VAUX Brewery

Idea

Introduction

We started Vaux in 2019 with the aim of breathing new life into an iconic North East brand and at the same time helping to kickstart the craft beer scene in Sunderland. Our passion for beer is matched by a desire to help regenerate our hometown.

It was clear within a matter of days of launching our social media channels that there was a huge interest in seeing this project succeed. BBC Radio and local press interviews followed to find out more about our plans - it was an exciting time but it was only the very beginning as we had a lot of work to do to show people what we could do.

Four years on, we have opened our own brewery and taproom, we've collaborated with some of the best breweries in the UK, we've poured at festivals in the UK and Europe, and we're now about to move to a bigger brewing facility to enable us to increase capacity by 400%. We have a solid foundation, a loyal customer base, a strong team and the distribution channels through which we plan to grow further over the next 2-3 years.

Substantial accomplishments to date

1. Opened our Monk Street brewery in December 2020 during Covid and opened an on-site taproom at the brewery in June 2021

2. Achieved a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) since 2019 of 99.89%*.

3. Grown our community to over 23,000 people, have established ourselves on the UK independent brewery scene, have built a strong base of trade customers selling direct as well as via distributors and online channels such as Sellar.io and Eebria Trade.

4. Secured investment from Architect and TV presenter George Clarke in 2021

5. Collaborated with some of the best independent breweries in the UK including: Full Circle Brew Co, Howling Hops, Phantom Brewing Co, Top Rope Brewing, Old Chimneys among others.

6. Collaborate and support our local music scene and have worked with Pop Recs, Summer Streets Festival, Waves Music Festival, Boundaries Festival to name a few.

7. We are currently engaging in conversations to secure permanent lines with operators of 4 new venues due to open late 2023 and early 2024 in order to increase sales of core beers.

*Based on unaudited management accounts.

Monetisation strategy

We've always believed that breweries need multiple revenue streams in order to thrive. At Vaux we have 4 routes to market:

1. On-trade:

This makes up the majority of our revenue. We sell kegs, cans and cask beer to a range of local & national venues. This route to market is where we forecast most of our growth will come from in the next 12-24 months both from direct relationships and via distributors.

2. Off-trade:

We supply locally and nationally to a range of bottle shops and carefully selected retailers. We've also recently started working with Beer 52 to increase our off-trade sales whilst building brand awareness further afield.

3. Direct-to-consumer:

Our online shop sales is a regular source of income and at key times of the year can become a significant income stream for us.

4. Taproom:

We opened our own taproom in 2021 and it has become a vital part of our business, providing income year-round due to being located a short walk from Sunderland's Stadium of Light.

Use of proceeds

Hitting our initial £50k target will allow us to complete the groundworks in our new 3,000 sq. ft. brewery unit and will ensure that we can purchase new fermentation tanks to increase capacity by 400% which is crucial to our growth. We hare now in the final stages of securing deals that require this capacity and this site, once fully commissioned, will be where we brew the vast majority of our beer. This level of investment will also enable us to purchase a dissolved oxygen meter and CO2 meter which will improve our beer quality and consistency.

Moving the brewing vessels to the new brewery will increase the maximum capacity in our existing taproom and thereby potentially increase revenue (particularly on matchdays) whilst also providing more flexibility to host bigger events including more live music in particular.

If we were to hit our stretch target of £75k this would enable us to improve the cooling at our new brewery to increase the speed at which we can ferment and package beer therefore further increasing production speed.

If we were to hit our final target of £100k we would be able to invest in new flooring at our new brewery site and make further improvements to our existing taproom to make it better suited to private events and live music.