Greek Australians, Petros Gyftopoulos and Yiannis Psimoulis have made the difficult decision to sell 'Fall & Rise Brewing', after less than a year in operation due to the economic impact caused by Covid-19.
"Just a big shout out from the Fall & Rise Brewing team to say a big thank you to you all! Words can’t describe how grateful we are for your growing love and support since we first started our business and throughout these difficult times! Your support has been overwhelming and it equipped us with all the courage needed to enter a high-level market and deliver to you our tasty recipes," Fall & Rise Brewing posted on Instagram.
The sale of Fall & Rise includes the business name, trademark, recipes, client database and suppliers.
They made "the very hard decision to sell out the brand in hopes that someone else who shares the same passion will continue with our journey," the post concluded
Petros told Beer & Brewer they wouldn’t be making this call if there was a guaranteed end in sight to Melbourne’s lockdown period.
“If there was some light at the end of the tunnel, I think almost certainly, the decision would be different,” Petros said.
“If someone could guarantee that on November 26, Melbourne would move out of lockdown, that would be something for me to hold on to. But there is no one who can say that now. We do not know when the vaccine is coming. We don’t know if Melbourne is going to have less than five cases a day to allow us to even move out of a state of lockdown," he added.
Fall & Rise had been contract brewing at Cockies Beer in Geelong and to date, had released two of their own beers: The Rise – a hoppy Kölsch; and Dorchae – an Irish stout.
They were ready to take the next step and find their own location to brew in-house, however covid-19 happened.
“Breweries are shutting and the economy is struggling and it just isn’t the right time for us to be taking the next step... Continuing to contract brew just isn’t the right decision either right now. We are one of the victims of COVID’s financial impact and we just have to move on,” Petros continued.
The young man also stated that they no regrets in pursuing their brewing dream. "I do not regret doing it because the joy and the excitement and satisfaction of seeing our products in the market and people loving them, you can’t compare that feeling."