Gage Roads tapped in thousands of new venues

Gage Roads Brewing Company has executed a key plank of its five-year 'returning to craft' strategy, signing a pair of new agreements to get its beer into 17,000 pubs, bottleshops, restaurants and hotels across Australia.

Gage Roads today said it had signed agreements with national distributors Australian Liquor Marketers, which is owned by Metcash, and on-premise wholesale group 100Proof.

ALM has access to around 12,000 hotels, liquor stores and restaurants, while 100Proof distributes beer and liquor to 5,000 restaurants, bars and hotels in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

Managing director John Hoedemaker said the agreements complemented existing distribution arrangements with Woolworths-owned Pinnacle Drinks Group.

“These new relationships provide Gage Roads great access to new untapped markets and supports our vision to deliver our great quality craft beer to every fridge in Australia,” Mr Hoedemaker said in a statement to the ASX.

The new distribution deals follow Gage Roads raising $8.5 million through a fully-underwritten rights issue, which added to $1.6 million raised through an institutional placement.

However, the entitlement issue portion of the capital raising, which was launched to raise the funds necessary to buy Woolworths out of its shareholding in the Palmyra-based brewer and retire debts, was only accepted by 36 per cent of the company's shareholder base.

The shortfall of more than 217 million shares, valued at more than $5.4 million, was placed with underwriters Argonaut Securities.