SA'S Beer Garden Brewing Up For Sale

The owner of the South Australian Beer Garden Brewing Company has listed the brewery for sale.

Co-owner Mark Butterworth is selling the brewery, including its freehold site in Port Lincoln, and the brewery brand, equipment and intellectual property after separation from his partners and co-owners.

“This business is 100% sustainable and is expected to grow,” Butterworth explained.

“The hard work has been completed. The brewery is brewing high-quality beer, the venue is highly respected and is expected to develop, distribution is an untapped opportunity, and the supply of the kitchen is expanded.

“Beer Garden Brewing is a local company related to Port Lincoln and the Lower Eyre Peninsula. If there is no divorce, I would really like to own and operate a last-breed company.”

Sell ​​beer garden
The Beer Garden case is sad, but it is not uncommon in the industry, because small businesses are usually owned by family or friends, which puts pressure on existing relationships.

In recent years, breweries such as Boekamp Bier in Tasmania, now The Albert Brewery, and Brisbane’s Aether and Milton Common have faced similar problems, causing their co-founders to part ways.

In the beer garden case, operating a business puts additional pressure on the relationship between the founders.

“The sale was due to a divorce, because my ex-wife was my only business partner. Personally, it was a very difficult period, and we tried to pass but failed,” explained Butterworth.

“The sale has nothing to do with business performance, and the business performance is very good.

“Before the COVID and after the initial COVID hard period, it has been on a steady growth trajectory, rebounding better than expected. Due to the international travel ban, the regional tourism industry is growing significantly, which will not change for some time,” he Say.

It is also difficult to financially escape from the beer garden, which highlights the need for clear legal and financial recourse for new and existing breweries in order to be separated from the business in times of crisis.

“To fund the brewery, we used personal funds, family trusts, self-managed pensions, and continued business operations,” Butterworth explained.

“It turns out that this is a relatively complex structure when seeking to sell to other business partners.

“All of this was established without thinking about selling the business. This structure makes it difficult to consider one owner buying another, but I don’t expect any problems with selling the entire business.”

What’s on sale in the beer garden?
Founded in 2015, Beer Garden Brewing is headquartered in Port Lincoln and has now become a well-known venue in the area.

“Our main customers are a great mix of locals from Port Lincoln and the Eyre Peninsula, South Australian and domestic tourists, and former international tourists,” explained Butterworth.

“A typical week will see more than 500 or so customers, and an important week will exceed 1,500.”

He said that the brewery has a commercial kitchen and pizza oven on a 3,500 square meter site, as well as a parking lot and a large beer garden. It is also a strong hotel asset.

72 solar panels, a Tesla charger and 40,000 liters of rainwater storage add to its sustainable development qualifications.

In addition to a cold room for draft beer or packaged beer in its 960 square meter building, the brewing kit also includes a set of equipment, including a 12hL gas kettle, 12hL filter, 12hL whirlpool, three DME fermentation tanks and The other three Brite tanks from A&G. It also includes a 25hL hot liquid tank and a glycol cooler.

Butterworth suggests that brewers or non-brewers can take over.

“Full control and work day after day or take a step back and let the employees take care of it. The choice is made by the new owner,” he said.

“The new owner can look forward to a completely commercially sustainable company with growth opportunities in terms of distribution expansion, activities, and cooperation opportunities.

“The brewing team has been established. The new owner does not have to be a brewer, as long as it is someone who is passionate about owning a brewery.”

Start a brewery

Butterworth was a former chemical engineer and moved to Port Lincoln in 2015 with his former partner Jenny.

For chemical engineers, this is not a field that requires a lot of work, but Butterworth is committed to identifying a company where he can spend time with his children, not a first-in, first-out job.

“This is the origin of the brewery concept. At first, the concept seemed too good to be true. I mean how many people dream of opening a brewery one day?”

However, the place where they moved is rich in tourism resources, but there is no brewery.

“The more I researched, I realized that there was no brewery and no plans between Esperance and Clare Valley in 2015. This gave me an opportunity that I couldn’t miss,” explained Butterworth.

“I think I need to move fast; to succeed Beer Garden Brewing must be the first mover in the market, and the way to do it is difficult.