Brewery and distillery property finance

Ardent Capital Group brings the same method to every client: execution and strategy, clear advice for smart lending, and long-term growth. That means the right lender, structure and timing, straight advice so you borrow with confidence, and today's deal built toward where you want to be tomorrow. We are specialists in helping business owners secure finance to purchase their own property, and we understand the complex structures that often sit around it, including multiple trusts, holding companies and self-managed super funds. A brewery or distillery is a specialised, equipment-heavy production site, so it belongs with funders at ease with purpose-built premises and the fit-out that comes with them, reading the site for what it really is. As the label grows into more tanks or a bigger home, we stay alongside you beyond settlement. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

Because it is a specialised chattel, not part of the building. A brewhouse, a set of fermentation and bright tanks, a pot still or a canning line is financed as equipment, usually by chattel mortgage, hire purchase or lease, secured on the plant itself and registered on the PPSR, over terms of one to seven years. On new plant bought from a supplier a lender will often advance the full purchase price, so the caution does not usually show up as a smaller advance. It shows up in the pricing and in how few lenders will look at it, because purpose-built beverage plant sits in the lowest resale grade and commonly carries a rate loading over mainstream machinery, along with director guarantees and often supporting property security. The reason is the second-hand market: used canning lines change hands at a fraction of new, so the resale market is thin, which is exactly why we keep the plant off your property loan. Keeping the plant off the property loan also keeps a depreciating asset out of your property security, which is usually what you want.

As two things at once. The building is valued as an industrial or light-industrial asset on comparable sales, and the valuer looks at floor loading, drainage, trade waste, clear height and three-phase power supply, because those determine who else could use the shed. The taproom is assessed as a hospitality use that supports serviceability rather than adding much to the security value. The plant is valued and financed apart from the property entirely. This is why we value the building, the taproom and the plant each on their own terms, so every part is financed on the basis that suits it.

Less than most people expect, because of the remission. Eligible brewers and distillers receive a full, automatic remission of excise duty up to $400,000 per financial year, a cap that rose from $350,000 on 1 July 2026. To qualify you need a manufacturer licence, you must have fermented or distilled at least 70% of the alcohol yourself, and you must be independent of any other entity claiming it. Most independent producers never reach the cap and therefore pay no excise at all. The one thing to plan for is crossing the cap part-way through a year, when every later delivery attracts full duty, at around $108 per litre of alcohol on spirits, and we build the timing in ahead of time. Timing helps too. With a periodic settlement permission, and businesses turning over under $50 million can lodge quarterly, duty often falls due around the time the wholesaler pays you rather than well before it. Without a permission you prepay before the goods move, which is the worst position to be in. The maturation gap on spirits is the separate problem: whisky, brandy and rum must be matured in wood for at least two years by law, and most Australian single malt is not commercially ready for five to eight.

A brewery or distillery freehold is generally funded to 55% to 65% of value, so a deposit of 35% to 45% is common, and that is on the building alone. The plant is a separate facility with its own deposit, and the exact figure depends on your file, so talk to us early.

Yes, and it is one of the most common routes into the sector. The lender funds the purchase as an industrial acquisition, because on settlement day that is exactly what it is. The production use, the taproom and the public liquor sales are planning and licensing questions that follow, and they need a development application and often a change of use. Budget properly for a slab rated for full fermenters, floor fall to drain, a trade waste agreement and a three-phase power upgrade. We fund the shed, then structure the fit-out and the plant on staged drawdowns against progress invoices.

Two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns, BAS lodgements, and production and sales figures that show the split between wholesale, taproom and contract work. Lenders look closely at that mix, because taproom sales are the highest-margin line and a producer selling most of its volume into wholesale at distributor pricing is assessed differently. Volume brewed against installed capacity is another figure they will ask for, since it tells them whether the plant you are financing is actually being used.

The freehold sits in one entity and the brewing or distilling business sits in another, with the operating company leasing the site from the property company on commercial terms. It is common here because the plant, the excise licence and the trading risk all live with the operating entity while the building stays quarantined in the property entity. It also means the equipment facility registers against a different company to the mortgage, which some lenders handle better than others. Directors and trustees will still be asked for personal guarantees regardless of the structure.

