Overview

Dear Shareholders,

I hope this finds you well, and I’m pleased to welcome you to our 2026 AGM — our first under the new calendar-year reporting cycle. This is a document I’ve been looking forward to writing.

2025 was our most profitable year since 2022. The headline numbers are strong: turnover just above £8.6m, an EBITDA profit of £437k, and — critically — the full exit of Carriageworks from our P&L. Stripping that project out entirely, our underlying EBITDA for the year was £582k. The business, on its own terms, is performing well. It’s getting better. And we are going into 2026 with real momentum.

This update will cover our group financials, the story of Carriageworks and where we stand today, a venue-by-venue picture, our brewery performance, and our plans for the year ahead — including a project we’re particularly excited about: We Back Bristol.

I want to be balanced and transparent throughout. There have been hard lessons in the past two years, and you deserve to hear them plainly. But the overall picture, I am confident, is one you should feel good about.

— Bruce Gray, Chairman & MD Bars

Group Financial Performance

2025 saw group turnover increase 12% year-on-year to £8.6m, with EBITDA profit growing 41% to £437k. Gross profit held at 66% across the group — a result we’re very proud of, particularly given the cost pressures bearing down on the whole sector this year.

Those pressures were significant, and worth spelling out explicitly. Before we traded a single extra pound, we began 2025 absorbing £270k of new annual costs:

• £110kNational Insurance increases imposed by government
• £120kLiving wage increases of 5% (following two consecutive years of 10%) combined with a modest salaried pay rise
• £40kBusiness rates increases across all venues as hospitality relief was reduced

To grow EBITDA by 41% in that context is a real achievement, and reflects the quality of trading across our core venues.

Carriageworks — the honest asterisk

The group EBITDA of £437k has to be understood alongside the losses at Carriageworks: £250k in 2024 and £145k in 2025. Both units are now leased to independent operators. Carriageworks will have no further impact on our P&L.

Stripping those losses out, the underlying EBITDA for 2025 is £582k. In 2024, on the same basis, it was just over £550k. Without that distraction, the business has been improving consistently and materially over the past three years. That is the platform on which we are building.

Our forecast for 2026 is an EBITDA profit in excess of £750k, with a medium-term target of £1m. We are not there yet, but the trajectory is clear.

Carriageworks — What Happened and What’s Next

I want to deal with this directly, because you deserve more than a footnote.

We invested close to half a million pounds in the fit-out of Carriageworks. We believed in the site, the concept, and the potential of that building. We were wrong about how it would trade. Despite considerable effort — adapting the offer, reshaping the team, rethinking the model — the venue never came close to the revenue required to justify its cost. We closed Hotplate in June 2025.

With Hotplate closed, we ran a pizza pop-up alongside the bar in the smaller Farside footprint. There were real green shoots — the concept was gaining traction. Then, four weeks in, a drunk driver crashed through the front of the building.

The forced closure prompted a clear-eyed reassessment. With insurance funds available and the decision before us, we chose not to refit. We put both units to market instead, and within three months had secured leases on both — Steam Bar is now trading in one unit, and Brother Thai is soon to open in the other. The rear offices are currently being marketed. Once leased, the site will be effectively cost-neutral to us.

Carriageworks was the wrong call. It was very, very financially painful, and I want to acknowledge that without qualification. But it is now fully behind us, and the rest of the business — which has been performing exceptionally throughout — can now be seen clearly for what it is.

Venue by Venue Highlights

Brewpub — Finzels Reach

The Brewpub remains the cornerstone of our business. Turnover held steady at approximately £3m in 2025, and it continues to be by far our most profitable venue. Margins and staffing are tightly controlled, and the team — led by Luke Frisby and Daniele Boccardi — are doing an excellent job.

The one area we’re actively developing is food. Our food trade has been softening, and we’re treating that as an opportunity rather than just a problem. More detail on this in the pizza section below.

