Business profile: Fierce Beer
Going global Fierce Beer’s Co-founders Dave Grant and David McHardy met while on a training course at Sunderland’s Brewlab – a beginning they share with many craft brewers – but as former oil and gas workers from Aberdeen their global outlook really set them apart from other start-ups. The pair had travelled the world in their previous roles, making many international contacts along the way. And from the very start their plans for Fierce included, unusually, a firm focus on export. Inspired by nearby BrewDog and its global footprint, Dave and David set out to create a business which was not reliant on distributors but has its own retail arm, a loyal consumer following, and an export arm that could showcase the barrel-aged stouts with which it initially made its name. Moving from a homebrew set up in Dave’s house to a small industrial unit in Aberdeen, Fierce began its journey in 2016, and has since added five more units on the same estate with equipment
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Winter 2021 | SIBA Independent Brewer | www.siba.co.uk
now in place to eventually triple its 5,000hl annual production to 15,000hl. One bar in Aberdeen was soon joined by another in Edinburgh and, during lockdown last year, by a third in Manchester. And the duo hopes to open at least one additional UK bar site a year from now on. There are already over 3,000 card-carrying Fierce followers, thanks to several rounds of reward-based crowdfunding events, who keep the bars and bottle shops busy and have enabled the brewery to grow, even during the last 18 months of the pandemic. Fierce has now added a core range of four beers, a pilsner, IPA, hazy IPA and rhubarb pale, but it continues to win fans, especially internationally, through its barrel-aged stouts which really got the brewery noticed back in 2016. Independent Brewer’s Caroline Nodder spoke to Dave last month to find out more about his ambitious plans for Fierce and his thoughts on some of the key challenges for small brewers in the Scottish market…
