Scottish craft brewer Genius Brewing is to enter administration, its co-founder has revealed.
Posting on LinkedIn, Genius Brewing co-founder Jason Clarke said “seismic shifts in the UK’s beer and hospitality industries” had “made it incredibly tough for small, challenger brands to reach the customer”.
“It is with a heavy heart that Genius Brewing has to announce that our eight-year journey has come to an end and that the business is in the process of entering administration,” Clarke wrote. “We simply couldn’t survive in today’s ‘pay to play’ marketplace.”
Speaking to The Grocer, Clarke said it had been a “brutal couple of years” for craft challenger brands, who had seen their routes to market collapse.
“For Genius Brewing in particular, it’s also been hugely frustrating to see the rise in moderation being captured by lower-abv reformulations of mega-brands,” he said. “Sadly for us, premiumisation has yet to reach the mid-strength category.”
Genius Brewing was founded by Clarke and Charlie Craig in Glasgow and launched its first beer, a lower alcohol craft lager, in 2018.
In April 2021, the pair appeared on BBC’s Dragons’ Den but declined an offer of £120,000 for 30% of their business from then-dragon Tej Lalvani.
In 2022 the brand added an IPA to its lineup.
Clarke said that while there had been many highlights in the brand’s eight-year journey, its founders were most proud of the brewery’s support for motor neurone disease charity My Name’5 Doddie Foundation.
The brand donated 5p from the sale of each can to the charity and had raised £35,000 to help find a cure for MND over the past seven years, Clarke said.
“We’d like to thank our loyal investors, customers, suppliers, business partners, and all those who embraced our belief in a #SmartDrinking future,” he added.
Clarke and Craig ceased to be directors at Genius Brewing on 25 November, filings at Companies House showed.
UK Business Rescues Ltd director Anthony Nickols was appointed in their place on the same day.
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