Small Bar — King Street

Small Bar is, frankly, a delight to report on. Turnover flat at approximately £1.4m, consistent with its standing as one of the most efficient bars in Bristol. It delivered profit in excess of £200k in 2025 — again. Paul McNamee and the team continue to run one of the finest craft beer bars in the UK; nearly 12 years in, and it just keeps going from strength to strength.

Renato’s — King Street

Renato’s had its best year to date. Revenue grew over 20% year-on-year to £1.3m, and the venue posted profit in excess of £100k. The offer has found its audience, and the team — Josh Guyett and Brendan Baker — are producing consistently brilliant work.

There is more to come here. The building has three service points, and we know there are further efficiencies to unlock. That is a good problem to have.

Brewery & Wholesale

2025 has been a positive year for the brewery. After several years of steady progress, we’re moving closer to a point where the production side of the business is pulling its weight — not just as a supply function for our bars, but as a profitable line in the P&L. We still have plenty of work to do to reach our ultimate target of 10% EBITDA, but 2025 was another strong step in the right direction.

Sales Growth & Commercial Performance

The headline number is a 17% year-on-year increase in turnover from brewery and wholesale channels — a result we’re proud of, and one that Callum has highlighted as particularly significant given that we’ve achieved it while maintaining a gross margin above 50%. This follows growth of 29% and 26% in 2023 and 2024.

Importantly, we’ve delivered this growth without materially increasing headcount on the production side. The year-on-year efficiency gains we’ve been working towards are starting to compound. For the first time, we can describe the brewery as a profitable standalone business unit — albeit only slightly. That is a significant milestone.

Awards & Reputation

2025 was an exceptional year for recognition. We picked up 15 medals at the Untappd Community Awards — voted for directly by the platform’s user community, making them a particularly honest reflection of how drinkers feel about the beer. Across five Golds, five Silvers and five Bronzes, it’s a strong and varied set of results that speaks to the breadth of what we’re brewing.

At the International Beer Challenge — a trade-facing competition judged by industry professionals — we received Gold for Woodland Creatures (the only stout to win gold), two Silvers, and a Bronze for Can Design. The design award is worth noting separately: cans sell on shelf, and good visual identity is part of why our listings work commercially.

Beyond the formal awards, 2025 has seen meaningful growth in our reputation for Hazy IPAs specifically.

Systembolaget

One commercial moment from the year deserves its own mention: we secured our first order with Systembolaget, the Swedish state retail monopoly. The listing process is rigorous and the volumes required are substantial — we fulfilled an order of 33,000 cans of Dream House, which shipped in February.

Plan for 2026

The foundation built in 2025 gives us a strong base. Our focus this year is on two broad themes: making the brewery more efficient, and significantly improving our online direct-to-consumer channel.

We’re working with Brew Resourceful to identify and implement process improvements across the site. Alongside that, we’re investing in a number of capital items: a cask washer (automating a currently time-intensive manual process), a nitrogen generator (reducing reliance on bought-in gas), an additional bright tank (more flexible packaging scheduling), and a heat exchanger (improved wort cooling efficiency). These aren’t glamorous investments, but they are the right ones — each reduces direct cost, increases capacity, or improves product consistency. In most cases, all three.

Last year we packaged 7,600hl of beer. In 2026, we’re targeting over 8,000hl for the first time. Demand for our product is probably as high as it has ever been — the more liquid we can produce, the better.

The online shop is an area where we have real untapped potential and some hard work to do. It hasn’t been prioritised in recent years — a reasonable trade-off while bar margins were strong and demand on our time was high. But the picture is shifting. Bar growth is plateauing, production volume is increasing, and we now have both the capacity and the commercial rationale to put proper resource behind this channel.

Coffee Shops — New Cut and Commune

We brought both New Cut Coffee and Commune Café formally into the group in 2025. New Cut has operated consistently for several years and continues to perform quietly and reliably. Commune had a slower start than we’d hoped, but trade is growing as the offices above fill up, and we’re encouraged by the direction of travel.

