Craft beer

Seven Bro7hers Brewery to open first city bar

By Nicholas Robinson

- Last updated on GMT

Seven Bro7hers: opening their own bar in just over two years in business
Seven Bro7hers: opening their own bar in just over two years in business

Related tags Craft beer Craft beer bar Brewing

Craft brewery Seven Bro7hers is to open its first Manchester city-centre bar, following a £245,000 investment through crowdfunding and a Government-backed loan.

The family brewery, which was founded two years ago by brothers Greg, Keith, Nathan, Kit, Guy, Daniel and Luke McAvoy, has seen turnover explode to £600,000 since launching in August 2014.

At the start of this year the brothers applied for planning permission to open a two-storey bar to sell their craft beer in the Ice Plant in Ancoats, Manchester.

After securing a £200,000 investment through crowdfunding and a further £45,000 loan from the Start Up Loans Company, the Seven Bro7hers Craft Beer Bar is set open before Christmas.

Keith McAvoy said: “Our dad’s love of brewing was our first inspiration for starting Seven Bro7hers. We thought why don’t we give it a go ourselves and produce beer that is high-quality, something different to the more mainstream brands on the market and that we can brew from our hometown to Salford. Finding funding for our business idea seemed daunting at the start.”

‘Growing our brand’

The beers:

Five beers:

  • IPA, 5% ABV
  • EPA, 4.8% ABV
  • Stout Porter, 5.2% ABV
  • Session Craft Beer, 3.8% ABV
  • Watermelon Wheat Beer, 4.5% ABV

“We’ve had a fantastic couple of years growing our brand and we’ve had great customer feedback. It’s great that seven of us can all work together to create a solid family business.

“Now we feel it’s time to grow even bigger and open a new bar in Manchester. This will help us increase our revenue and bring our beer to even more people.”

The new bar will have more than 1,800sq ft of space, featuring a large bar on the ground floor and a smaller bar and kitchen, which will serve Italian food, in the basement.

There will be capacity for around 80 covers across the two bars, after a significant refurbishment.

Those who invested in the business through crowdfunding paid between £20 and £25,000, according to reports in local paper the Manchester Evening News.

As a reward, investors will receive various incentives including beer vouchers, discounts and quarterly beer deliveries.

Start Up Loans

Prior to receiving support through crowdfunding and Start Up Loans, the brothers had trouble finding investment.

Greg told the local paper: “We tried going to banks for funding, but it was quite difficult and we saw the way other companies had gone [down] the crowdfunding route.

“We were more than happy to let people who actually drink beer and are interested in the business buy part of the company.”

The brothers gave away 18% of their business for the £200,000 they received from crowdfunding.

There are now plans to open a second bar in Manchester, while the septet will also produce more variants of their brews.

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