Duration Brewery passes £350k fundraising target

By Gary Lloyd

- Last updated on GMT

Big plans: founders Derek Bates and Miranda Hudson want to increase the business's eco-friendly credentials
Big plans: founders Derek Bates and Miranda Hudson want to increase the business's eco-friendly credentials

Related tags Beer Finance Social responsibility

Norfolk farmhouse brewer Duration Brewing has beaten its fundraising target of £350,000 with 10 days left of its campaign to run on the Crowdcube platform.

Located in West Acre, about 20 miles west of Norwich, the brewer that produces “modern beers and wood-aged wild ales” operates out of a 16th century Norfolk barn and is raising funds to help its second phase of growth and is seeking space to triple its capacity and build an “immersive” taproom.

At the time of publication, Duration had raised £373,000 from 445 individual investors and was offering 5.91% equity in the business, giving it a pre-money valuation of almost £6m.

‘Atmospheric’ taproom plans

In its pitch, Duration said: “Despite opening months before lockdown, we've tripled our team and output capacity in just two-and-a-half years and are ready to expand production and build an atmospheric taproom. This will help capitalise on our 200% annual growth in brewery managed retail to £157k (FY to April 2022).”

Plans include adding a taproom with a bar and kitchen that will house “a huge glass window that looks across the 10th century priory site and farmlands beyond”. Visitors will also be able to look back over operations, where cellar additions will help to grow its current capacity of 486,000 pints a year.

It added any overfunding will be spent compounding Duration's sustainability practices: potentially adding a fourth brew vessel and water recapture to improve efficiencies and planting a fruit orchard to encourage biodiversity and produce fruits for the wild ale programme.

Blown away

On Sunday (5 June), Duration co-founder Miranda Hudson commented on the target being reached. She told investors: “We are blown away as this means our project will now go ahead with over 400 investors joining us ‘For The Duration’.

“We are not stopping there. We have several stretch goals that overfunding will help us achieve.

“With your help we can improve our brewhouse with better efficiencies by enhancing our canning line and adding an in-house laboratory. We can also expand our water treatment plant as production grows and use less water by adding rainwater recapture on our roofs.

“We would like add a new building near the barrel store to aide our phase two growth. In the short term, a new-build will give our current taproom more space outside of the barrel store. In the long term, once the stone barn is renovated to become our permanent taproom, the new-build will provide office space for our growing team.

“Last but not least, with overfunding, we will be able to take our staff equity scheme company-wide, to retain and reward our most important asset – our team.”

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