ISSUE 111 WIN T ER 2 0 1 9
LOCAL HEROES BLACKEDGE BREWERY’S RECIPE FOR SUCCESS THE ITALIAN WAY
UNIONBIRRAI’S SIMONE MONETTI
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EDITOR'S COMMENT
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE WORDS MATT ELEY PHOTOGRAPHY DOUGLAS BARCLAY
WELCOME
TO THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE SIBA JOURNAL FOR 2019! The Christmas tree decorations are up and the local pubs are full of party-goers enjoying the beers of the season as we are putting the finishing touches to this issue – but by the time you read this you will be well into January and looking to the year ahead. There is no doubt that there are challenges ahead this year for all small brewers, and SIBA is very much focused on supporting you, protecting your business and promoting independent craft brewers’ beers as the right choice for consumers. Our CEO Mike Benner offers an overview of what some of the key issues are in the current market and how SIBA is working to address them in his column on page 7 in this edition, and our Chairman Ian Fozard follows this on page 8 with his thoughts on how small brewers can fight back against some of the market forces at play. The key message I took from both pieces is the strength SIBA has in its membership, fighting together against threats like the growing monopoly big brewers have on the bar in a shrinking pub market. This strength in numbers is always evident at SIBA’s annual BeerX UK event, when this year we will be running a series of workshops focusing on supporting our Brewing Members in producing the best beer they can and growing their business (see pages 63-69 for a preview of the event and visit www.beerx.org for all the latest details). Getting so many of our members together in Liverpool again in March to debate and discuss these vital issues is essential to the work SIBA does and I look forward to seeing many of you there this year and hearing more about your challenges and successes. Elsewhere in this issue we have introduced a new section for 2019, Around the World, where we will be interviewing a different International brewer each issue (see pages 40-45). For the first feature we met up with one of the three Ek brothers from Sweden, Fredrik, who runs a unique small brewery, Brekeriet, in the south of the country that uses only wild yeasts and bacteria Society of Independent Brewers PO Box 136, Ripon, North Yorkshire HG4 5WW Tel: 01765 640 441 www.siba.co.uk Email: riponoffice@siba.co.uk
in its range of all-natural beers. He gave us an insight into the family-run operation and the complex Swedish market in which it operates. If you have collaborated with an International brewer, or know of one you think would make an interesting subject for an upcoming Around the World feature then please do put them in touch with me at caroline.nodder@siba.co.uk. In this issue we also caught up with Blackedge Brewery’s Wayne Roper, who built his operation from scratch after being inspired by the beer scene in Portland in the US (see pages 46-53). While keeping it local, the brewery has thrived, and recently swept the board at SIBA’s North West Beer Competition, taking home a really impressive nine awards! Elsewhere, we visit Italy this issue for our Big Interview, with Simone Monetti, the Operational Director of SIBA’s Italian counterpart Unionbirrai (see pages 34-39). He told us about some of the similar challenges faced by small brewers in Italy but also some of the differences in their market where under 3.5% of beers production comes from the small craft end of the market. Our Meet the Brewer for January is with Steve Stewart of Stewart Brewing, who is a shining light of the Scottish region (see pages 23-31), and we also include our usual regular update on SIBA’s activity on your behalf in Westminster (see page 17), and the Members’ Views section where in this issue we asked for your thoughts, both good and bad, on SIBA’s beer competitions and where you felt we should be improving them (see pages 18-21). Please keep those press releases, updates, news and views coming in to me at caroline.nodder@siba.co.uk, and feel free to add me to your press release or media distribution lists - with our new look Supplier and Brewery News sections we have plenty of room in each issue for all your latest updates. Happy reading!
Caroline
CAROLINE NODDER EDITOR, SIBA JOURNAL caroline.nodder@siba.co.uk
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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WIN T E R
CONTENTS
2019 ISSUE 111
GUEST COLUMNIST
MEMBERS’ VIEWS
SIBA BREWERS’ NEWS
CASK REPORT EDITOR MATT ELEY ON LESSONS LEARNED
YOUR THOUGHTS ON IMPROVING SIBA’S BEER COMPETITIONS
ALL THE NEWS AND VIEWS FROM YOU, OUR MEMBERS
PAGE 33
PAGE 18-21
PAGE 79-91
NEWS 9-15 70-73 79-91 93-101
FEATURES
SIBA NEWS
18-21
All the news from SIBA HQ
REGIONAL BEER COMPETITIONS The winners from the North West and Scottish regions
SIBA BREWERS’ NEWS
34-39
The latest from our Brewing Members around the UK
SUPPLIER NEWS
40-45
News and views from SIBA’s Supplier Associate Members
COMMENT 7
23-31
46-53
CEO’S UPDATE
Mike Benner on fighting back against the big brewers
SIBA MEMBERS’ VIEWS
Our members have their say on improving SIBA’s Beer Competitions
MEET THE BREWER
Steve Stewart, founder of Scotland’s Stewart Brewing, on his journey into beer
THE BIG INTERVIEW
Simone Monetti, the head of Italy’s small brewers’ association Unionbirrai, talks all things Italian
AROUND THE WORLD
In this new section we meet Sweden’s Brekeriet Beer
BUSINESS PROFILE
We feature Blackedge Brewery which took home an incredible nine awards at the recent SIBA Beer Competition
55-59
BUSINESS BACK OFFICE
Advice on law, marketing and social media
8
CHAIRMAN’S COMMENT
63-69
BEERX UK PREVIEW
17
THE VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER
74-77
GOLD MEMBERS
33 61
Ian Fozard talks tactics in the current market
Our regular political update
GUEST COLUMNIST
Matt Eley, the Editor of the Cask Report, on the future for cask
TECHNICAL FOCUS
Brewlab’s Dr Keith Thomas looks at the difficulty with diastaticus
102 105
All the details of this year’s show
Brewers Select and Premier Systems
GOLD & SILVER MEMBERS Listing of our key sponsors
MEET THE SIBA REGIONS
Introducing two of SIBA’s regional representatives
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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CEO’S UPDATE
FIGHTING TOGETHER TOWARDS SUCCESS Our Chairman’s column on page 8 in this issue reports on the October Budget and provides some useful advice for smaller brewers to consider when facing up to the challenges of today’s market place. These challenges are the most important thing to our members and therefore the drivers of what SIBA does as a trade association. Many of you will have picked up the news around the ONS report on pubs in November. It makes for quite depressing reading, indicating 11,000 pubs have closed their doors for good since 2008. Most of these are small pubs, which usually translates to the wet-led locals that provide important outlets for local brewers. Turnover in the trade has stayed more or less the same, suggesting that pubs are getting bigger and rightly diversifying their offer. Pubcos are diversifying their estates too in response to regulation as well as commercial necessity.
Independent brewers need to fight together to see off the efforts of the big brand owners to capitalise on local craft. This means getting the basics of quality right at every stage, having strong brands and making the money work, but it also needs promoting at every opportunity why pubs must stock local beers from independent brewers, not because we think they should, but because it makes absolute commercial sense; get the local beer offer right and the pub is much more likely to be successful. SIBA can help.
Behind this, consumers still crave everything craft. Our entrepreneurial and innovative members are never complacent and the growth in tap rooms, craft beer bars and micropubs is changing the face of the pubs market forever, bringing new experiences for drinkers and new opportunities for brewers. Long may that trend continue.
