Ballistic Beer Co enters voluntary administration as independent craft brewery searches for survival plan

Independent craft brewery Ballistic Beer Co has called in the administrators, as the award-winning Queensland company attempts to restructure its operations.

As first reported by The Crafty Pint, Ballistic Beer Co, based in Salisbury, Queensland, this week appointed administrators from PKF Melbourne to handle its affairs.

A notice published by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission on Tuesday shows Jason Stone and Paul Allen were tapped for the role.

Speaking to the beer industry publication, Ballistic Beer Co founder David Kitchen said the administrators are working with company directors and shareholders with the goal of resuming normal trade in the near future.

Company social media pages advertise an in-person events at its Salisbury taphouse for this Saturday.

Beyond its first venue, the company’s products are still available for sale online, in supporting bars, and stockists nationwide, Kitchen added.

A meeting of creditors will take place on February 6.

Ballistic Beer Co launched operations in 2017 with its Salisbury taphouse, before capitalising on the craft beer boom with premises in Brisbane, Bundaberg and Airlie Beach.

The company’s products are now stocked in bars and bottle shops nationwide, and its Pilot Light mid-strength earned a gold medal at the Australian International Beer Awards in 2017.

The company itself earned the title of Champion Large Brewery at the 2020 Queensland Beer Awards.

That year, Kitchen told the Brisbane City Council investors had put more than $1 million into the business, which he hoped would achieve “aggressive growth, but in a structured way”.

“We are looking at ‘10 times’ growth over the next five years, and two years before going international,” he said at the time.

News of Ballistic Brewing Co’s voluntary administration comes days after the release of a new equity crowdfunding report that found craft breweries earned the biggest raises of any business type in 2022.

With international brewing conglomerates snapping up local players in recent years, the potential for exits through big-ticket buyouts has helped to drive the equity crowdfunding rush.

But fans of Ballistic Beer Co are still hopeful their favourite brewer will emerge from administration as an independent business.

“Please do not sell out to an overseas owned company.. that would be devastating!” one fan wrote on Instagram.

SmartCompany has contacted PKF Melbourne for comment.