Low & no alcohol beer brand Days has been acquired by Sunrise Beverages for an undisclosed sum.
Days, which describes itself as “the UK’s leading independent 0.0% beer brand” will join a portfolio of brands that includes Curious Brewery, Gipsy Hill Brewing, Wild Beer Co and St Peter’s Brewery.
The Days Brewing team, including founders Mike Gammell and Duncan Keith, will also join Sunrise following the deal.
“The non-alcoholic beer category is one of the most important structural shifts in beer in a generation and we believe Days is the best independent brand to lead it,” said Sunrise CEO Richard Mather.
Days Brewing was founded by Gammell and Keith in 2021 and is stocked in 3,500 distribution points across the UK including Tesco, Waitrose and Ocado. Off-trade sales of its 0.0% Alcohol Free Lager and 0.0% Alcohol Free Pale Ale grew 87.1% to £816k in the year to last April [NIQ 52 w/e 19 April 2025].
On-trade focus
However, grocery represents only 20% of revenues at Days, The Grocer understands. The business is more heavily weighted towards DTC and the on-trade, where it has just launched on draught across Stonegate sites nationwide.
“Stonegate have already doubled our draught distribution and we’re forecasting around 500 sites pouring Days on draught by the end of the year,” Gammell told The Grocer. “Partnering with Sunrise and plugging into a national sales infrastructure gives us the ability to accelerate those plans significantly.”
The business remains heavily loss-making, however, with cumulative losses since launch growing by £1.7m to £5.3m in the year ended 31 December 2024, according to its most recently available accounts at Companies House.
Days had “grown revenue more than fivefold over the last four years whilst significantly improving the efficiency of the business as we’ve scaled”, Gammell said.
“Like many high-growth challenger brands, we’ve continued to invest behind brand building and nationwide distribution to unlock long-term growth,” he said. “At the same time, EBITDA losses relative to revenue have more than halved over the last four years, reflecting improved operational leverage, stronger margins and increasing sales across retail, DTC and the on-trade.
“Importantly, the business delivered its lowest EBITDA loss in four years in 2025 despite continued investment in growth, distribution and draught rollout.”
Fundraising efforts
Since 2021, Days has raised circa £6m across various fundraising rounds to support growth. This included a £1m seed round with backing from Mindful Chef founder Giles Humphries, Propercorn founder Ryan Kohn, and former Camden Town Brewery MD Adam Keary.
“We’ve been fortunate to have strong investor support and were working through a range of strategic options for the next phase of growth,” Gammell said. “We always planned on finding a significant partner for the business to help us reach scale and over recent months we’ve had a number of conversations about the best long-term home for the brand.
“We ultimately decided that joining Sunrise represented the best platform to accelerate growth, particularly within the on-trade where being part of a strong portfolio and having access to a much larger sales team will help the brand continue to scale efficiently.”
Sunrise Beverages has evolved out of St Peter’s Brewery since 2023 as the supplier has looked to grow revenue streams and expand further into craft beer.
In September 2023, it acquired the Wild Beer Co and Curious Brewing brands from private equity firm Risk Capital Partners for an undisclosed sum. A year later, it added Portobello to its roster, before snapping up Gipsy Hill in October 2024.
The business also holds UK distribution rights for Turkish and Japanese lager brands Efes and Orien.
Low & no alcohol slowdown
The low & beer category continued to grow in 2025 as value sales jumped 21.7% to £141.1m on a 15.6% rise in volumes [Worldpanel by Numerator 52 w/e 28 December 2025].
However, sales have since slowed markedly, with value climbing just 4.7% on volumes up 1.6% over the past 12 weeks [NIQ 12 w/e 18 April 2026].
Line extensions from major alcohol brands dominate the category, making up nine of the top 10 bestselling low & no beers in retail last year [NIQ 52 w/e 4 October 2025].
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