Cashed up brewer Heaps Normal has heady plans

areholders. We only brought in a very small handful of strategic investors who weren’t already” stakeholders in Heaps Normal, co-founder and CEO Andy Miller told Inside Retail.  The brand launched last year with the full-flavoured Quiet XPA, which has alcohol by volume of less than 0.5 per cent. Since then, it has grown rapidly and is now stocked at more than 2000 venues and retailers around the country. And with hospitality businesses in NSW and Victoria once again welcoming customers, the business has garnered more strong sales.  “We’ve spent the last six months selling beer faster than we can make it,” Miller said.  “We’ve seen a really incredible uplift and a lot of excitement amongst our on-premise venues, partners, and customers. We’ve created a promotional schedule for our key on-premise partners and customers around reopening, and it’s been going incredibly well.”  A report from IWSR released earlier this year predicts that no- and low-alcohol volume in Australia will grow by 16 per cent between 2020 and 2024, largely driven by younger generations. Australians aged 18-44 are twice as likely as those over 45 to consume zero- and low-strength alcohol, a study by DrinkWise found. While most retailers and venues have taken a progressive view, understanding the growing demand in the category, Miller knows not everyone is ready for the advent of non-alcoholic beer.  “We still come across people every day who are not quite ready or don’t see the point in non-alcoholic beer, and that’s fine, we’re OK with that. We understand that not everybody will see how it fits into their lifestyle immediately,” he said.  A hospitality space for everyone The next stage for Heaps Normal is opening a dedicated production facility complete with hospitality space in Sydney in mid 2022.  The brewery will enable Heaps Normal to chase 20 per cent of Australia’s non-alcoholic market by 2025. But rather than create a space exclusively for non-drinkers, Heaps Normal wants to be accessible to everyone. “One of the things that made us most excited about the way that Heaps Normal has been perceived is the support we’ve received from other brewers. We want to pay respect to that and use our hospitality side of the business to almost kind of flip the normal model on its head. We will have a selection of our favourite craft beers available in the space, as well as a whole range of different beers that we brew ourselves,” Miller explained.  He believes offering an open and non-judgemental space is key to removing the stigma associated with reducing your alcohol intake.  “It’s not about creating division between people who are drinking and not drinking, it’s about making it normal and OK for everyone to choose whatever fits with their lifestyle,” he said.  Sustainability will be high on the agenda in the new space, with the team exploring ways to be as low impact as possible. Like many other brewers, the brand is also exploring the use of would-be waste food ingredients in the production of its beer. Earlier this month, Melbourne-based craft beer brand Local Brewing collaborated with Coles Liquor to launch a sustainable sour beer made from leftover fruit and bread at Coles supermarkets.  “[Co-founder] Benny [Holdstock] and I have had experiences with other brewers producing beers with waste products, whether it’s ugly fruit that isn’t good enough for retail or another kind of waste stream, like bread for example, that hasn’t been solved. We’ve got some really exciting plans in that space,” Miller said.  Heaps Normal will be doubling the size of its team and making key hires in the coming months.