Consider SIBA’s research into these issues over the last few years. Half of beer drinkers are now drinking local craft beer. This rises to 61% for 25-34 year olds. 64% care who brews their beer and over half would be more likely to drink the beer if they knew it came from a genuine independent brewer. We also know that people would be more likely to use other outlets such as coffee shops, clubs and restaurants if they stock local craft beers. 56% say they would use bars more if they could enjoy the delights of a local craft beer.
Big brewers are responding to these changes in two ways. Firstly they have established their own craft portfolios combining world brands with cask brands, new own-brand ‘crafty’ keg beers and acquired brands from established craft beer pioneers. It makes, in some cases, for an impressive portfolio and a tempting offer to "INDEPENDENT licensees desperate to squeeze out as much profit BREWERS NEED TO as possible in these tough times. Secondly they FIGHT TOGETHER TO are increasingly tying up the market with soft ties to get their beer on the bar in place of yours. It’s SEE OFF THE EFFORTS quite compelling for licensees and as the market OF THE BIG BRAND continues to free up slowly following the Pubs OWNERS TO CAPITALISE Code it is being tied up in ways which hark back to the 1980s. ON LOCAL CRAFT." SIBA has been involved in the Cask Report since its formation some 12 years ago. This year the report was a ‘reality check’ in many ways, focusing, perhaps a little too much, on the problems with the cask market and what needs to change; serving beer at the right temperature for example. Falling sales have driven this. It’s been a bad year, overall, for cask. As a result, there is much talk in the industry about the need to get quality right, from brewery to glass. I agree. It’s clear that falling cask throughputs need to be managed sensibly to ensure a great pint every time. However, facing a declining market the gloves are off and big brewers are pushing their cask beers, bundled together as part of their craft portfolio, hard as the quality choice, suggesting that ‘range’ is linked to quality and the key is to have more recognised permanent tried and trusted beers. However, to follow this route at the expense of local genuine craft brewed beers would be a grave mistake for the majority of pubs. Today’s beer drinkers are much more beer savvy than the last generation and they demand not just quality but genuine provenance. Big beer can’t pull the wool over the eyes of many and all should accept that getting the range right between local, regional and national makes the pub work better for everyone. Local beers have quite simply moved to the top of the list for many drinkers.
M&C Allegra confirmed that 46% of beer drinkers define craft beer as ‘made by small brewers rather than large corporations’. That can’t be ignored by any retailer, looking to build footfall and sales, at a time when more and more people are drinking at home. Getting the local craft beer offer right is essential.
Last year’s Cask Report also made the consumer case for local craft beer. Licensees and drinkers alike know that the beer scene is more vibrant than ever in that there are so many brewers and many thousands of beers and yet only a quarter of licensees have a ‘special relationship’ with local brewers (it’s worth working on!). Size isn’t everything, but when it comes to craft small is beautiful and consumer research, which seems to be being quietly forgotten by some, is clear on these points. 65% of cask drinkers thing that local brewers lead the way in creating exciting new products and 70% like to support their local brewers. At BeerX UK in March we will publish the first SIBA Independent Craft Beer Report building on our previous annual beer reports. It will strongly make the case for beer from independent breweries as an essential component of a successful retail offer. Book your place at BeerX UK now; it’s going to be a great event. This, together with our Assured Independent British Craft Brewer seal and our Food Safety and Quality Standard, creates a powerful tool chest for us to fight together to ensure we protect and build access to market. It’s going to take our collective might to keep independent local craft beer at the forefront of retailers’ minds.
Mike
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MIKE BENNER CEO mike.benner@siba.co.uk
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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SIBA CHAIRMAN'S COLUMN WHAT SHOULD A SMALLER BREWER DO TO HAVE A CHANCE OF SURVIVAL AND HOPEFULLY PROSPER?
THE SMALL BREWERS’ PARADOX I write this column in early December and, by the time you read it I hope that you will have had a successful Christmas and New Year trading period. In my last column, I looked forward in hope towards the Budget and I think that we can be grateful that our industry’s combined lobbying successfully headed off an increase in beer duty. I believe that this will be a battle we will have to fight every year until the Government realises that the “golden goose” of British beer can no longer keep laying and that beer duty is already set at unsustainable levels. SIBA will continue to strongly represent you in this ongoing campaign. I’m slightly more circumspect about the announcement of a review of Small Breweries’ Relief. I believe that we put forward a strong case as to why the current relief of 50% up to 5,000hl per annum production should be protected in spite of a strong campaign by the Coalition that this relief should be reduced. There is also a strong case that the duty “cliff edge” between 5,000hl and 10,000hl production should be addressed so that the steep tax rise that brewers face as they try to expand above 5,000hl is softened. And there is a strong argument that, even further up the production scale, the rate of duty escalation is still much too punitive for what are still relatively small breweries. We are now in the hands of the Treasury and SIBA will pull no punches in defending the relief our members currently enjoy whilst calling for further reform to compensate for the diseconomies of scale that clearly exist.
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
Looking ahead, it seems to me that our industry is beset by a bizarre set of paradoxes. There is the perception that craft breweries have never had it so good. That is re-enforced by the seemingly never-ending stream of crowdfunding appeals with, what appears to more grounded investors, to be eye-watering business valuations. Yet the reality is that there is a declining UK beer market, the larger retailers are flexing their muscles and demanding reduced prices and access to market is still severely restricted for most small brewers. It is true that consumer interest in craft beer is probably at its highest ever yet it is also true that what the consumer perceives as “craft” is often made by the global and largest national brewers. In reality, more small brewers are currently closing than are opening and many who survive are operating on precariously tight margins. I think that most people would accept the influence of normal market forces if the odds were not heavily stacked against smaller brewers. All too often the larger players are able to buy market share with soft loan ties and the larger pub companies also make it very difficult for smaller brewers to supply their local pubs. So what should a smaller brewer do to have a chance of survival and hopefully prosper in this difficult environment? Firstly I would say that mediocrity will not help you. If you cannot be sure that every cask, keg, bottle or can that leaves your brewery is in perfect condition then you need to review your quality assurance processes. Achieving
a quality accreditation such as SIBA’s FSQ standard or SALSA with Beer will help. But it’s more than just achieving a high standard of hygiene, it’s about fully understanding the brewing process and understanding how faults can arise and how to avoid and correct them. Gaining a recognised qualification can help. Secondly, you need to understand your target markets, what influences them and assess your own chances of success if you choose to enter them. You should also take a critical look at your branding and how you market your beers. Is your brand eye-catching and are you spending your money wisely in promoting it? If necessary, get some professional advice or even ask someone you trust to offer an honest, unbiased, opinion. Finally, you should thoroughly know the true cost of all that you produce so that you are not, inadvertently, selling at a loss. Don’t just treat your accountant as someone who files your tax return. Engage with them and try to understand the financial dynamics of your business. It’s all too easy to under-price your product and sell at a loss. With the global brewers upping their game and muscling in on the craft beer scene you need to be on your toes to succeed and prosper in this tough environment. Good luck and remember SIBA is on your side!
Ian IAN FOZARD CHAIRMAN ian.fozard@siba.co.uk
SIBA NEWS
Nominations open for the SIBA Silver Tankard Lifetime Achievement Award 2019
The SIBA Business Awards 2019,
which will also be presented at BeerX UK, are also open for entries, and seek to highlight the UK’s best independent craft beer businesses, retailers, pubs and restaurants across a broad range of categories.
Last year's Silver Tankard winner John Keeling recieving the award at BeerX UK 2018
SIBA Business Awards 2019: The Categories • Marketing Implementation • Green Business • Business Innovation • Commercial Achievement • Best Individual Design
The SIBA 'Silver Tankard' Lifetime Achievement Award, which celebrates an individual who has, over the course of a number of years, made an outstanding contribution to SIBA, at either a national or regional level, or to the UK brewing industry in general, is now open for nominations.
