Freedom Brewery successfully completed its crowdfunding campaign last night, adding 20% to its initial target.

Freedom Brewery glasses

Executive chairman James Coyle said: “We are delighted to welcome nearly 500 new shareholders to Freedom who have invested £600,000 to support the growth of our business.

“We were hoping our fans and followers would become investors, so we are therefore grateful for this huge vote of confidence in our business and we will work tirelessly to deliver the objective of establishing Freedom as one of the largest craft lagers in the UK.”

Freedom was founded in Fulham, London, in 1995, with the aim of creating lagers without compromise. The first beer was a modern twist on as classic pilsner.

The business moved to Staffordshire in 2004, pursuing a dream of being more sustainable and using high-quality water, rather than trying to mimic it with additives.

In 2014, a reed bed water filtration system was added, which cleans waste water without chemicals.An anaerobic digestion treatment system naturally filters the water and returns it to the local environment. This led to the brewery being named green business of the year by SIBA in 2016.