Coopers is still family/Australian owned I believe.
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Reading on Ale Of A Time on Facebook just now about a beer festival scam. Something called Unlimited Beer Festival that is trying to sell tickets for a fest in Melbourne in August that doesnât exist, claiming breweries are involved that know nothing about it. If you hear of anyone talking about it, tell them not to buy tickets.
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Just come in here to discuss Deeds Brewing and this is the first post I saw when I opened the chat. Sad times in the Australian Brewing industry. RIP 
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Jackets
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Gotta admitâŚat least had an attention grabbing name.
Edit: oh. Itâs also at a âsecret locationâ 
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Yeah I think the name wouldnât pass the test, you canât advertise unlimited alcohol Iâd guess.
Apparently the people have form running dodgy events in pop-up locations then not delivering on the promise. Not sure how theyâre escaping the law.
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âunsecured creditors to Black Hops Brewing are owed $4.127 million, the bulk of which is for the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in the form of $3.2 million in alcohol excise duty and BAS payments.
Remaining unsecured creditors are owed just over $1 million, while the companyâs employees are owed $387,871 in entitlements.â
This really sux, a tax system that is killing so many businesses must have something wrong with it, even if operators took too much risk
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The imbalance in the excise system is that wine largely gets a free kick. The way alcohol excise should be applied is based on std drinks rather than ABV for spirits, pack size for beer and wholesale price for wine. This is the way youâre judged by a breathalyser for example. You donât pay a different fine for drinking wine or beer or spirits, you just pay the fine based on how over the limit you are.
But itâs important to acknowledge that tax is applied equally where you compare products within a category regardless of where the business is based. If a small local brewery puts a 6% stout in a 375ml can they pay exactly the same excise as a massive multinational owned brewery making a 6% stout in a 375ml can.
Our excise rate is extremely high, but itâs applied unilaterally. In the case of spirits, where imports make up a significant challenge for local producers, the imports still pay customs duties at the rate of excise, so everyone still pays the same rate.
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And the tax is only a part of the problem here right @Strewth?..
I think there is a common thread to both Deedsâ and Black Hopsâ stories of woe, and it also revolves around over capitalisation based on inflated but not sustainable demand.
Black Hops went hard on expansion into multiple venues and production capacity.
Deeds had a very ambitious vision for their venue. It wouldâve cost a fortune to build, is in a â â â â location, is too big, and timed at exactly the wrong time with approval (which was costly as well) came right at the onset of the pandemic and opening occurred in itâs second year.
Dainton had a similar issue, over capitalising on a second venue and expanded production capacity. But evidently their debt position wasnât quite so bad, perhaps in part due to crowd funding covering part of the expansion.
And inevitably, when people have less money to spend, theyâre gonna cut back on luxury items like 440ml cans of 9% double hazy IPA that are now even more expensive than previously.
Akasha are still currently under administration, without knowing their financials I would imagine their prospects to survive are better because theyâre still a pretty low key operation out of a small industrial lot in inner western Sydney and havenât over capitalised into multiple venues or dramatically increased production capacity.
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Itâs been a big issue in the US, and I hear industry people on podcasts saying that the idea of always having to grow and expand the business into numerous states has been a failing of many breweries. Now thereâs somewhat a switch of mindset to hyper local, and reaching a point were a brewery isnât looking to take on loads of debt through more venues and extra capacity, but content with running a smaller profitable business. And they donât even carry the same tax issue.
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100%
COVID gave a number of breweries a bit of over confidence in sales. The trend has been declining beer sales since the 70âs but lockdowns caused a temporary uptick that some breweries gambled on being permanent. What has happened post lockdowns is that the decline of the category has sped up and it may stay in its current accelerated decline and it may come back to that predictable decline, no one knows.
Deeds also went in big on distilling. There was a cautionary case that they paid little to no attention to in Hop nation. Hop nation sought to add spirits to their portfolio and bought the kit and hired a good distiller. They then made 30,000L of gin. They realised the error in making such a huge volume of product, fired the distiller and put essentially no money into marketing their new spirit brand Dart. So theyâre sitting on a huge excise debt (although itâs a liability it doesnât become due until the product is sold) in the form of all that spirit and who knows when or how it gets off their books.
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Growth for growth sake has been an issue for a while. To be honest general business acumen has always been an issue. Thereâs certainly people who can make good beer out there in numbers, but not many that can manage a brewery business.
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Yeah Iâve seen a few posts more recently for Deeds distilling offshoot, âFuture Proofâ.
The sad irony of the name isnât lost on me.
Their web store has been smashed, most of the stock already gone.
And while some of the medium sized independents are going under owing to the strain of debt laden over-expansion⌠Moon Dog canât get big enoughâŚ
Moondogâs latest venture âDoglandsâ is only a couple of months away from opening at Marvel Stadium.
Iâve yet to get to Marvel this season, but itâs nice to know that thereâll be few half decent beer options there when I do, with Balter and Pirate Life already having bars on Level 1.
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They were also building a large holding of whisky by offering to brew wash for distilleries for free before they got their still. The trade off was that they would brew twice the volume of wash and then get the distillery involved in each case to distill the excess as new make whisky for them to age in house.
As expected Akasha have survived VA.
Korben Dallas saved the day again.
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