These are modest businesses with modest margins, and we’re working hard to improve their contribution. The focus in 2026 is on making both venues as strong as they can be — on the quality of the offer, the consistency of service, and what they add to the group as a whole.

Pizza — A Focused Development Project

Across almost every part of the business, 2025 was a year of growth. Pizza is the exception. It is not in sharp decline, but unlike the rest of our operation, we are not seeing the upward traction we would expect — and that requires us to act. It is one of the most important development projects for us in 2026, and we want to be straightforward with you about the thinking behind it.

The teams at both the Brewpub and Renato’s are doing a great job — that is worth saying clearly at the outset. The challenge is not one of effort or execution. It is structural, and it comes from two directions.

The first is competition. Bristol has seen a significant influx of specialist pizza operators over the past two years — dedicated pizza restaurants, not beer venues that also sell pizza. The market has become meaningfully more crowded, and the bar for what customers consider best-in-class has risen sharply.

The second is the broader shift away from exclusively vegan and vegetarian menus. The wave of enthusiasm for specialist vegan venues that crested a few years ago has receded materially — most of those venues in Bristol have now closed or pivoted. Customers increasingly want to eat somewhere that works for everyone at the table, regardless of diet. Being a vegan and vegetarian only offer means that for a significant proportion of potential customers, choosing us involves a compromise. That is a structural disadvantage, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

We have set ourselves a clear ambition for the first half of 2026: to make our pizzas best in class. It is the same bar we have always set for our beer, and we believe we have got there with that. We want the pizza to sit alongside it. That means going back to fundamentals — the dough, the fermentation, the ingredients, every element — and working through it properly with our head chefs and kitchen teams. A number of pizzas have already been reworked, and that development will continue over the next few months.

Part of that process involves an honest look at the menu itself. We are currently exploring whether a small, selective introduction of meat — sourced exclusively from local producers whose provenance and values align with ours — could genuinely elevate certain dishes. We are not at the point of confirming that yet. We will only go there if we can taste it and truly believe it makes the pizza better. This is not a retreat from our ethics; it is an honest response to the market, handled in a way we can stand behind fully.

The goal is to reach a point where we can sit around the table with what we’re serving and have genuine, unqualified confidence that it is as good as anything else in the city. Both sites have real potential. Once the product is where it needs to be, the next phase is getting out and telling people about it.

We Back Bristol

One of the things I’m most proud to share at this AGM is our transition from B Corp to a new community impact model we’ve co-founded: We Back Bristol.

B Corp was a worthwhile framework, and we’re glad we pursued it. The policies it drove through our business — around people, environment, and governance — made us better, and those foundations remain in place. But two things became clear over time. First, our customers didn’t recognise it. The B Corp brand has been diluted by businesses using it for greenwashing purposes, and the certification simply wasn’t landing with the people we serve. Second, and more fundamentally, B Corp isn’t really what we want to be.

What we want to be is a business that is laser-focused on Bristol. Every pound of social and environmental effort we put out into the world, we want going into this city and this community. B Corp couldn’t give us that. We Back Bristol can.

What is We Back Bristol?

We Back Bristol is a collective of independent, Bristol-focused businesses who each commit 1% of their annual revenue to local community causes. Contributions take three forms: cash (distributed via Quartet Community Foundation), donated assets, and gifted staff time.

LHG and Bristol Beer Factory are the founding partners. BBF’s Brewed to Give initiative has been a pioneer in this kind of giving — on track to raise £1m for Bristol charities in four years. We look up to them, and we’re proud to be building this together.

The ambition is to grow We Back Bristol into a movement that mobilises independent businesses across the city — and ultimately beyond. We believe wholeheartedly that this model could be replicated in other cities: We Back Manchester, We Back Leeds, We Back Liverpool. It starts here, with us, in Bristol.

Full details are available in the accompanying deck. We hope you’ll share our enthusiasm for what this can become.

