Chris Shanahan: Stone & Wood partners buy back the farm

On October 30, three partners in Byron Bay’s Stone and Wood Brewery announced a buy-back of shares from minority shareholder, Little World Beverages Pty Ltd.

Publicly listed Little World Beverages, owner of Little Creatures Brewery (Fremantle) and White Rabbit Brewery (Yarra Valley) took a 20 per cent stake in Stone and Wood in 2009, the year after Brad Rogers, Jamie Cook and Ross Jurisich founded it.

Rogers, Cook and Jurisich decided to buy back the farm after Lion (a subsidiary of Japan’s Kirin) moved from a minority stake to full ownership of Little World Beverages, in June this year.

That the three partners hold high ambitions for Stone and Wood, show in this year ‘s doubling of production capacity to a million litres and the introduction of a third beer, Jasper Ale, to its permanent range, alongside Pacific Ale and Lager.