• Best Concept Design • Supplier Associate of the year • UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Retailer – Multiple • UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Retailer – Single
Candidates need not be members of SIBA and may be nominated by members and non-members alike.
• UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Bar or Pub – City (in Association with Inapub)
Last year’s worthy winner of the Award, which was presented at SIBA’s flagship event BeerX UK in March, was Fuller, Smith & Turner’s John Keeling, the former Head Brewer and now Global Ambassador at the much-loved Chiswick brewery.
• UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Bar or Pub – Rural (in Association with Inapub)
The prestigious award, which is not presented every year and only goes to those deemed truly worthy, has in the past gone to beer and brewing legends such as Beer Author Roger Protz, and George Philliskirk, former Director of the Beer Academy, who both won in 2015. To make your nomination for the Silver Tankard Lifetime Achievement Award email neil.walker@siba.co.uk
• UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Restaurant • Best Independent Craft Beer Promotion – On-trade • Best Independent Craft Beer Promotion – Off-trade For more information see page 69 in this issue and to enter visit www.siba.co.uk/business-awards/ The closing date for entries is 31st January.
The prestigious awards are judged in a blind tasting by brewers and beer experts and seen very much as the brewers’ choice awards in the industry.
Blackedge Brewing Co and Redwillow named best brewers in the North West Blackedge Brewing Co and Redwillow Brewery have been named the best independent craft breweries in the North West, taking home the two top spots at the coveted SIBA North West Independent Beer Awards 2018.
Local favourites Blackedge Brewing Co brew their beer just three miles from the Bolton Wanderers ground where the competition took place, and took home the overall Gold in the cask beer category with their ‘West Coast’ Pale Ale – an aromatic brew featuring punchy American hops . Speaking on behalf of his team was Wayne Roper, Director and Head Brewer, who said: “We’re absolutely delighted, it’s been a tough year in a market that is so saturated and competitive and this is brilliant recognition from ours peers. We’re all about quality, no compromise on ingredients, and we brew full flavoured beers that people want to drink – it’s great to see that shining through to judges in the competition.” Redwillow Brewery in Macclesfield took home the top award in the Bottle & Can competition, winning overall Gold with their ‘Weightless’ Session IPA, a lower strength style IPA with pithy grapefruit and mango flavours. Brewer Mel Mason accepted the award on behalf of the Redwillow team,
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saying: “It’s very exciting to win in a blind tasting against such strong competition. We brew this beer to be balanced, sessionable and flavourful and it’s amazing to know we’re getting it right. The beer started life as a Mosaic pale ale as part of our single hop range but was so popular, it flew out, we had to make it part of our core range! It’s just really juicy and not too bitter, with a great aroma and flavour.” SIBA’s Chief Executive Mike Benner was on hand to present the awards and had this to say on the quality of entries this year: “I was blown away by the standard of brewing on display at the SIBA North West Independent Beer Awards and all of the winners should be hugely proud of their achievement – judges had a really tough job separating out the best of the best. I’d especially like to congratulate Blackedge and Redwillow, who alongside a number of wins in various categories across the competition, also claimed the overall champion Golds – the top awards on offer.” For the full list of North West winners see pages 70 & 71 in this issue, and find out more about Blackedge in our Business Profile on pages 46 to 53.
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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SIBA NEWS
Sinclair & Drygate named best independent craft brewers in Scotland Sinclair Breweries and Drygate have been named the best independent craft brewers in Scotland after taking home the two top spots in SIBA Scotland Independent Beer Awards. The prestigious awards, took place at the Drygate Brewery and Taproom in Glasgow. Sinclair’s ‘Orkney Dark Island Reserve’, a formidable barrel-aged 10% imperial stout with rich chocolate and whisky-like flavours took home the overall Gold in the cask competition and another stout, this time Drygate’s silky smooth 6% milk stout ‘Orinoco’, claimed the Overall Gold in the bottle and can competition. SIBA Competitions Committee Chair Guy Sheppard presented the awards, he said: “The Scottish independent beer awards name the very best craft beers in the country and the standard of entries in 2018 was some of the best we have ever seen. I’d like to congratulate all of the winners and in particular our Overall
SIBA comments on new Scottish Alcohol Strategy Commenting on the Scottish Government’s new alcohol strategy, ‘Alcohol Framework 2018: Preventing Harm – next steps on changing our relationship with alcohol’ Stuart Cail, Chairman of SIBA’s Scottish Region, said: “All independent brewers in Scotland want to work with the Scottish Government to ensure the continued reduction of harmful consumption of alcohol. Scotland is rightly proud of its brewing heritage and its craft brewers, so whilst measures to reduce harmful drinking should be explored, we need to prove they work and don’t impact negatively on sensible drinkers, or
Golds, who fought off tough competition to be named the very best of the best.” Collecting the Overall Cask Gold award for Sinclair Breweries was Commercial Manager Craig Steven, who said: “This is a fantastic achievement and we’re delighted to get the recognition for the hard work that goes into making this beer. It’s a really delicious, complex beer but what makes it so special we think is the balance of flavours that has been achieved. It’s very refined, not too bitter not too sweet, and surprisingly easy drinking for the strength. We’re delighted.” Collecting the Overall Gold in the bottle and can competition was Drygate brewing’s Operations Director Sam Cordon, who said: “It means a huge amount to win this award, it’s the second time we’ve won with this stout and it shows how well it’s received by brewers and beer drinkers. This beer is as complex as it is accessible – it’s got coffee, chocolate, vanilla, and some roasted bitterness – so people who aren’t usually into dark beers love it as it tastes a lot like an espresso Martini, which everybody loves. It’s on the bar right now in the Taproom and we even have a peanut butter version for people to try!”
Ian Fozard presents Craig Steven with the gold award
For the full list of winners from Scotland see pages 72 & 73 in this issue. Ian Fozard presents Matt Corden with the gold award
Scotland’s small brewers and SIBA is particularly keen to help the Scottish Government understand the impact of minimum unit pricing on brewers and sensible consumers after its first two years of operation.” Stuart went on to say: “If the Scottish Government goes ahead with options for mandatory restrictions on alcohol marketing, that would not only affect small Scottish brewers disproportionally, but all small brewers across the UK who sell their beer into Scotland. Whilst bigger, global brewers would more easily be able to adapt, small brewers would struggle to change. We think the vast majority of Scottish consumers know about the beer they are drinking, as well as the risks and benefits. “Recent cases show the ASA and Portman Group codes are working well to protect children and the most
vulnerable in society. In Scotland, beer and pubs supports nearly 60,000 jobs and contributes £1.73bn to the economy.
That would not only affect small Scottish brewers disproportionally, but all small brewers across the UK who sell their beer into Scotland.
They are a key part of Scottish tourism, culture and heritage. We want to work with the Scottish Government to ensure our important sector continues to thrive by promoting the sensible consumption of alcohol in safe, regulated places – like the local pub.”
Are you using the Independent Craft Brewer logo?
We're going to be featuring breweries using the Assured Independent British Craft Brewer logo on the SIBA website, on Social Media and in upcoming press activity, so make sure if you've started using the logo on your bottles, cans, or pumpclips you submit your artwork showing the logo on the SIBA website or through the Brewing in Brief emails – scroll down to the bottom of the email for the link to submit.
For more information contact Neil Walker at neil.walker@siba.co.uk.
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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SIBA NEWS
2) BEER DUTY
How does the Chancellor’s October Budget affect SIBA Members?
