UK brewing and hospitality business Powder Monkey Group is eyeing more acquisitions this year as it looks to grow the company.
Earlier this week, the Gosport, Hampshire-headquartered brewer acquired the West Midlands-based beer brand and company Empress Ale for an undisclosed sum.
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Speaking to Just Drinks on upcoming M&A, Powder Monkey co-founder and CEO Andy Burdon said “there’s two on the roll together at the moment”, with one expected to be completed by the end of April.
Its upcoming deals will include UK-based businesses, he said. When asked whether those ongoing deals predominantly involve brewers, Burdon said they included “brewers and brands”.
Established in 2015 in Leamington Spa, Empress has three SKUs: a lager, pale ale and an IPA.
Its products are supplied to fine-dining restaurants, gastropubs and “up-and-coming eateries” nationwide, as well as retailers like Waitrose and Ocado, according to Powder Monkey.
Following its purchase of Empress, Powder Monkey plans to bring production of the brand in-house and is likely to sit in one of the businesses the group is in the process of acquiring. Empress presently uses a contract brewing partner.
Burdon said: “The plan is to put that production into another acquisition that we are probably three quarters of the way through…We have capability to do it in our current site, but it will get moved to another site when we do that deal”.
Empress appealed to Powder Monkey given its presence in restaurant businesses in London.
Burdon said: “It also opens up the opportunity just for a product range that only had a couple of SKUs to add in the full portfolio, so where some of the customer base may not have done as much business as they could have done because it was more one dimensional.”
In addition to the acquisition, privately-owned Powder Monkey also this week started “listing with JP Jenkins on the secondary market”, he added.
Set up in 2023, Powder Monkey owns four breweries. Two in the UK – Powder Monkey Brewing Co. in Gosport and Goddards Brewery on the Isle of Wight, which the group bought in February – and two in Australia: Willie the Boatman and Southern Highlands Brewing Co., both in New South Wales.
The company also manages the hospitality venues attached to Powder Monkey Brewing Co., Goddards Brewery and Willie the Boatman.
Its main markets are the UK and Australia. It also exports to Hong Kong.
In terms of market expansion, Burdon said Powder Monkey would stay focused mostly on the UK and Australia, but that it also had ambitions to head to Europe and “possibly” the US.
He also noted that the group was looking to open a new production site in Australia in the third quarter of 2025, located in Camden, near Sydney.
Burdon declined to disclose the business’s annual turnover but said the company was “looking at growing that very, very rapidly in this 12 months”.
