Two well-known Highland firms have teamed up to rescue the Loch Ness Beer brand after the company that brewed it went into liquidation.
Aviemore-based Cairngorm Brewery and Cobbs Group Loch Ness, which runs hotels, coffee houses, restaurants and a bakery say they hope to get the core range of five products back on the shelves soon.
Yesterday Cairngorm’s managing director Sam Faircliff said she was delighted to be able to confirm an “iconic Scottish brand” was now “firmly in safe hands.”
Brewed at the Benleva Hotel, Drumnadrochit, the Loch Ness Beer range was launched in 2011. The Loch Ness Brewing Company went on to win a clutch of awards for its craft beers and ales, which were bottled by Cairngorm, and landed a number of high profile contracts.
Weeks after securing a deal to supply supermarket chain Asda in April this year, however, the company went into liquidation, with the loss of a number of jobs in the Inverness-shire village. The business was formally wound up at Inverness Sheriff Court in July.
In a joint statement Cairngorm and Cobbs said they felt the brand was “too important to lose”. They added that they had decided to pool resources and rescue it to “ensure it continued as a strong Highland craft beer brand.”
Financial details of the deal have not been released, but this week Cairngorm acquired the Loch Ness trademarks and 20 recipes from the failed company’s administrators Johnston Carmichael.
The Loch Ness Beers will be brewed and bottled at the Cairngorm Brewery and marketed separately from the company’s other products.
Yesterday Ms Faircliff said her brewers would be working over the next three-to-four weeks to “resurrect” the five core Loch Ness products. She added she was hopeful of re-gaining the brand’s retail contracts.
“The Loch Ness brand is so well known globally that it will be a great opportunity for the export market as well as here at home,” said Ms Faircliff.
Loch Ness Beers will also be available at Cobbs’ outlets.
Cobbs’ managing director Rory Cameron said: “We are delighted to join forces with Cairngorm Brewery and we look forward to bringing Loch Ness Beer products to our 17 Cobbs outlets across Scotland and further afield in due course.”
Gordon MacLure, restructuring partner at Johnston Carmichael, welcomed the brand’s rescue.
He said: “It’s pleasing to see a well-known brand like Loch Ness being given a new lease of life under the ownership of Cairngorm and Cobbs.
“The management teams of both businesses have the experience and infrastructure to take Loch Ness into a very bright future and we are very pleased to have played our part in helping preserve the existence of the iconic brand.”
Last month the founders of the Loch Ness Brewing Company, Steve Crossland and George Wotherspoon, joined another craft brewing business, Deeside Brewery, as managing director and development director respectively.
