North Yorkshire-based BAD Co — short for the Brewing and Distilling Company — has announced that it has doubled its product portfolio.
It has also installed a bottling facility capable of filling 2,800 bottles per hour, and is about to launch an e-commerce website in order to supply demand for its award-winning beers.
Set near the RAF airfield in Dishforth, the brewery was founded in 2014 by Harrogate-born businessman David Brown. Together with head brewer Paul Holden-Ridgway, who is the owner of the Blind Jacks speciality ale house in Knaresborough, the brewery has seen continued growth in recent months and continues to expand its distribution routes further across the UK, as well as beginning to expand into its first foreign market territories.
Taking a musical theme as inspiration for the range, each beer has an iconic song title as its moniker and a quintessentially British offering at its heart. Bad Co’s core range of Comfortably Numb (pale ale), Wild Gravity (IPA), Love Over Gold (blonde ale) and Dazed and Confused (milk stout) and will be joined by Whiter Shade of Pale (oatmeal pale ale), Slow Rider (grapefruit easy ale), Summer Breeze (fruit beer) and Satisfaction (brown ale).
With a huge increase in year-on-year sales and an ever-growing team, the BAD Co movement will be aided with the recent formation of a national events team. Its creation will allow the presence of BAD Co brews to appear at festivals, food and drinks shows and exhibitions across the country. The company has grown from just two people in 2014 to 16 today, with more jobs in the offing.
As one of the only breweries in the UK to house state-of-the-art equipment such as its isobaric hopping chamber, BAD Co brewers can squeeze every fibre of flavour out of the hops. The use of a whirlpool system when brewing, which is not commonly used in the UK, also means the hops have increased contact time with the wort, improving and enhancing flavours.
‘Knowledge is power’
Paul Holden-Ridgway said: “Continued investment in our plant, combined with an endless thirst for knowledge, shows our commitment to our drinkers — they are front of mind at all times. We are on a mission to create the best tasting product possible and to become a go-to for the most discerning of drinker, as well as those just starting to get into real ale.
“The craft industry is changing and we’re proud to be leading the charge on this. Knowledge is power and coupling passion with innovation, maximised through smart uses of technology, means we can produce beers that dispel the myths surrounding craft, convert the non-believers and make our hardcore fans and aficionados come back for more.”
The increase in production doesn’t just stop with bottles. There is soon to be a canning facility unveiled at the Dishforth plant.
BAD Co products are now on sale in more than 500 outlets across the UK, with bottle shops, independent pubs, restaurants and wholesalers stocking the range, including cities such as London, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Birmingham.
David Brown said: “We aren’t conducting amateur alchemy in a shed. This is an advanced production line, with international expertise, coming together to deliver what we think is the best tasting beer in the UK. We’re immensely proud that consumers and the beer drinking public like what we are doing and this is reflected in our ongoing growth. This growth will see us expand to beyond beer in the near future, providing a whole range of drinks under the BAD Co brand.”
