Lion buys craft brewer Byron Bay

If AB-InBev can do it, so can Lion. Buying up craft brewers, that is. In early May 2016 Lion reported it was buying Byron Bay Brewing Company, a 5,000 hl craft brewer, after being approached by its owner Barry Schadel. This will expand the number of craft breweries in its portfolio to half a dozen.

Media say Lion’s craft beer portfolio represents about 50 percent of Australia’s entire craft beer market, which is estimated to have reached 5 percent of Australia’s entire beer market.

Set up in 2008, Byron Bay previously had a relationship with Australia’s other big brewer, Carlton & United Breweries (CUB), which was owned by Foster’s until it was bought by SABMiller in 2011 for AUD 12.3 billion.

Two years ago, Lion and CUB were in the news after it was revealed that Byron Bay had fooled consumers over where its lager beer was brewed. CUB was fined AUD 20,400 in April 2014 by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over misleading labelling for the Byron Bay Pale Lager, which had actually been produced under licence at CUB’s Warnervale brewery, 630 km away from Byron Bay.

Lion, which became fully owned by Japan’s brewer Kirin in 2009 in a takeover which valued Lion at AUD 6 billion, has two of the biggest brands in the craft beer market, James Squire which is brewed at the Malt Shovel brewery in Sydney, and Little Creatures with two breweries.

James Squire holds about 34 percent of the craft beer segment by volume according to Lion, while Little Creatures has close to 10 percent.

Lion also owns the White Rabbit brewery at Geelong; it operates the Knappstein Enterprise brewery in the Clare Valley wine region in South Australia, and four mini-breweries inside pubs.