Introducing the companies:

In this section I will introduce the companies, interviewed to gather data with the goal to answer the question of this research. All the microbreweries are or around Copenhagen and the

interviews were conducted with the according representatives.

4.4.1 Slowburn

Slowburn brewing Co Op was founded in 2019 and is therefore representing a fairly young and small microbrewery in this research. Located in the rural area Hvidovre the brewery is based in the outskirts of Copenhagen. A. Knage as well as S. Erreni are the founding members of the brewery.

Whilst S. Erreni worked with multiple breweries previous the foundation of Slowburn, A. Knage came as well with background experience of the microbrewing industry, due to her work as a bartender and beer bottle shops. Already in the start, the brewery took a different approach to most companies, that eased their way of raising capital. By approaching private people related or interested in the industry, it allowed Slowburn to take multiple small loans. A. Knage (2021) clarified that this approach of raising capital eased the foundation of the microbrewery compared to the traditional approach of a bank loan. A. Knage said on theis matter:

“That was also you know, a project we had to do and it was quite fun. Because we also worked out the business model while doing it, because we had to pitch our idea to friends and family and people that we thought might be interested in the so how we did it was that we have taken like, like multiple small loans with people that we're excited about the project.” (A. Knage, 2021; p.5, Question 11)

32 Since brewing equipment is expensive and a large amount of capital is required previous the foundation, Slowburn managed to avoid the risk of being neglected a larger loan by the bank.

Furthermore, all participants of the smaller loans were interested not only in their final financial gain, but as well in the resulting product of the operation. This led to the win-win situation, Slowburn finds itself in now, by having easy access to capital, as well as good interest rates and privileges on the product for the loan providers. The brewery has further no obligations towards shareholders and can operate democratically within.

At the time of this research, the brewery is able to brew up to 600 liters of beer per batch leading to 18 kegs of beer in a 90 square meter areal. There business philosophy consists, off producing a wide variety of products, meaning many different styles of beer, whilst granting the best possible quality.

4.4.2 Dry and Bitter

The Dry and Bitter Brewing Company was founded in 2015 by the two partners S. Wagner and J.

Pollard. Whilst the bar Fermentoren as well as the Dry and Bitter brewery have a joint ownership by these two partners, S. Wagner is responsible for the brewery, whilst J. Pollard is managing the craft beer bar Fermentoren. Similar two Slowburn, the brewery is located in the outskirts of Copenhagen, in the rural area of Gørløse. Starting of as a brewing collective, the brewery experienced rapid growth over the last five years, with a consecutive growth of 20% annually, making Dry and Bitter a well-established microbrewery in the Copenhagen area. At the time of this research, the firm bought out all partners, leading to a full ownership off the brewery by Dry and Bitter. Whilst the brewery predominantly focuses on exports, it still has a consistent market share in Denmark. S. Wagner was already pre the foundation experienced in the microbrewery industry, thanks to his previously owned contract brewery crooked moon. Asked about their approach in raising capital to start of the brewery S. Wagner said:

“And we started with very little money and as buying shares of this collective and then had a certain set amount of tanks this case for which we then made a little bit of money, bought a couple new ones made a little bit of money. And it was very like bootstrapping, like finding like selling your own beer through your own bar kind of thing in order to raise the necessary capital.” (S. Wagner, 2021; p.7, Question 20)

33 Similar to Slowburn, Dry and Bitter took a different approach, by avoiding the traditional bank loan and buying shares of the beer collective instead. The distribution of their own product through their own bar, resulted therefore in a system of raising capital, to expand an invest into the brewery. The strategy of the brewery, to provide the best quality possible and creating a luxuries product is similar to Slowburns but on a larger scale.

4.4.3 Amager Bryghus

The Amager Bryghus brewery, located in the district of Amager in the city of Copenhagen is widely considered as one of the oldest Microbreweries in Denmark. Established in the year of 2007, the brewery counts to the well-established microbreweries in the Copenhagen area. Founded by the two partners J. Storm and M. V. Lundsbak, the brewery is currently serving the local as well as the global market. In an interview with J. Storm, he mentioned that the original idea of the brewery was to serve only the district of Amager in the city of Copenhagen. They realized on the other hand, that this approach would not be viable in the long term.

“And if you have smaller microbrewery that wants to be bigger than you have to look outside Denmark because Denmark is such a small country. Yeah, normally we sell around half of our production to outside Denmark. And I think that's probably one of our success. So, if you have a small brewery and don't think outside Denmark, you will probably have a hard time selling your beer.” (J. Storm, 2021; p.3, Question 9)

Contrary to Slowburn and Dry and Bitter, the foundation of Amager Bryghus took the traditional approach, by combining the saved financial assets of the two partners with a bank loan. Asked why they decided to take this approach, J. Storm (2021) mentioned as a key reason, that the brewery was founded before the financial crisis in 2008. According to him this eased the ability to get a bank loan approved tremendously, compared to the situation at the time of this research.

Whilst the brewery grew by a lot since the foundation in 2007, it maintained its size as well as its capacity of 4000 hectoliters per annum over the last four years. J. Storm (2021) mentions as well that the goal is still to grow. Whilst he saw potential of gaining new market share, the ongoing pandemic of Covid-19 made it hard to achieve this.

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“We're hoping to sell more. Yeah. And yeah, I think if it's not because of Corona we have definitely brewing phobia. We have nearly not sold any cakes last year. Normally, we produce around 100,000 litres of kegged beer the year.” (J. Storm, 2021, p.1, Question 3)

Similar to the strategy of Slowburn as well as dry and bitter the goal of the brewery, is the production of a high-quality product that is brewed with passion.

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