New brewery a goal for surging alcohol-free beer brand Heaps Normal

With high-profile investors on board and stock regularly selling out, alcohol-free brand Heaps Normal is eyeing its own brewery.

Heaps Normal co-founder and chief executive Andy Miller.

Non-alcoholic beer start-up Heaps Normal is planning a permanent new addition to the range early next year and has longer-term aspirations to build its own brewery, capping off a whirlwind 14 months for the company.

Heaps Normal joined non-alcoholic spirits outfit Lyre’s as one of 11 “breakthrough brands” named by Interbrand recently, alongside other fast-growth firms including The Oodie, Airwallex and Airtasker.

The brewer’s co-founder and chief executive Andy Miller said Heaps Normal, whose investors include Adore Beauty founder Kate Morris, Laneway Festival’s Danny and Liz Morris, Culture Amp co-founder Rod Hamilton and Koala founders Dany Milham and Mitch Taylor, had grown revenue and volume by just under 200 per cent this calendar year.

The company launched its Quiet XPA in July last year following about 12 months of product development, and sold out of its first 500 cases in a week.

Heaps Normal's Quiet XPA.

Mr Miller said Heaps Normal had grown its distribution list to about 1500 retailers and venues, including major alcohol outlets, and was increasingly being welcomed by on-premise venues, which boded well for when the economy started to open more widely.

And while non-alcoholic beer had been available for years through traditional brewers, product innovation and a rapid shift in attitudes to drinking were putting a tailwind behind the low and non-alcoholic sector, Mr Miller said.

“Arguably the message is the most important thing in non-alc, because they are not really a new product, but how we look at them and how they are positioned in the category, and more recently how people identify with the brands that are coming through is really setting them apart and defining the impact they’re having on the drinking culture,’’ he said.

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“We’ve certainly noticed a shift in terms of the number of venue owners, for example, who are willing to have the conversation around stocking the product.

“That’s a shift that we’ve noticed dramatically in the last 12 months we’ve been in market.’’

Mr Miller said there had also been feedback from people who had said “even six months ago I would have laughed at you”, who for a range of reasons - the pandemic in no small part - were changing their alcohol consumption patterns.

“That, combining with a lot of other macro trends, has been a bit of a perfect storm, the growing importance of the wellness category, and the generational shift in lower alcohol consumption.’’

Mr Miller said a permanent addition to the range, to sit alongside the XPA, was anticipated to come early next year, while there were a couple of other releases in the works for the first half of next year also.

“We’ll continue to build the range but we'll do it in our time ... and get it right.’’

The Quiet XPA is currently brewed at the Brick Lane brewery in Victoria, but Mr Miller said there were plans for their own facility towards the second half of next year.

With the company’s founders split between Sydney and Canberra, somewhere between the two was likely on the cards.

“It’s something that we’ve been planning for quite some time. They’re expensive things though so we’re saving our pennies to make sure we can do it right,’’ Mr Miller said.

“We’re looking at a range of locations at the moment.’’

Mr Miller said the company was garnering a lot of investor interest and while there was likely to be a need to add to the $1.3m raised last year to fund the brewery and further growth, they were unlikely to go outside the original group of investors in the first instance.

“We’re really grateful and excited at the interest that we continue to get,’’ he said.

“There’s certainly more interest in investing in Heaps Normal than we have the ability to take in.

“We probably will do some sort of raise before the end of the year to help fund the next 12 months of growth and the brewing facility. We don’t really have any need to go outside of that group.’’

And the group should be happy. From a standing start last year, bolstered by a Canberra Innovation grant and involvement in the Startmate accelerator program, Heaps Normal has carved out what it says is a leading position.

“We’re confident that we’re the largest independent non-alc in the country by volume right now,’’ Mr Miller said.

“And we’ve grown in revenue and volume by just under 200 per cent in this calendar year. It’s still growing really quickly.

“For us it feels like we’ve barely touched the sides at the moment of people who are interested in the category. It’s exciting to see how it’s going to play out when we’re let out again and we’re able to get out to festivals, go out to dinner and enjoy all of those social things which suit our profile so well.’’

Mr Miller said going through the Startmate program was invaluable for the founders, and was integral to getting them to where they were today.

“Off the back of that program is largely the reason why we have such an exciting group of artists, athletes and founders who are backing Heaps Normal, who have built some of the most amazing and exciting brands in the country like Unified Music Group, Adore Beauty, Linktree, Koala ... just to name a few.’’