More than 100 jobs go as brewer Innis & Gunn is bought by Tennent's owner

More than 100 jobs will be lost after Scottish craft beer company Innis &Gunn was bought out of administration by the owner of Tennent's Lager.

C&C Group has acquired the rights to the Innis & Gunn name and intellectual property in a £4.5m deal.

All 105 staff employed at Innis & Gunn's pubs in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee and its brewery in Perth will be made redundant.

The brewer was founded in the capital by Dougal Gunn Sharp in 2003.

Sharp said he was "deeply sorry to everyone affected - particularly my colleagues who have lost their jobs and the shareholders who believed in what we were building" and described it as a "very difficult day".

He added: "I'm immensely proud of everything our team achieved together, creating a distinctive Scottish beer brand enjoyed by customers at home and around the world.

"While this outcome is not what any of us hoped for, I'm glad the brand has found a home with C&C Group. We've worked closely with the team for many years and they have the scale, distribution and experience to take Innis & Gunn forward."

It comes days after Aberdeenshire-based craft beer giant BrewDog was sold to US firm Tilray in a £33m deal.

Its co-founder, James Watt, apologised to staff and investors after hundreds of jobs were lost and thousands of people who had invested in its "Equity for Punks" scheme lost out.

Innis & Gunn also operated a crowdfunding model which allowed it to buy the Inveralmond Brewery in Perth in 2016, raising more than £3m.

In 2018, the firm announced plans to build a new brewery in Edinburgh.

It previously used Tennent's Wellpark Brewery as part of a contract-brewing deal and sold 8% of the company to C&C Group in 2021.