Despite fears that the Chancellor was going to raise beer duty with inflation, he instead froze beer duty. This means brewers' biggest cost (next to people) will not rise, and valuable time was not lost having to update software, invoicing and spreadsheets. Commenting, Mike said: “A freeze in beer duty is good news for UK brewers, publicans and beer drinkers. A planned rise in line with inflation would have meant a £100m hit to Britain’s brewers.”
RESULT: SIBA called for a freeze or a cut for the sector. A win.
In October, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond delivered his Autumn Budget. The brewers, drinkers and publicans who emailed their MPs in the weeks before the Budget made a huge difference to the outcome. A big thanks to all SIBA members who engaged and lobbied their MPs 1) SMALL BREWERIES’ RELIEF (SBR)
The Treasury announced that following the conclusion of industry discussions the Government will now lead a review to ‘ensure SBR supports growth in the sector’. All the way through industry talks SIBA has resolutely defended the maximum relief available for all brewers below 5,000hl. SIBA has also pushed for positive reforms of the curve above 5,000hl, removing the ‘cliff edge’ to growth. Commenting on the review, Mike Benner said: “SIBA, as the voice of British Independent brewing will be front and centre in working with Treasury to usher in the next chapter of SBR. We will ensure the smallest breweries are protected, growth is incentivised and the sustainability of UK brewing is the centrepiece of reform.”
RESULT: SIBA is in a strong position to lead positive reform.
Would you like to receive free advice on Trading Standards?
You may be aware that SIBA has entered into a Primary Authority co-ordinated partnership arrangement with Northamptonshire County Council Trading Standards (NCCTS), which enables participating members to receive compliance advice (in a number of regulated areas including food standards, product safety and fair trading) from a single authority, preventing inconsistent interpretation of legal requirements by other local authorities. Advice is supplied free to SIBA Brewing Members.
Supplier Associates:
Get involved!
3) BUSINESS RATES AND THE HIGH STREET
The £1,000 pub specific rate relief, which cost the Treasury around £30m a year is being scrapped, but being replaced instead with a £1.5bn package of measures to support the high street (which includes pubs). All retailers in England with a rateable value below £51,000 will have their business rates cut by a third. That’s an annual saving of up to £8,000 for up to 90% of all independents bottle shops, taprooms, bars, pubs, restaurants and cafés. This £1.5bn package also includes £650m for local councils to help regenerate high streets. If done right, this could help to push people back to the centre of towns and villages, and potentially stop for a pint along the way, too. Mike said: “There was also good news in this Budget via the £1.5bn ‘high street rescue plan’. As the policy only applies in England; brewers, publicans and responsible drinkers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will want their devolved administrations to back this proposal, too.”
RESULT: this package goes further than the extension to £5,000 pub rate relief SIBA called for. Whilst it’s not a permanent solution or a wholesale review on business taxation this will help the sector.
In response to recent queries, SIBA has been able to circulate written advice on beer labelling (legal requirements and best practice), and to pass on advice to a member on a specific query regarding allergens, helping that member to resolve an issue with their local trading standards office. If you have any particular queries concerning the regulated areas outlined above, or think that you may benefit from advice concerning those areas, then why not take part? Simply email membership@siba.co.uk, and let us know that you'd like to become a participating member. Please also tell us if you already have a direct Primary Authority partnership with another Authority, (although this will not prevent your participation), or if you are already a member of a coordinated arrangement. Please note that to comply with regulations, SIBA is required to provide your business name and contact details to the Office for Product Safety and Standards (formerly Regulatory Delivery).
If you are a Supplier Associate Member of SIBA and you are interested in:
• Attending a Regional Forum • Speaking to brewers • Hosting a small exhibition stand • Sponsorship • Presenting a brewing or business seminar
Why not get in touch and find out more about how you can get involved by emailing neil.walker@siba.co.uk? WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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SIBA NEWS
SIBA’s Jaega Wise named Guild of Beer Writers’ Brewer of the Year
The Guild of Beer Writers' coveted Brewer of the Year title, presented in November, was this year shared for the first time by two candidates who drew level in a poll of Guild members: John Keeling, recently retired from Fuller’s, and Jaega Wise, head brewer at Wild Card Brewery and SIBA Regional representative for the South East. Presenting the Awards, Guild chairman Pete Brown said: “Both John and Jaega are worthy recipients. John’s contribution to brewing has been immense, from championing traditional cask ale to
creating contemporary crowd pleasers with craft brewers, while also being an advocate for gender equality in the industry, appointing a woman head brewer to succeed him. “Jaega has not only been producing outstanding beers but has also worked tirelessly to promote beer among the general public and built links with other drinks industries such as wine. Jaega has risen to become one of the most important voices of the industry, and a champion of increasing diversity and promoting equality within it.” The winners were announced at the Guild’s annual dinner held at the Chelsea Harbour Hotel. Guests enjoyed a four-course dinner, with each dish accompanied by a specially selected beer:
Chalky’s Bite from Sharp’s; Fourpure’s Oatmeal Stout; Hopopolata from Marble Brewery; Hogs Back Brewery’s OTT and Dark Island Reserve from Orkney Brewery.
Classified Ads on the SIBA Website Engage with CaskFinder to improve your marketing Cask Marque has launched a new version of its CaskFinder app and is calling on all brewers to engage with this free marketing channel. The CaskFinder app, which promotes the 10,000 Cask Marque accredited pubs, has achieved in excess of 170,000 downloads and is used 60,000 times a month by cask ale lovers, searching for that quality pint in Cask Marque accredited pubs. The new app has approximately 10,000 beer tasting notes from 1,300 breweries and Cask Marque is encouraging brewers to engage with this channel to make sure their brewery and beer tasting notes are exactly how they would like them to be marketed.
How does it work?
If you are not already using CaskFinder in your marketing then simply email Ali@cask-marque.co.uk requesting a login to update your brewery and beer details. You will then visit inapub.co.uk/tradelogin and enter your login details. You simply then click on ‘Drinks’ on the left menu and add and edit your beer details. Then download the CaskFinder app to see how your entries look. Your beer entries will also be logged into the Inapub social connect system, which drives thousands of UK pub websites. When a licensee puts your beer on their bar, they simply select the beers on their Inapub system and the pump clip and tasting notes appear on the pub’s website and social media. The new app also has a Pump Clip recognition function. This allows beer consumers to take a picture of a pump clip and then see what the beer’s tasting notes are. So, it is very important your pump clip images are on the CaskFinder app if you want to benefit. The new CaskFinder app also includes Cask Ale trails for beer-lovers to participate in, beer news and a list of local and national ale festivals. For more information please email Ali@Cask-Marque.co.uk or call 01206 752212.
