Running Out of Money

Some breweries don't close because of external shocks. They close because they were never properly funded in the first place — a pattern this book has warned about repeatedly.

Hop Stuff Brewery in London is a textbook case. They raised over £1.5 million from approximately 1,300 crowdfunding investors across three rounds on Crowdcube. In February 2019, they raised nearly £800,000 in a campaign that valued the company at £25 million. By May 2019 — three months later — they'd suspended brewing under pressure from HMRC and their landlord. By July, they were in administration. The assets were sold to Molson Coors in a pre-pack deal. Every single one of those 1,300 investors lost their money.

Pressure Drop co-founder Sam Smith's comment on this deserves repeating: the craft beer industry had "corrupted and abused" crowdfunding, using it to fund unsustainable practices — underpricing beer and offsetting "large losses year after year." The money wasn't building sustainable businesses. It was delaying inevitable failures.

Redchurch Brewery in east London collapsed into administration in 2019. Founded by a former commercial lawyer, they'd raised nearly £1 million in two Crowdcube campaigns. Over 700 investors received nothing. The administrators said problems began in 2017 when the head of sales left, causing "a significant downturn in revenue." One departure. That's how fragile these businesses are. The brewery was later acquired by Laine Brewing Company, which itself lost £871,000 pretax in the two years to August 2024. Redchurch closed permanently in October 2025.

Signature Brew in Walthamstow narrowly avoided liquidation in 2025, entering a Company Voluntary Arrangement to restructure debts of approximately £1.3 million. They'd raised over £1.3 million from crowdfunding and private investors since 2018. Despite being profitable at EBITDA level with revenue growing 18% year on year, an HMRC demand for £310,000 nearly killed them. Profitable, growing, and still almost destroyed by a tax bill they couldn't pay on time. That's how thin the margins are.