Contract brand Fields Brewing Co. has announced Australian musician Amy Shark as a new co-owner of the company.

Fields’ made the announcement to its Instagram page today [28th August] as Shark re-shared the post to her own profile.

“Proud to announce that I’m officially a co-owner of Fields Brewing Co,” Shark shared.

“I love the taste of this brewery and I hope you do too.”

Fields co-founder Luke McGuire told Brews News that Shark’s involvement will be beneficial in promoting the brand.

“We had a mutual friend who knew Amy and we met her through that mutual friend and she was really interested in the beer industry, I suppose, from a business point of view,” he said.

“She’s genuinely involved in wanting to help, through her platforms, promote our beer and she believes in the product.

“These sort of relationships, they fall down ultimately if you don’t have a good product, and she really loves our beer, which we’re very appreciative of and [she] wanted to become more involved from there.”

The Brisbane-based company first launched 18 months ago with help from Brendale Brewing owner Ryan McCausland.

“We wanted to strip things back a bit from the craft beer theme, where, rightly or wrongly, we just felt it got a bit too out of control and too crazy with the crazy graphics on the cans and [with] some of the ingredients,” McGuire said.

“Stripping it back into really clean and balanced and easy drinking was the focus and the intent and something that we could build a brand around, which is, hopefully, it’s what we believe we’ve achieved in the can design and the like.”

The company does not have a brewery currently, instead contract brewing out of Brendale. Previously, the business contract brewed at Ballistic Beer Co.

“We don’t actually have a space to call our own yet, a brewery, but that’s definitely a plan to get to that stage,” McGuire said.

“But it allowed us to put our ideas, I suppose, in training to see if it was going to work without spending $750,000 on a brewery that may or may not have worked.”

When asked whether this was going to be a priority moving forward, McGuire said there are plans but it’s not a main focus.

“We do have plans, and we are working on a few things at the moment that may materialise sooner rather than later,” he explained.

“But it hasn’t been the main focus, I suppose the main focus has been working with Amy getting her on board and undoubtedly, it just provides us more exposure than what we could probably achieve by ourselves given how competitive the market is at the moment.”

Celebrity collaboration

Partnerships between brewers and the music industry have been growing along with the profile of breweries. Capital Brewing’s has collaborated with UK rock band Royal Blood, while Two Bays Brewing launched a charity beer with Ball Park Music.

Last year, Young Henrys and Rolling Stone launched a beer with brand ambassadors, which also included Amy Shark, promoting its mission of donating to various charities.

A celebrity joining a company as co-owner will prompt questions about what their role will be within the business, as there is a risk where this can be interpreted as leveraging status solely for promotion.

For Fields Brewing Co, Luke McGuire explained that Shark’s role is “genuine” rather than acting as an ambassador.

Brews News reached out to Shark, who just finished a regional tour of Australia. Her management team passed the enquiry along to McGuire for comment.

“She really wants to be involved in the recipes of the beers and helping assist in promoting them hands-on,” McGuire said.

“She’s a genuine co-owner as opposed to any sort of ambassador role or anything like that.”

McGuire acknowledged the saturation of the market and stressed the importance of differentiation.

“You know, for us, it’s a really unique space,” he said.

“There’s plenty of cool ambassadors, or influencers, or high profile people in the space that are a footy player, or, surfers like Mick Fanning, but to have a female in this space and an artist as well, we really think there’s a point of difference there.

“Amy’s just really engaged and wanting to help us grow so we’re very thankful for her support to come on.

“It’s certainly just not an Instagram sort of relationship, for lack of a better term, [she will] genuinely will help us grow.”