Mahou San Miguel’s new brew hub to boost domestic craft beer sales

As craft beer consumption is rising, the country’s major brewers are investing in craft breweries to capitalise on that growth. In 2017 there were over 480 companies, almost twice the number there were in 2015. Craft beer production is still low (only 145,000 hl in 2016 out of total beer consumption of 34.4 million hl), reports say.

Having bought stakes in US craft brewers Founders and Avery, Spain’s number one brewer Mahou San Miguel has announced plans to set up a collaborative brew hub in Spain where domestic and international brewers can come together to share ideas and develop new beers.

Slated to cost EUR eleven million (USD 13.5 million), the brewery will be available to “nomadic” beer makers, brewers that do not have their own brewery but are in search of growth.

Mahou San Miguel’s new facility will be located in Cordoba next to one of its own production centres and will go on stream in 2019.

The brewery was designed in collaboration with Javier Aldea, the founder of Nómada Brewing, a Spanish craft brewer, in which Mahou bought a 40 percent stake in 2016.

In 2014 Mahou San Miguel acquired a 30 percent stake in Michigan-based Founders Brewing and in late 2017 they bought a 30 percent stake in Avery from Boulder, Colorado. Combined the two breweries produced over 600,000 hl beer in 2017 according to estimates by Beer Marketers Insights.