West Country based Butcombe Brewing Co has announced managed like-for-like sales up 6.5% and total sales up 114% for the four weeks to December 31. The Liberation Group-owned company describes this as “excellent progress following a strong period last year, too”.
The regional brewer has seen the benefit of investment in the brewery over the last year and the re-branding that was undertaken in early 2017.
Butcombe has been highly acquisitive, adding around 20 new pubs in 2017, more than doubling the number of pubs operated to approaching 50. This has been achieved through single site acquisitions, such as the Methuen Arms, in Corsham, and most recently by acquiring eight high-quality pubs from SA Brain.
2018 will see investment in the newly acquired pubs and benefits from the new distribution depot and bottling line, opened in November, which will support double-digit growth in Butcombe’s keg range, which includes Butcombe Original, Goram (Avon IPA) and Bohemia (Pilsner).
Liberation Group chief executive, Mark Crowther, said: “This is an excellent result, driven by our teams of great people and the enhancements that we have made to the business over the last 12 months.
“Complimenting our Channel Island business, we now have a very high-quality portfolio of predominantly freehold West Country pubs to trade from in 2018, which together with the benefits from the improvements to the brewing side of the business, augurs well for the coming year.”