In the past few months SIBA has been made aware of potential fraudulent activity by 3rd parties, via the Classified section on the SIBA Website. Anonymous persons have contacted a small number of sellers who have advertised equipment for sale on the Classified section of the SIBA website. The nature of the contact is as follows: The owner of the Classified Ad receives an email from what looks to be a genuine email account, offering to send a cheque exceeding the total value of the goods they wish to purchase; the extra amount to pay for shipping which the ‘buyer’ is also to arrange. The Ad owner is requested to cash the cheque and once clear, release the goods to the shipping company. In one incident a seller did cash the cheque which looked to clear, but was then contacted by their bank to advise it was fraudulent. Thankfully the seller did not release the goods. Whilst SIBA does not have control over users contacting sellers due to the website being accessible by the public; we cannot stress enough, the importance of being vigilant when selling and purchasing via the site. Just to reassure you, the majority of transactions are genuine and in fact, are becoming more popular with SIBA Members and non-members. SIBA members can advertise on the Classified Section free of charge, as part of your membership benefits. Whether you have: services to offer, goods for sale, employment vacancies, please do make use of the Classified section there is something for everyone within the industry. Please visit http://www.siba.co.uk/classifieds/ to place Classified Ads or view Ads placed by others. Please contact burtonoffice@siba.co.uk should you have any queries
HMRC Update: Do you store your beer somewhere other than your main business premises? Please take note of a recent (22nd November) update from HMRC to the AWRS Excise Notice 2002 (para 10.4) as follows: "If you use any other premises for storing alcohol [you’re now] required to keep records of these and provide them to HMRC upon request. If you directly deliver or sell alcohol from the storage premises, you must inform HMRC at the very latest by the date you first intend to do this. To make changes, you will need a HMRC Government gateway." For more information sign in to your Gateway account at www.hmrc.gov.uk.
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THE VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER
The View from Westminster In every issue of the Journal James Calder updates you on some of the things that SIBA has been doing in Westminster (and beyond) on your behalf.
Budget
In the Autumn edition of the Journal, I wasn’t very optimistic about the (then) forthcoming Budget. Perhaps with the state of British politics at the moment, it only makes sense to set your expectations low. That way, you can’t be disappointed. But we weren’t disappointed. Far from it. The Chancellor’s Budget was hugely positive. Philip Hammond delivered a surprise freeze in beer duty (but bumped up wine duty) as well as a huge package of measures to support the high street. In its ‘high street rescue plan’ Hammond has cut business rates bills by one-third for retail properties with a rateable value below £51,000. This directly benefits up to 90% of retail properties and will be in place for 2 years from April 2019. This benefits pubs as well as brewery taps, bars and shops. The logic is, if the high street is more vibrant, people might stop in for a pint. It’s good news. Speaking to the Exchequer Secretary Robert Jenrick MP the other night, he said to me that we should all drink to another freeze next year. Same again please, Treasury.
SBR review
All small brewers should be fully aware that buried in the Budget ‘Red Book’ (the document which contains all the detail about taxes and spending) the Treasury announced it would be conducting a review into SBR to ‘ensure it is supporting growth in the sector’. SIBA members should rest assured that we are in regular contact with the Treasury, Ministers and MPs about the review, and how it will be conducted. We’re expecting firm detail to be made public in the New Year. SIBA is sticking to its guns. Mike Benner and I, supported by our expert team are working hard to take SBR into its next chapter. We’d like to see positive reform
above 5,000hl to make it easier to grow. But we’re against any withdrawal of any relief for any small brewer below 5,000hl. There simply isn’t any compelling evidence to do it. Withdrawing relief will threaten and close many professional, viable brewing businesses. We’ll be keeping SIBA members updated regularly with this important campaign as it progresses. At some point, we will also need your help directly, by asking you to write to your MPs. Thanks for all the support so far.
Low alcohol descriptors
We were disappointed to see that the Department for Health and Social Care decided to keep the descriptive terms used on low alcohol beers as they are. This makes no sense and misses an opportunity to give brewers, but more importantly consumers, some clarity. Whether you agree with it or not, the growth in low alcohol beers is likely to continue as some consumers become more conscious, and want an alternative to the usual lime and soda. Full detail of the measures, and the rationale for keeping them the same are on the Government website.
SIBA called for… But they will remain as… Low alcohol – product must be 1.2% ABV or below; Low alcohol – the drink must be 1.2% alcohol by volume (abv) or below and an indication of its maximum abv should be included on the label. Non-alcoholic – be applicable to any products below 0.5% ABV Non-alcoholic – this should not be used in conjunction with a name commonly associated with an alcoholic drink. There is an exception for non-alcoholic wine where it is derived from unfermented grape juice and is intended exclusively for communion or sacramental use. The labelling or advertising of these nonalcoholic wine should make it clear that it is exclusively for such use.
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Alcohol free – also be applicable to any products below 0.5% ABV Alcohol free – this should only be applied to a drink from which the alcohol has been extracted if it contains no more than 0.05% abv, and the products should also include the abv (or state that they contain no alcohol) on the label in order to use the descriptor. De-alcoholised – only applied to products that have undergone that process (and dropped as an approved labelling term) De-alcoholised – this term should only be applied to a drink from which the alcohol has been extracted if it contains no more than 0.5% abv and the product should also include an indication of its alcoholic strength (or state that it contains no alcohol).
Brexit
Sorry, I had to mention the B word somewhere. Whether you voted leave, remain or abstained from the vote, given how chaotic things seem, its often tempting to stick your head in the sand. We are not. We’re ramping up our engagement with politicians in the run up to March 29th. We held a reception in Brussels for MEPs and MPs this month, and Nick Stafford visited Number 10 to discuss the impact of Theresa May’s deal on the brewing sector with Michael Gove MP. We’re also going to be publishing a pack of resources in the next couple of weeks so all brewing businesses are ready. This pack will cover contract law, foreign exchange, employment and workforce and HMRC / customs requirements as well as information on WTO tariffs in a no deal scenario. Keep your eyes peeled on your inboxes. Whatever happens, your trade association will be working hard to make the impact as small (and as beneficial) as possible. James Calder is Head of Public Affairs and Communications at SIBA. He covers political relations, policy and PR for SIBA members. He can be contacted at james.calder@siba.co.uk or on 07934 850250.
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SIBA MEMBERS’ VIEWS
SIBA Beer Competitions In this section of the Journal we ask SIBA Members for their views on a particular topical issue or challenge. We will be asking for your comments via a Toolbox alert each quarter and then printing a selection (as space allows) of your responses here each issue. All the comments and views – both those that make it into print and those that don’t - will be shared with SIBA’s Executive and help inform SIBA’s future strategy decisions. Our topic for this edition is SIBA’s Beer Competitions, and we asked members to give us their thoughts on any issues with
VIEWPOINT
1
Rob Sherwood Managing Director, Yeovil Ales
the current format of the competitions, and suggestions on how we can improve them in the future. For this particular topic we felt it was useful for SIBA to respond to the comments so under each one you will find an update on what SIBA is doing to address each issue. A selection of the views we have received from members are printed in this section – please note these are views personal to the individual quoted and do not necessarily reflect the views of the breweries or companies they work for. Submissions may be edited for length and clarity where necessary.
The SIBA National Conference (BeerX UK) has been held in the very North of England for a number of years and it is a very significant expense and the best part of a week out of the business to travel to Liverpool and be accommodated there. This is by no means affordable as an annual pilgrimage. I already know I do not have the time or desire to commit the money to travel to Liverpool in 2019; therefore I have NOT entered the keg competition, just in case we win it and are then forced to travel to Liverpool! If our cask or bottled beers are successful at The SIBA South West Competition in the spring of 2019, then Yeovil Ales will be committed to Liverpool 2020. In this instance then Yeovil Ales will enter the SIBA Keg Competition for 2020. Yeovil Ales has been trading for 13 years, so I can imagine that smaller and less well established Brewers must find it very hard, if possible, to attend their National Conference in Liverpool. It really depends where they are located. I believe there to be a very strong argument to move the National Beer Competition every year to a new location. This would be fair to all Brewers throughout the UK. I believe the Regions should take turns to host the National Competition.
