/brewdog-take-stewardship-of-stone-berlin-bv/?
Raymond
Terry Bunch
