Silvertop Unibrew

Silvertop Unibrew (Silvertop United Breweries NV) is a Dutch-Finnish   and  company, with legal headquarters in Amsterdam and operational headquarters in. While currently not the #1 largest, they are one of the largest brewing and soft drinks companies by brand portfolio and breweries.

It operates as a division of Vuori, a holding company and venture capital firm founded by Silvertop's co-founder Kasperi Salovaara.

History
Silvertop Unibrew started its life as Silvertop Brewery, a Lappeenranta-based brewery he founded with Martin Glass as a side business to Salovaara Ventures Group. They started out brewing IPA and cider, but soon found their niche in quirky products, such as Lizard Spit and Not Too Cola But Just Enough, which were under the Silvertop brand. In addition, Silvertop also sold beverages such as an elderflower and lemon soda.

The name "Silvertop" came from Salovaara himself, when he was browsing around grocery stores and noticed many microbreweries selling cans with silver tops. The name worked, as it had the branding already integrated into it, utilizing the usual "indie brewery" silver top as part of its image. "Goldtop" was suggested as an alternative brand, but was shot down quick after both Kasperi and Martin figured they wouldn't have any idea how gold coloured cans would work.

They struck deals with Tsingtao Brewery Company and Asahi Group to distribute each other's products in Finland and Asia (as Salovaara had an affinity with Asian culture, especially drinks and food), as well as with Hartwall, Inex Partners and Altia for additional distribution and production. As an addition to Silvertop's products, Silvertop also sold rye bread (Silvertop Bread), made under a collaboration with local bakeries using the yeast from Silvertop's brewery.

Silvertop's first expansion included the acquisitions of Latilan Wirvoitusjuomatehdas in Finland, ThaiBev in Asia, and Constellation Brands in the United States, as well as new deals with AmBev and Grupo Modelo to expand to South America.

Around the time Vuori Oy was established, Salovaara and Oliver Watson engaged on an acquisition spree for breweries and wineries, aiming to both establish OWL as a leader in fine drinks and expand Silvertop Brewery to a powerhouse. OWL Drinks opted to acquire the rest of the operations that Silvertop couldn't acquire. This would see both companies acquire Heineken International; with OWL Drinks taking on the assets in Benelux, Germany, UK, Brazil, Mexico and USA, and owning Heineken Asia Pacific as a joint venture with Vuori.

During the spree, Silvertop Unibrew sold Carling Brewery and Molson Brewery to OWL Breweries.

Collaborations
By then, Silvertop announced a collaboration with Fazer, which also had a factory located in Lappeenranta, announcing Fazer Marianne mint chocolate flavored cream liqueur, which were limited time only and available through Silvertop's own website as well as Fazer's stores in their factories. It received positive to mixed reception. Their collaboration with Lehmus Roastery of Lappeenranta, announced at the same time, saw them selling a limited edition coffee cola soft drink under Silvertop's flavor name "Skinnarila", taking its name from a quarter of Lappeenranta which was most associated with student life and work culture, due to it housing institutions such as the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology. It ended up becoming one of Silvertop's staple flavors.

Marketing
In addition to quirky products and smart deals with big companies, Salovaara also was in charge of its marketing, which set itself apart from its microbrewery competitors - their ads alternate between serious-toned cinematic and artistic short films and short surrealistic ads a la Budweiser. Many ads for Silvertop Unibrew products since the beginning were either produced, written and/or directed by Salovaara, with one of the notable exceptions being the Super Bowl ads, as he allowed the creative visions of "more disadvantaged creators [such as BIPOC and physically disabled] to drive" the ads instead.

Their Twitter was also regarded as a "down-to-earth" brand account, tweeting out surreal tweets (which resulted in comparisons to @dril and pukicho) as well as employing an AI to randomly generate new product ideas - which, with enough votes and meeting certain expectations such as safety in consumption, became limited edition items. This generated a few limited edition flavors, such as Banana Cider with a Hint of Peanut Butter and Bacon.

Global operations
Silvertop Unibrew grew from its original Finnish base into a global company with operations in both developed markets and emerging economies such as Eastern Europe, China and India. It is one of the world's largest brewers, with brewing interests and distribution agreements across six continents.

Their European Union operations are held under the Eurobrew umbrella.