“As a UK wide organisation SIBA has to consider the geographical location of all of our members when deciding on where to hold our National competition, alongside other considerations such as quality of venue, local amenities (hotels, transport links, pubs etc) and capacity. As you can imagine this doesn’t make choosing a venue an easy decision! Liverpool was chosen as it has excellent transport links to the whole of the UK and the custom built exhibition space meets the needs of BeerX UK at a price which we can make work. That said we have always said that BeerX UK is not set in one location and whilst the member feedback shows the Exhibition Centre Liverpool is a very popular home, we are not against moving in the future and are always on the lookout for bigger and better things for our flagship event.”
Neil Walker, SIBA Head of PR & Marketing
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
SIBA MEMBERS’ VIEWS
VIEWPOINT Stig Anker Andersen Master Brewer & Managing Director, Stonehenge Ales
3
VIEWPOINT
2
SIBA Beer Competitions are SIBA brewers’ opportunity to showcase their beers once a year. Some brewers only brew beers in very few categories. Therefore, I will suggest that all brewers should be allowed to enter four beers of their choice regardless of what category they belong to.
“This is an interesting idea which I’ll raise with the competitions committee at our next meeting. There may be some issues in certain regions with one brewer looking to dominate a style category they excel in, and we have to have the same rule for all regions, but we’ll have a look into this as a suggestion”
Gerald Daniels Proprietor, Crookham Travel
As a beer judge of several years, I have to say that Guy Sheppard's organisation is excellent and every set up looks very proficient. However, the categories introduced of late certainly make it more difficult to compare like for like. Many, faced with, for example, a stout, IPA, strong mild or other type of beer in the same category find it difficult to judge one against another efficiently. I recognise that the introduction of fruit flavours and the like make it more complicated to form categories for judging. I realise that there is not much detail there, but it is a matter which concerns a lot of judges. The publication (of the winners) in the Journal is good but perhaps some press releases via media, could be sent to local newspapers - yes they do still exist in many areas! Most companies do print prize winners pics in the house journal.
“The specialty categories have always judged different beer styles which contain one or more specialty ingredient against each other. However at the beginning of the 2018 regional competition season we split specialty into light and dark categories, to make things easier for judges for the very reason you mention here. So actually the difficulty for judges has been reduced, not increased! In an ideal world you would separate categories for all specialty beer styles (specialty IPAs, specialty stouts, etc) but this is not logistically or practically possible. With regards to sending out press releases to the local papers this is something we already do for every single SIBA competition across the UK. However quality local coverage is certainly an area we’re looking to improve, perhaps by getting more local journos down to judge themselves!”
Guy Sheppard, SIBA Competitions Chair
Guy Sheppard, SIBA Competitions Chair
VIEWPOINT
4
At the SIBA Midlands competition last year there were two main issues with the beer, it was hot, we were in a heatwave but in my opinion all the beer was ruined: 1. All cask beer was flat - temperature wouldn't have helped, but when dispensing by gravity there is really no need to have a soft peg in the cask for more than a few hours to keep as much condition in as possible - someone should be trained in cellar management at beer competitions so this does not happen. 2. All small pack beer was served at room temperature -30°C on that day! How can you judge beer properly when this is the case? Appreciate it's hard to have enough fridges but the beer could be at lease cooled in an ice bath for 15-20min before serving. If SIBA can't look after the beer and ensure it gets to the judges in the best condition possible then brewers will be reluctant to enter and won't support the competitions.
Paul Harwood Birmingham Brewing Company
“ALL SMALL PACK BEER WAS SERVED AT ROOM TEMPERATURE -30°C ON THAT DAY! ”
As Paul mentions, very high temperatures made this a tricky competition, particularly in the days running up to the festival as the heat kicked many of the beers’ fermentation into overdrive, meaning soft pegs were needed to avoid exploding casks! The jacket cooling system at the competition meant that serving temperatures for cask beer at the were actually very good and well within ideal levels, but unfortunately for some beers the damage had already been done. With regards to the smallpack beers being too warm this was an issue at a number of competitions in 2018 and is something we are already actively looking for a solution for. Refrigeration is expensive, but we must do better and ensure that beers are being judged at the temperature they are designed to be drank and that this is consistent across all our competitions, in every region. An issue we are trying to solve!”
Guy Sheppard, SIBA Competitions Chair
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SIBA MEMBERS’ VIEWS
I judge at many of the competitions and thoroughly enjoy them. Here are some suggestions that I think might make them even more relevant for SIBA’s brewing members.
VIEWPOINT
The more brewers we have judging the better, I realise that these guys are busy but having your beers judged by people who are passionate and knowledgeable will add real credibility to being successful. I’ve spoken to a lot of CAMRA judges now too and they are also well equipped for the judging task.
Carl Heron Craft Brewing Sales Manager, Crisp Malt
As a former brewer myself I think that brewers entering their beers would appreciate feedback on why judges have scored their beers in a particular way, be it good or bad. The scoring forms could be adapted to give space for this or the sheet could be double sided.
5
Another suggestion might be to invite members of the Guild of Beer Writers.”
We are always looking at ways to improve the number and quality of beer judges at our competitions. However it is worth remembering that SIBA brewers do not pay to enter these competitions and therefore they are a cost to the trade association, meaning there simply isn’t the budget to pay for judges. For many members of the British Guild of Beer Writers, of which I am a Director, this takes judging at our competitions off the table. The idea of giving feedback to brewers following judging is a good one and something I think we should look into though. Leave it with us!”
Neil Walker, SIBA Head of PR & Marketing
VIEWPOINT
6
We could get paid for our beer even CAMRA can manage that. Also, 95% of our beers at the Eastern Region competition go down the drain - what a bunch of wasters you are!”
Tim Dunford Director, Green Jack Brewery A number of SIBA competitions around the UK are paired with beer festivals which do turn a profit and therefore make members money, i.e. you get paid for the beer. The impetus is on the Regions to make this happen though and in some instances where members were not happy with the quality of care the beer was receiving, at a CAMRA festival for example, we have moved away from them. SIBA centrally don’t have a set policy on this, it depends on the circumstances of each regional competition and whether there is space in the budget to pay brewers for entering. It is also worth remembering that the vast majority of professional beer competitions charge brewers to enter them, as well as requiring you to provide the beer for free.”
Guy Sheppard, SIBA Competitions Chair
MIDDLE OF PUBLICATION It’s the industry’s responsibility to promote sensible drinking. With this in mind and a trend we’re witnessing from customers, is increasing demand for lower ABV beer, so surely the time is perfect for SIBA to introduce a new competition category for lower alcohol beer? Yes, there are alcohol-free beers on the market. But are they the best they could be? Mass produced by big companies in huge factories, in the opinion of the Brentwood team most have little going for them in the flavour department. We don’t believe we’re alone in that view either.
VIEWPOINT
It takes real skill to brew a lower alcohol real ale that is as flavoursome as you’d expect of a higher ABV beer.
Ethan Kannor Head Brewer, Brentwood Brewing Company
7
To produce a product that excites the palate and at the same time has a lower ABV is not as easy as you might think initially. The demands of this challenge would be a true test of a brewer’s skill set and creativity, which is why I think lower alcohol beer would make an ideal competition category. We have already crafted a lower alcohol beer which is totally rammed with flavour and ‘ridiculously drinkable’, BBC1 at 1.5% ABV, so this suggestion is going to sound a lot like self-interest. However, we’re confident it’s a great beer, so we’re happy to take on all comers. Let the competition commence!
Low ABV beers are a huge trend at the moment and something which can only be a good thing for drinkers looking to reduce their alcohol consumption, or who are driving. The issue with introducing a new category for low ABV beers may be that in some regions there aren’t enough to make it work, however a stepping stone to this could perhaps be including low ABV beers into the specialty categories, where beers are judged on their own merit to style. Another idea to raise at our next competitions committee meeting!”