For a full-doc application, most lenders want two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns, personal tax returns for all guarantors, the contract of sale, your production and excise licence details, and supplier invoices and serial numbers for any plant being financed. Many producers do not fit a standard full-doc assessment neatly, particularly a distillery carrying stock in barrel. Alt-doc and low-doc routes exist, supported by an accountant's declaration, BAS lodgements and business bank statements. We work through your income situation upfront to identify the best approach.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. It is also one of the more intricate purchases in commercial finance, and the detail is what decides whether it works. The fund borrows under a limited recourse borrowing arrangement, so the site sits in a separate holding trust and the lender can only come after that one property. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property: a trading production site generally qualifies, a site with a residence on it generally does not. Your operating company leases the site back from the fund, in writing, at market rent supported by an independent appraisal, and the rent has to actually be paid. Cross-collateralisation is not available inside super, so the fund needs its own deposit and the 100% LVR structures described elsewhere on this page do not work here. Lenders cap SMSF lending below a standard purchase, generally between 65% and 75%, and want cash left in the fund after settlement. We know this sounds complicated. It is, and that is exactly why we do it every day. Reach out to our team and we will guide you through the entire process. We structure the finance, tell you which lenders will take a production site as SMSF security and on what terms, and bring in the SMSF specialists and licensed advisers who set the fund side up. You will not be working it out on your own. Get that right and it is a solid, compliant structure.

Often, yes. A decline usually means the application went to a lender whose policy could not accommodate the asset, not that the site is unfundable. The two most common causes we see are a bank valuing the building on industrial comparables and refusing to recognise the taproom at all, and a credit team reading the excise and maturation timing in the accounts as a cash-flow failure. Non-bank and specialist lenders assess production sites differently and are frequently more comfortable funding the plant alongside the property. We will give you a straight answer on whether it is fundable elsewhere.

Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons producers come back to us. A canning or bottling line is funded on its own equipment facility, separate from the property loan, and bringing canning in-house removes the per-run cost of a mobile contractor, which is a saving we can model into serviceability. Adding fermenters and bright tanks is usually the cheapest capacity available and it funds quickly. Where the site has grown its production since purchase, a revaluation can release equity toward the next stage.

Going direct means one lender's appetite and one set of criteria. A production site with a taproom falls between industrial and hospitality policy, and the plant falls outside both, so it is the kind of asset a single bank will either fund well or not at all. A specialist broker knows which lenders are actually writing beverage production this quarter, which ones will fund a still, and which will read a barrel hall full of maturing spirit as an asset rather than a problem. Presenting the site to the wrong credit team is how a fundable business gets declined.

Most of the time, no. We are paid a commission by the lender once your loan settles. Where a purchase requires significant preparation, a small mandate fee may apply, and we will always be upfront about this before work begins.

It changes the forecast a lender reads. A producer under the $400,000 remission cap pays no excise, so the cash flow looks materially stronger than a naive model that books duty on every litre. A producer scaling through the cap has a step change in outgoings that most forecasts miss entirely. When we model a brewery or distillery, we model the month you cross the cap, because that is the month the facility has to carry you, and it is far easier to have the limit in place beforehand than to arrange it in a hurry afterwards. Excise and the remission are ATO matters and the rules have conditions, so confirm your position with your accountant.

Although we are based in Sydney, we service clients across all major Australian cities, including Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart, along with their surrounding regional areas. Wherever your production site is located, we can arrange your finance.

Although our main speciality is property loans for business owners, we also assist with brewing and distilling equipment finance and cash flow for breweries and distilleries. On asset finance, that covers the brewhouse and fermentation and bright tanks, stills and spirit safes, canning and bottling lines, kegs and coolrooms, the taproom fit-out, and delivery vehicles. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and cash-flow funding to cover grain, malt, hops and botanicals, excise obligations that fall due before the product sells, the maturation gap on spirits, wages and distribution.

Yes. That is our core ethos, helping you understand the right strategy, structure and clear advice from the very first conversation. Our main borrower profiles are established craft brewers, distillers and beverage producers seeking finance from $100,000 upwards, so a first commercial loan is well within our wheelhouse. We will walk you through how the building and the plant are funded on separate tracks, the deposit you will genuinely need for each, and what the lender will ask for, before you commit to anything.