If you follow the booze business closely, which the Tawny certainly does, you will have seen recently that Freshwater Brewing Co is currently raising capital, offering investors the chance to own a slice of the growing local brewer. I caught up with Jonny Bucknall, Freshie Brewing Co’s director, to find out what’s what with this craft beer investment opportunity.
You launched in 2021, established your brewery in 2022, and have grown steadily since despite a challenging economic environment. What have been the biggest lessons?
From the outset, and ongoing, our business plan is very simple: Create balanced, delicious beers to enhance good times, and offer everyone a brewery that blends a relaxed vibe with exceptional, easy-drinking beers. In terms of valuable lessons, it was crucial to quickly establish our Brookvale brewery in 2022 and have a great taproom that generates revenue. If we’d stayed purely selling beer cans to bottle shops, it would have been lights out very quickly. The taproom itself too, we made sure to offer more than just great beers. We set up a fantastic kitchen and a backyard bbq-inspired menu, have a selection of natural wines, the brewery is family-friendly, dog-friendly, we host all manner of live music & DJ events, trivia nights, politics in the pub gatherings, we’re dedicated to offering a genuine community hub that caters to all. We’ve even started showing the footy games on our TV because people kept on asking for us to show them.
How tough is it as a venue to compete with the larger clubs and pubs, and as a brewer to compete with the beer duopolies?
Those larger venues have a perceived advantage with the revenue poker machines bring in. We don’t have that income, but that frees us to focus on events and activations that are more community minded, family-friendly, promote local artists, musicians, be more proactive in sparking a buzz for genuine fun and creativity which has languished at the pubs and clubs. And with the beer duopolies and various tactics playing out on bottle shop shelves, at the end of the day, if bigger players are not focused on creating great beers but are effectively working to trick their customers, that actually helps local brewers like Freshie and our Brookvale brewing comrades, customers know we’re the real deal, and we’re seeing that with continued increased sales. You can’t beat the freshness of local beer at a brewery, and our community knows that.
In raising capital now, what opportunities are you looking to take advantage of?
We will expand the tap room to better service the growing population and visitors onsite. We will invest in a canning machine to improve the economics of our distribution and offer contract brewing end-to-end services to better cater that market. And we will use the capital to really lean into growing the brand and making it even stronger. Freshwater is a globally iconic destination, and the nature of our beers to bring fun and sunshine into every drop, we see real potential in tapping into overseas markets, be that Tokyo, London, San Diego, wherever the Freshwater vibes are lying dormant but ready to thrive. Even local small bars. We don’t want Fosters having all the galivanting fun and see Freshwater Brewing Co as a global brand being a very exciting opportunity.
What do Tawny readers need to do right now if they are keen to know more and potentially invest?
Email hello@freshwaterbrewing.com.au or pop into the taproom at 4 Powells Rd Brookvale, our HQ, see if you like what we’re doing, and we can get chatting more from there.