Guy Sheppard, SIBA Competitions Chair
WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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MEET THE BREWER
STEVE STEWART, STEWART BREWING BREWER'S CV: art, Steve Stew Stewart Brewing
ee in Brewing & 1989 - 1993 – Degr -Watt University, Distilling, Heriot nd Edinburgh, Scotla ion ect to re-commiss 1993 – 1995 – Proj rd, ya ne ill, La Mare vi a calvados pot st lands Jersey, Channel Is gy & ers Degree in Ener 1995 – 1996 - Mast nian do nce, Glasgow Cale Environmental Scie w, Scotland University, Glasgo aschu er (part-time), Gl 1995 - 1996 - Brew Scotland Brewery, Glasgow, Bass ing Team Leader, 1996 - 1997 - Brew d Northern Irelan Brewery, Belfast, atical at Harpoon 1996 - 1997 - Sabb US Brewery, Boston, nical Brewer, Bass 1997 – 2000 - Tech g breweries includin Brewery, various en England, th Burton Upon Trent, ll, Brewer at Cape Hi t or Filtration Supp d Birmingham, Englan ser er & Drinks Purcha 2000 - 2002 - Be & s in the Mitchell for Bass Brewery on Butlers pub divisi Owner and Founder, 2003 – present – nd Edinburgh, Scotla Stewart Brewing,
Steve Stewart’s love affair with brewing began at the tender age of 16, with an innate interest in science and a homebrew kit from Boots, and has not wavered since. With a degree in both brewing and distilling he started out his career on an unusual project to re-commission an old WW2 pot still to make calvados, but was soon back on the path to beer with roles at a tiny brewery in Glasgow, the Glaschu Brewery, and later Bass during the heydays of Caffrey’s at their brewery in Northern Ireland. A sabbatical from Bass in the late 1990’s at Harpoon Brewery in Boston in the US, just when the craft brewing revolution was starting up over there, inspired plans for his own operation, which took six more years to come to fruition in the founding of Stewart Brewing in 2003 with his wife Jo. Stewart Brewing has grown from a small local micro-producer into a 12,000hl brewery which has national and now international distribution, but has kept very much rooted in its local market and founding ethos of quality, service and having fun. Caroline Nodder from the SIBA Journal spoke to Steve to find out more about his journey and the inspiration behind Stewart Brewing…
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Continued on page 25 SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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MEET THE BREWER
I REALLY ENJOYED THE FACT YOU CAN MAKE GOOD BEER FROM UNDERSTANDING THE SCIENCE - IT JUST SEEMED TO BE A FANTASTIC FIT FOR ME.
There’s a storm blowing through Edinburgh when I catch up with Steve Stewart in the last week of November, but while three days of torrential rain may have done nothing for the brewery car park, they have certainly not dampened Steve’s obvious passion and enthusiasm for a sector he has been a part of since he was 16. Growing up with a keen interest in science, his first experiences as a teenage homebrewer have inspired a lifelong love of beer and the process of brewing. “I started brewing when I was a kid really,” says Steve. “I was about 16 years old, and I started brewing with a homebrewing kit from Boots. I always thought that it sounded like a good way to earn a living so when I was trying to work out what I wanted to do at University I found out you could do a degree in brewing and distilling at Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh. Having loved homebrewing I thought I’d learn a bit about the science behind it, and I totally enjoyed the course at Heriot-Watt. I really enjoyed the fact you can make good beer from understanding the science – it just seemed to be a fantastic fit for me.” After three years at Heriot-Watt, still with a career in brewing in mind but not wanting to join what he calls the ‘big beer factories’, a very unusual opportunity presented itself in the Channel Islands which saw Steve make use of the distilling side of his studies. “I ended up after University at a place in the Channel Islands, a vineyard,” he explains. “They were making cider, and
had this amazing 200-year-old calvados pot still. It was last used to distil apple brandy for the troops when they liberated the Channel Islands back in 1945, and these guys in Jersey had found and commandeered this old pot still made out of copper but didn’t know how to use it. So I went down there to use my distilling knowledge to run a project to recommission the still and make it work.” The project not only gave him an insight into the process of commisioning a pot still but also an appreciation of working within a small business, and the idea of eventually setting up on his own was born. “It was a really nice family business, the La Mare vineyard, with only maybe 18 or 20 employees, and at that time I got the idea that maybe I’d like to start my own business, because these guys seemed to have a great life!” he laughs. “They worked the morning then drank plenty of wine at lunchtime, and relaxed in the afternoon. Little did I know, and how naïve I was!” Naïve perhaps, but still ambitious and keen the learn more about the science behind setting up a business, in 1995 Steve moved back up to Scotland, and to Glasgow Caledonian, where he did a Masters in Energy & Environmental Science, a move that saw him meet not only his future wife but also make his first foray into brewing proper with a part-time job to fund his studies. “I had a keen interest in sustainable development and trying to understand the impact on the environment,” he says. “I was never moving away from brewing but I thought I’d like to understand that aspect a bit more. And while I was there I met my wife, then girlfriend, Jo, and I
WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
also met Bruce and Scott Williams. I had taken a part-time job to fund my course at one of their breweries called the Glaschu Brewery.” Meeting Jo and the Williams brothers and learning more about the practical side of a brewing operation fanned the flames of Steve’s own ambitions and by then he already had a rough design for his own brewery, but not the cash to make it more than a dream at this stage. Having sworn off working for the ‘big beer factories’, Steve was now approached with an opportunity to work for one of the biggest – Bass Brewers – and felt the time was right to experience that side of the sector. “At that time Caffrey’s Irish ale was doing really well, and they called me up and asked if I was interested in a job, I said, well not really,” he laughs. “But they offered me an interview for a job over in Northern Ireland because they were literally running out of Caffrey’s. Having said I would never work for a big beer factory I ended up going for the interview and got the job at Bass Belfast. I actually really enjoyed it. I enjoyed working in a bigger brewery and being able to apply brewing science on a bigger scale. I was able to make a good amount of money and Bass were a great company for investing in people. They put a lot of effort into funding you through your brewing exams, so I continued my professional development to the Diploma Master Brewer exam at the IOB. I didn’t really enjoy the shift work but it was a fantastic learning experience.”
Continued on page 27 SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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Having done a year at Bass, the opportunity arose for Steve to travel to the US for a sabbatical with Harpoon Brewery in Boston – a chance he jumped at. The experience turned out to be life-changing, introducing him to an American craft beer scene that in the late 1990’s was just starting to explode. “My first experience at Harpoon was a huge Oktoberfest, with about 2,000 people at the brewery, with amazing beers, and the whole vibe and atmosphere was incredible – their philosophy is ‘love beer, love life’,” says Steve, who was blown away by the attitude of small American brewers to experimentation and quality. He adds: “It was just at a time when my own thoughts had started crystallizing and I loved the way these guys were doing it. They were probably right at the start of the American beer revolution – ’96 or ’97. In America you had all the brewers’ journals and the support they had as an industry, the technology, the latest equipment, I just loved the American culture of wanting to take European beers and make them better. It was a real eye-opener for me.” Calling in reinforcements as his plan started to take form, wife Jo joined Steve in the US and the idea for Stewart Brewing was born during a trip to Rhode Island – although it would take another six years for it to come to fruition. Meanwhile, now back in the UK, Steve continued his career with Bass as a Technical Brewer at their Burton site, and then as a Filtration Technical Support Brewer at their Cape Hill Brewery. Following the Interbrew deal in 2000 he then had the chance to move over to the Mitchells & Butlers pub division team.
