CROWDFUNDER SALE & BREWERY BUILD
Last year, with your help, we bought a warehouse that would in time become Vault City’s forever home. Then in April this year we launched a second Crowdfunder Sale, to help build our new brewery from the ground up and remain proudly independent. This project has always been ambitious, and thanks to your support, we’ve come a long way – but we’re not quite there yet – that’s why we’ve decided to extend our Crowdfunder Sale until the end of May, and here’s why.
We’ve always been transparent at Vault City, so when we launched our Crowdfunder Sale for a second year running we knew we had to lay all the cards on the table. Our FAQs outlined the situation we’re in, explained the reasons behind the sale, and helped our community understand not only that they can get a discount on beer and merch—but also what they’re helping to build. In both 2024, and 2025 Crowdfunder Sales, we’ve been blown away by the support we've been shown. Whether you picked up a single can, shared a social media post or filled your entire fridge with Vault City – all of you helped us take the next big step as an independent brewery. And for that, from everyone at Vault City – we want to say thank you.
With your support, we’ve made massive progress on our new brewery build, but we need one final push. The last few weeks have helped us take huge strides with the new brewery, but we’ve decided to extend the Crowdfunder Sale until the end of May to help reach our goal. By doing this we can include one more release with some really exciting beers and one more pay day, which we know is going to help make all the difference.
We know extending the Crowdfunder might impact some of our sales channels, and we don’t take that lightly. It’s a short-term decision, made for the long-term good of Vault City. As a fully independent brewery with no external investors or big partners behind us, every order from this Crowdfunder genuinely makes the difference.
This blog outlines our innovation and sustainability goals for the new brewery and highlights exactly where the money will go. In the meantime, we still have 33% off all beer and merch, even bigger discounts on bundles and special reward tiers including our big brewery opening party in October this year (which you can attend if you spend £150+ over one or multiple orders!).
REWARD TIERS
In June when the Crowdfunder Sale finishes we’ll be contacting all our reward tier customers, starting with the incredible groups from 2024 and 2025 who hit the threshold to get an invite to our brewery opening party on October 24th. So far, we have over 200 of you who’ll be joining us plus over 100 from last year who also hit this reward tier last.
We’ll also be etching the names of over 100 incredible customers into the wall of the brewery once we’re settled, as a permanent thank you and reminder how lucky we are to have such a strong community around our brewery.
We will also be hosting 15 brew days for the customers who smashed through the top reward tiers spending a whopping £500+ and finally the 4 customers who’ll get all of this PLUS their name on one of our brand-new tanks! We've also opened more spaces up for these reward tiers if anyone is close to the threshold...
Sour-mellier – Become Vault City’s Official Beer Taste Tester
In case you missed it, we are on the hunt for a beer taste tester at Vault City. This role is not for the faint of tart (you can watch my attempt here…) but it could be the dream job for so many of our customers - sipping sours and stouts and getting their hands on every release for the rest of this year.
All you need to enter is to place or have placed an order during our Crowdfunder Sale period, from April 15th to midnight May 31st.
Sustainability – From Steven, Vault City Co-Founder
Moving into our new site gave us the perfect opportunity to reassess our long-term sustainability goals. We know there’s a lot of greenwashing out there so we wanted to be upfront about the genuine changes we’re making and the real impact they’ll have, for us and the planet. We’re working closely with Chris Lewington – host of The Modern Brewer podcast and founder of sustainability social enterprise Brew Resourceful – to commission a full sustainability and renewable technologies report. This plan sets us firmly on the path to becoming a net zero brewery, powered by innovation, reuse, and responsibility.
Our new site will eventually run entirely on renewable energy, using a combination of solar panels and a biomass boiler powered by spent grain from our brewing process. This will allow us to achieve full energy self-sufficiency, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and decarbonising our heat energy usage.
Down the line we’ll be installing a CO₂ recapture system that captures and reuses the CO₂ naturally produced during fermentation – meaning we won’t need to buy CO₂ from external sources for packaging cans and kegs. By 2025, we’ll be 100% self-sufficient in processed gas, closing the loop and reducing emissions that would otherwise go to waste.
We’re also integrating a heat recovery system, using run-off water to pre-heat our brewing kettles. That means less energy used, and a more efficient brewing process from start to finish.
Investment into Production – From Angus, Head of Production
One of the most exciting parts of our move is upgrading our brewkit – and trust me, it’s a serious step up. We’re moving away from our current 2-vessel system and installing a custom-built 65-hectolitre, 3-vessel automated brewkit from Brewstar – nearly double the size of what we’ve been working with up to now.
This kit has been designed specifically for Vault City sour beers, with custom geometry to suit our unusual recipes – which can be vastly different to traditional clean beers like lagers and IPAs. We’ve overspecced both the lauter tun and mash conversion vessel to handle the high-gravity brewing we’re known for. That means we can extract more from our ingredients while reducing waste across the board.
We’re also integrating an automated control system from Fermecraft, which gives us more precision over the entire process – without needing constant manual monitoring. That unlocks major efficiencies across production, letting us focus more time and people on innovation, packaging, and quality.
It doesn’t stop there… In the new site we’re also installing:
-In-line carbonation for a faster, more consistent finish.
-A flash pasteuriser, which allows us to add even bigger volumes of unfermented fruit without compromising on safety – resulting in fuller flavour and better shelf stability.
Alongside cupping, this is the stuff that gets me excited.
Innovation – From Jeremy, Cellar Manager
As a brewery that releases at least 3 beers every 2 weeks, we find ourselves innovating constantly – reviewing different adjuncts, fruiting rates, processes and new recipe ideas to push the boundaries of what people might typically expect from beer. Believe it or not, until now we’ve managed all of new product development without a pilot kit. So, when we brew a new idea, we go all in by default.
There are few fruits, juices, cakes, spices or otherwise that we haven’t already worked with in some capacity, but it still keeps us on our toes knowing that there’s no trial run. This can also limit us from exploring out-with fruited sour beers and pastry stouts. That’s why in our new site we’re building a dedicated Research and Development space complete with a brewery lab and a 600 litre pilot kit. This will allow us to trial wild ideas (yes, even wilder than our current releases), launch small batch projects and experiment with altogether different styles of beer or even different beverages...
European Sales
Back in the early days of Vault City we could ship orders to anywhere in Europe. Sadly, things are different now, but we are still asked constantly where people can get our latest releases outside of the UK. Our amazing export partners do a brilliant job getting kegs and cans across the world but we finally have a solution to get Mega Mixed Cases and Marvellous Liquids sent straight to your door anywhere in Europe…
Keep your eyes peeled on our social channels for the details coming very soon!
What Next?
Our sale is now on until the end of May with 33% off all beer and merch plus deeper discounts on bundles and an extended chance to hit our reward tiers, some of which can be hit over multiple orders. As always, we’ve been blown away by your support, and we’re so grateful for your help bringing Sour to the People!
