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Popular Australian craft beer company COLLAPSES after just six years in business
- Ballistic Beer Co Dives Into Administration
- The business has collected a haul of medals
- However, administrators have been appointed
A well-known craft beer company has plunged into voluntary management after only six years in business.
Ballistic Beer Co appointed PFK Melbourne administrators on Tuesday, according to documents from financial watchdog ASIC.
Co-founder David Kitchen told the boutique beer newsletter the sly look the directors and shareholders of the company are restructuring the business.
Ballistic Beer Co, which operates breweries in Queensland and produces boutique drinks, went under after six years in operation.
A meeting of creditors is scheduled for February 26. The Queensland company’s beers are still for sale online.
The business launched in 2017 and its tinnies have taken home a haul of praise.
They include a series of medals from the 2021 Australian International Beer Awards, the world’s largest beer competition.
Ballistic Beer operates a number of breweries across Queensland, including in the Whitsundays, Salisbury and Springfield, as well as producing its own lines of craft beer.
The Queensland independent brewer is highly regarded and boasts a host of industry awards.
The company was formed five years ago by two teammates who played rugby together in Hong Kong two decades earlier, and expanded rapidly in the years that followed.
Co-founder David Kitchen ran a chain of homebrew shops before launching Ballistic beer with head brewer Lachy Crothers, who was working in London at the time but wished to return to Australia.
The couple moved into a World War II munitions factory in Brisbane’s industrial suburb of Salisbury and turned it into the brand’s first brewery.
Bolstering the craft beers with food trucks and live music, the concept soon proved a hit and was renamed Ballistic Brewery, with as many as 12 beers on tap.