Bendigo's Brookes Beer is going up for sale as its owners prepare to move on to new projects.
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Doug Brooke and his partner Mel Church founded the brewery six years ago but decided the time was right to see the company change hands.
"Way back then there were maybe 120 breweries in Australia. Today there are more than 600 and another 100 in the pipiline," he said.
"We knew everyone in the industry but we can't keep up nowadays. We will be staying within the brewing industry but don't want to say too much more."
After only advertising the business for sale on Tuesday, Mr Brooke said he was surprised at the amount of interested he had received in it.
"It's early days yet but we were please to hear there was a lot of interest. More than I anticipated there would be," he said.
"If we get what we want for the brewery then great. Bendigo will have a new, energetic team coming in and that's a win all around.
"If it doesn't sell, then it will just go on as business as usual for us."
Despite expanding to interstate markets, Mr Brooke said the brewery's best clientele was close to home.
"Business is a lot bigger but sales are highly concentrated on local (markets)," he said. "The industry is still growing and there is still a lot of excitement around beer."
Mr Brooke said while there was a lot of benefits to operating your own brewery, there were some daunting tasks as well.
"There is a lot of that comes with owning your own small business," he said. "The industry is going through a great phase. It was hard to get good beer six years ago, now the choice is amazing.
"Being part of an industry bringing back something (like craft beer) that used to exist, fresh beer to local communities, is really good.
"But is daunting to put a food product out because taste is so subjective. The production can be the same thing over and over again, every bottle has be labelled, filled and capped. There is a fair bit of repetitiveness."
Mr Brooke said he hoped that whoever bought the brewery would keep it local.
"The future is hard to predict but it depends on who buys it and what makes sense for them," he said. "You can't deny beer is emotional purchase, people get so worked up about it.
"I think every regional town should have a brewery. It changes the meaning of the brand if the brewery is separated from its market.
"If you look at major brewing companies that purchase of (small) breweries, they're careful not to muck around with production.
"Brewing in town is a source of value. I hope people who are interested in the business see the value of having it in the town it is named for."
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