By the Horns enters liquidation

One of London’s original craft beer names, By the Horns, has entered liquidation, with owners citing bad debtors, the economy and rent hikes as just some of the reasons.

The company, founded in 2011 by Alex Bull and Chris Mills, started with a five and a half barrel kit in Summerstown, before moving production out to a new site with the potential to produce 12,000hl, in Salfords, Surrey, in 2021 and was confident about its trading future. However, circumstances of the last year led to its demise, as Bull explained.

“During Covid we were okay, we did a lot of online business and when the leases were up at our old site, we saw the opportunity to build a production unit and it was all working. Then 2023 hit and so did a lot of turmoil. We decide to take the lease next door in a calculated gamble to push volume up and we had good sales, but then every kind of cost soared and pinned us back because we couldn’t pass it all on to our customers.”

Bull revealed: “Two companies we worked closely with crashed, Flavorly and Bier Nuts, owing us £50k between
them, Sainsbury’s took us off the shelves despite being a top 10 seller because another large beer company wanted double the shelf space, our volume dropped to 6,000hl and we got a rent review on the second unit which pushed that up by 30%.”

He added: “We still had hope for 2024, as we had a number of things lined up, but there were delays in decisions by supermarket buying teams and then And Union (which the company contract brewed)
went out of business owing us £50k, so in November we called in a company to look at options, but we just weren’t able to sell or pre-pack.”

By the Horns ceased trading on 22 January and entered liquidation on 3 February, with RSM UK handling the process and creditors being informed over the next 24-48 hours.

However, the bar company that Bull and Mills own, which mainly operates the Wimbledon AFC Phoenix venue, will continue until the end of the season. Bull is also confident someone could buy the brand, so it may not disappear entirely. However, even if the brand survives without its founders, it’s clear the economic circumstances for the brewing industry are on a knife edge and By the Horns is not going to be the last small company to go under this year.

“What’s so sad is that we’d built such a great team of brewers and the beer quality had never been better,” added a clearly devastated Bull as our conversation comes to a close.

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