Brussels Beer Project
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Brussels Beer Project
Breweries
limited liability company
Belgium
Strong branding, amusing names, quality product and differentiated.
Dimitri Van Roy, taproommanager
Yoshi Janssens
Olivier de Brauwere and Sébastien Morvan
Summary
Co-creation and letting copy-pasting behind. Since a couple of years a new wave of brewing sprung to life. The Brussels beer project set up a real community with crowdfunders and beer-lovers which chooses the best creations. They develop around 20 different new kinds of beer each year and they don’t do it the traditional way! They are re-using freshly baked bread of Delhaize that wasn’t sold that same day to develop different varieties of beer. The Brussels Beer Project has 4 classics and several pop-up beers.
Background
Sébastien and Olivier seen the new and changed beer landscape in Canada and they wanted to bring this to Belgium. Their inspiration was Craftbeer in the USA and Canada.
The first bit of money came from the typical friends, family and fools. Besides the Brussels Beer Project used a sort of crowdfunding. Now the project has almost 2000 crowdfunders. Each crowdfunder pays a one-time investment of €160 in exchange for a lifelong 12 beers a year.
This way, they could start in 2013 and in 2015, they could finance ¼ of their own brewery in 2015 (after a second crowdfunding round). The first crowdfunding round 350 people funded, the second 850 people and the third time 750 more people invested in the Brussels Beer Project. (Project, 2016) With this kind of success they went to the banks and now they can invest in more people and brewing installations.
Mission
Creating a new wave in the Belgian beer world.
Vision
Creating a new wave in the Belgian beer world.
Values
Environment friendly, socially engaged, innovative, dared, opensource and crowdsourcing. (Project, 2016)
Business Model
Sébastien and Olivier developed a new businessmodel for this project, mainly focused on crowdfunding and –sourcing. Their policy is to be very open with the public by involving them in the financing, general assemblies and picking of beers. The word of mouth is very important for the Brussels Beer project. They are counting on this for promotion of the project.
They wanted to have another brewery in Brussels and bring their brewery in a different way. The brewery of the Brussels Beer Project is very local and has a small carbon footprint. In the future they want to set up a brewery in a different country and be local there. Then the two breweries can work together and introduce beers of a different country in Belgium and vice versa.
The project gets revenue in two ways. The first one is selling their four classic beers (Delta, Babylone, Grosse Berta and Dark Sister) in Delhaize and other specialized dealers. And the second revenue stream is their taproom with the smaller ‘pop-up’ creations. For their taproom revenues they are aiming for the highest visibility in Brussels as possible.
Some help for the startup of Brussels Beer Project came from subsidies from Brussels and the government. Other partners they got a helping hand from are Coduco, Delhaize and Atelier Groot Eiland. Bier Anders is the partner that brews the 4 classics of Brussels Beer Project. The taproom is more of an experiment area.
Brussels Beer Project started very small with a very local public and some beergeeks. They used social media, crowdfunding and word of mouth to help putting the project in the picture.
Growth
The Brussels Beer Project worked very structured towards goals. This is how Sébastien and Olivier learned it in their previous jobs in multinational companies. When one goal was reached, they moved on to the next step.
So the growth rate is proportional to the expectations for the next 3 or 4 years.
Customers
People who drink specialty beers. The market is changing, instead of drinking lager (‘pils’ in dutch), the Belgian taste is altering in the direction of specialty beers. Of course the minimum age for drinking beer is 16. And some export customers.
Competitors
There is no competition with the big breweries. The Brussels Beer Project operates in a niche market of specialty beers. Because this is a niche market doesn’t automatically imply that there are no competitors, in Belgium we have a lot of specialty beers and brewers. The differentiation that Brussels beer project has makes a big difference.
An example of a direct competitor is De La Senne in Brussels. Indirect competition exists with foreign beers being introduced in Belgium and more specifically in Brussels.
Recently there are some brewers that have almost copied the label on their beer bottles. Some home brewers copied the concept of making beer with freshly baked bread.
Conclusion
One treat for Brussels Beer Project is more and more people are trying and drinking foreign specialty beers because there are also tasty beers that are brewed outside of Belgium. So there are more competitors.
Some hop species are less available and because they are located in Brussels they have to take into account the terrorism.
Moving on to the opportunities. 20% of the food waste in Brussels is bread. So there won’t be a shortage of bread any time soon. The specialty beer market is growing and there is a lot of variation in this market. Specialty beers are also being exported more and more.
A weakness of the Brussels Beer Project is that they are not able to anticipate on the demand because it is too high. But you can also see this as an opportunity of course.
The important thing Dimitri learned about the project is that it works even though it’s a completely new approach. There is an interest for these kind of new ways of doing business.
Some tips Dimitri gives other starting entrepreneurs are that you have to work hard, observe and anticipate. You have to get to know the environment and understand what are your possibilities. Also be very open about the company. It’s the 21st century, so no secrets. You have to involve the customers and the crowd.
The biggest obstacles the Brussels Beer Project had to face at the beginning were the legislation and paperwork. It takes a lot of time but you want to proceed faster than the law or paperwork will let you. It’s also a bigger investment than you can predict. Another obstacle is the competitors that wanted to make it difficult.
Thinking about the future Brussels Beer Project wants to expand. Now they are exporting to 15 countries and they want to launch their concept somewhere else in Europe too. Just the same business model but somewhere else. Each with its own autonomy but also collaborating with each other too.
They also want to set up a new brewery in Brussels to brew the classics and the pop-up beers themselves. The time to do this isn’t determined.
Posted on 19/04/2016