Download the We Back Bristol Overview (PDF)

Shareholder Discount Upgrade

Eight years on from the crowdfund. You’ve watched this business grow from a contract brewery into a brewery, a brewpub, a group of bars and coffee shops — through some hard years and some very good ones. We think about that a lot. The discount you receive when you walk through our doors is one of the ways we acknowledge that loyalty, and from AGM 2026 we’re making it more meaningful.

The new tiers are simpler and more generous across the board:

• Under £1,000 invested: 10% discount across all venues
• Over £1,000 invested: 15% discount across all venues

The discount applies at all venues: Finzels Reach Brewpub, Small Bar, Renato’s, New Cut Coffee, Commune Café, and the Tap Room. It covers beer, pizza, and coffee — the full range of what we do. And it applies whether or not you choose to take up the share buyback offer detailed separately.

Your investor membership card, AGM invitations, and all other shareholder communications remain in place as before. The upgrade is effective from today.

Shareholder Update & Share Buyback Offer

We want to give you an honest picture of where we stand on shares, valuation, and returns — because these are questions we know many of you carry, and you deserve a straight answer.

Dividends and full share buyback

Our position here is unchanged from the last AGM, and we want to be clear rather than leave you to wonder. We are not yet in a position to offer dividends or to execute a full share buyback programme. To reach that point responsibly, we need our annual EBITDA to be consistently at or above £1m. We have a clear plan to get there — the trajectory is visible in this year’s results — but we are not there yet, and we will not commit to a timeline we cannot stand behind.

A note on valuation

We are often asked what the business is worth, and what that means for your shares. We want to give you a straightforward picture, while being clear that any valuation is an estimate rather than a guarantee. For context: our original Crowdcube raise valued the company at £8.1m, and our last internal share sale in 2023 was conducted at a valuation of £10m. Applying traditional valuation metrics to our 2025 figures — assets plus approximately ten times EBITDA profit — puts the business in the region of £11.5m to £12m. That is a meaningful increase from where you invested, and reflects the real progress the business has made over the past several years.

An exclusive offer for smaller shareholders

While a full buyback programme is not yet possible, we do want to take a meaningful first step — both in providing tangible value to our Crowdcube investors, and in simplifying our cap table, which currently has around 1,500 shareholders on it.

Around 850 of our shareholders originally invested £200 or less. Together, these holdings represent less than 1% of total company ownership. Later in 2026, we intend to reach out to each of these shareholders individually with an exclusive, entirely optional offer: the opportunity to sell their shares back to us at double the value of their original investment, redeemable as vouchers across any of our venues or our online shop. So if you invested £200, you would receive £400 to spend on beer, pizza, coffee — whatever you like.

There is no cash option — this is only possible for us to offer in voucher form — and there is absolutely no pressure to take it up. If you choose to hold your shares, we respect and welcome that entirely.

If you do choose to sell, you will retain everything that comes with being part of the LHG community: your shareholder discount in our venues and web shop, your investor membership card, and your invitation to future AGMs and shareholder communications. What changes is simply your position on the cap table. We hope that feels like a fair deal — and one that reflects how much we value the people who backed us in the early days.

We will be in touch directly with eligible shareholders later in the year with full details of how to participate.

2026 Outlook & Forecasts

We have forecast EBITDA profits in excess of £750k for 2026 — a significant step towards our overall target of £1m. We’ve had a positive start to the year. It’s still early, but we’re quietly confident.

The priorities are clear:

• Maximise production output from both breweries — demand for our product is as high as it has ever been
• Deliver a step-change on the pizza offer across both the Brewpub and Renato’s
• Improve efficiency at every bar and café site
• Continue growing our wholesale and online channels
• Build and launch We Back Bristol properly

We’re operating in a tough economic environment. The sector headwinds are real, and we’re not immune to them. But we’re focused, we know what we’re doing, and our core business is strong.