A young Dundee brewery specialising in the production of mixed-fermentation and wood-aged beers has its eye on substantially increasing sales to markets abroad.
Holy Goat Brewing was started in the last quarter of 2020 by Johnny Horn and James Scanlan.
Johnny had previously been a brewer at Hanging Bat Brew Co and 71 Brewing and was co-founder/brewer at Vault City Brewing.
James had worked in the games industry and also in sound production for TV and movies.
The brewery is based in the city’s Mid Wynd, where the third member of the team is Gary Stewart.
Johnny spoke about the opportunity seen in the market for starting up the venture.
He said: “I had experience with brewing mixed-fermentation style beers and had discovered unique and flavourful ways of working with wild yeast and bacteria.
“These had been tested in various prior breweries and there was clearly a demand for these mixed-fermentation sour beers in the market.
“Mixed fermentation refers to the use of unconventional yeasts and bacteria in brewing, which allows production of beers with unique character.
“Most other breweries were unable to produce such beer styles as they could risk infecting the clean/regular beers with more difficult to work with wild yeasts.”
So how did Holy Goat Brewing’s unusual name come about?
Johnny explained: “It references the wild cultures which the brewery specialises in using.
“The flavours these wild yeast produce can even sometimes be described as goaty/funky/wild.
“It also has heavy-metal connotations and that is an important part of the identity of the brewery.”
Johnny said that initial pre-sale packs, which included six beers and a T-shirt, had been very good.
“Those batches of beers sold out quickly. Since then, we have gradually increased our production capacity to fill an ever-growing demand for our beer, though keeping some limits so that the market does not get saturated.
Two of the bestsellers among the mixed-fermentation beers are Holy Mountain, a sour cherry beer, and Astral Destiny, a raspberry sour beer.
The firm also produces stouts regularly, and imperial stouts like Emperors Hand, a 14% whisky-barrel-aged stout with smoked plums sold out instantly on release.
Markets for Holy Goat Brewing are individuals and smaller shops and bars.
The company already has customers all over the UK, while about a third of sales are export.
It has existing clients abroad in countries including the Netherlands, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland.
The venture also sends to locations further afield including Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and the US.
Johnny said the biggest challenge faced by the business to date has been the jump in the cost of materials and energy.
“Price hikes across the board has made margins smaller for craft breweries if they want to remain competitively priced.”
Holy Goat Brewing had a good end to 2023 and, while last month was typically quiet, February saw steadily-increasing sales.
So what are expectations for the business in 2024?
Johnny said : “We are hopeful, and are focusing on growing the business into an additional warehouse unit, increasing production of our mixed-fermentation beers and our more typical beer styles like stouts, IPAs, and Belgian-style beers.”
He also explained what makes the firm stand out from rivals.
“Our beer production styles are almost completely unique to us, so we can produce flavours in our beers almost no other brewery can.
“Our branding is very stylised and artistic-focused. We’ve created a strong brand identity and have tied in our reliability for producing consistent stand-out beers.
“But there is no great secret of our success to date. Just hard work, perseverance and innovation.”
So what do the plans for the future include?
Johnny said: “An increased portfolio of products will give the brewery wider appeal and should increase sales across the board.
“We also wish to open our own taproom at some point in the next year or two if possible.
“We are also seeing exports as a key area for growth at the moment too, and are focusing our efforts on this.
“Recently we sent our first shipment to the US and this has gone well, so building on this could see us able to produce significant volumes for that market.”
Conversation