Seeing this as his chance to experience the commercial side of the beer market, Steve took the role as a beer buyer. “If you’re going to start a business you need to know how the industry works commercially, and if you’re brewing beer you need to be able to sell it,” says Steve. “I was a beer purchaser for Mitchells & Butlers and before I left I was purchasing all drinks for the group. I got to meet all the beer guys, everyone who was trying to sell you beer, and it gave me an understanding of the whole beer market.” Two years on, and still with the idea of launching their own brewery in mind, Steve and Jo had plans for an extended round the world trip to visit some of the key players in the international brewing market. But a serious illness in the family meant they cancelled the trip and decided to move back to Edinburgh to be closer to their family. Steve left Bass after six years, and the couple decided to re-route the £20K they had saved for their travels into building the brewery they had planned back in Rhode Island. “We used the money to build our first brewery at the end of 2003, start of 2004. The initial batches of our beer were brewed with Bruce and Scott Williams at their brewery because we had stayed in touch with them, and they helped us get a foot on the ladder,” says Steve. “Then we built the brewery on a site on an industrial estate in Edinburgh about 400yds from where our current brewery is. It was a 10bbl brew kit cobbled together from tanks that were previously used for Irn Bru. We did everything ourselves and tried to put together a brewery based on quality and good materials.”
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The ethos behind the newly launched Stewart Brewing business was rooted in the American scene Steve had loved, and first and foremost was quality, service and having fun. Steve explains: “There had been a few breweries come and go during the ‘90’s and Edinburgh especially used to be a great centre for brewing, but at that point only Caledonian and Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) were left and ironically then S&N closed Fountainbridge brewery just after we opened up. So for us it was about being a local brewery for Edinburgh and celebrating Scotland’s great brewing heritage and keeping that going. But we wanted to do it in a modern way. We wanted to make sure our brewing processes and what was behind our beer was as advanced scientifically as we could afford. We also had ideas for lots of different beers – but what we needed to do in a marketplace which was pretty traditional was not only to get people to try our beer once, but to get them to drink it again and again. Which means so much effort has to go into quality and consistency. We focused on a small number of beers and tried to do them really well.” Stewart Brewing started small, but quickly built up a local following, not least because they were early adopters of re-fillable growlers which locals would come and fill straight from the brewery tanks.
Continued on page 29 SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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MEET THE BREWER
WE GREW A FOLLOWING OF LOCALS WHO WOULD COME TO THE BREWERY SHOP AND BUY FRESH BEER.
“We never had a lot of money for a marketing budget so we grew a following of locals who would come to the brewery shop and buy fresh beer,” says Steve. “We started with a brewery that we felt could do 5,000hl a year, but in the first year we must have brewed 500hl so we were tiny. We stuck to our principles of quality and service, and to try and enjoy it and have fun – there are few better ways of making a living that brewing beer - but we did have to turn it into a living so we constantly reinvested and built the brewery up to deliver the 5,000hl.” The initial site reached breaking point in 2010 when they were working two shifts and weekends and using the carpark to refill and wash casks. This stifled their creativity, with no time to create new recipes or experiment, and Steve began the search for a new site where they could expand the operation. “A plot of land came up that was the last plot of land available on the estate,” says Steve, who had to jump on the opportunity or risk moving further afield and losing his now 2,000 strong local following. “We spent all our money on the site in 2011, and then had no more money to build a building on it, so we saved up a bit more and we managed to raise some more finance and built the building in 2012. Then we ran out of money again so we picked up and moved the entire brewery one August day in 2013 from the old brewery to the new building – we finished brewing on a Friday and started brewing again on the Monday in the new place. So we had a nice new building but all the old equipment.” Over the next few years Steve continued to reinvest every penny he could in the business, and the new site now has a
new brewhouse, tanks and an established shop and tap room with the local following growing from 2,000 to 7,000 regular local customers, many of whom still come to have their growlers filled on site. It also now boasts the innovative Craft Beer Kitchen, a small brew kit which can be used to brew experimental beers but can also be used by customers wanting to come and try their hand at the craft. “We put quite a lot of effort into developing the Craft Beer Kitchen, which is like an experimental brewery that brewers use for developing new recipes, but we also use it for customers who can come in and brew their own beer. It works really well. We have also got the brewery shop, we have 18 taps, and we are investing a lot in that retail side of the business now,” says Steve, who has also opened a brewery tap room outpost in the creative Leith area of the city called the Dockside Inn, a small site with 10 lines of Stewart Brewing beers and guests. The brewery is brewing 12,000hl a year now annually and that is continuing to grow in what Steve describes as a balanced way – split between local trade, national distribution in Scotland, export and retail. The beer range has grown over the years, but some of the beers from the very start remain. Steve says: “We still brew the likes of Edinburgh Gold (4.8% Golden Ale) which won SIBA Supreme Champion back in 2007, which was an amazing award for us back then, and those awards really helped in terms of getting recognition for the quality beers we were producing. We still have a core range of cask ales that sell very successfully, but the ones that are in real growth for us are the ones like Radical Road (6.4% Triple Hopped Pale
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Ale), First World Problems (6.2% Belgian IPA) and Cascadian East (5.4% American Pale Ale). We tend not to categorise our beers into core, or special, we like to brew some experimental beers – like our Project 7 beers where the brewers can pretty much experiment with anything they want - we brew these as one-offs and then have to do them again and again! Recently through Project 7 we did a cucumber and seaweed Gueuze and we’ve got a Brut IPA scheduled to come out soon.” Steve’s obvious passion for allowing the people within his business to experiment and find their own niche and also his interest in training and education throughout his career led him to partner with Heriot-Watt on the Natural Selection programme which is now in its nineth year. The programme gives four students every year the chance to work at Stewart Brewing to design their own beer, market it and sell it and it has produced 36 alumni who are now working at breweries across the world, something Steve is rightly proud of. “It is a fun thing and is a win win for the student, the University and Stewart Brewing. People now come to Heriot-Watt because of the Natural Selection project which is really exciting,” says Steve. Looking back over the decade and a half since Stewart Brewing was founded a lot has changed in the beer market and I ask Steve how he feels about the current market and the increasing competition within it. He is unerringly positive as ever about what that growth has brought to the UK market.
Continued on page 31 SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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BEERS
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SPIRITS
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MEET THE BREWER
IT’S NOT JUST PREDICTING GROWTH BUT LOOKING AT THE RISK OF GROWTH, AND SAYING HAVE YOU GOT THE CONFIDENCE TO SAY THAT YOUR BUSINESS IS GOING TO BE TWICE THE SIZE IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS?
“I absolutely love it – when I look back to when I went to the States back in 1996 and saw the market over there, it was just so engaging and enjoyable and we are on a route to that development of craft beer here. Every couple of years we try to get over to America to the Craft Brewers conference and a lot of our inspiration comes from that West Coast ethos of how to operate your business. That has definitely now come over here massively. The Scottish brewing scene now is just amazing. You’ve got guys like Fyne Ales who have been around for a while but are doing some really incredible stuff, and then new ones like Fierce coming along and doing some wild and wacky beers but with a real passion and enjoyment and I think that’s good for the whole industry. We are trying to get more people to drink and enjoy local craft beer and as the industry has changed it has introduced a whole load of people to beer that might not otherwise have drunk beer so I think that’s a great thing.” So what, if any, challenges does Steve see for Stewart Brewing in the coming months and years? Steve points to the continuing challenges associated with growing a business as being his key focus. His mindset has changed in how he handles growth in recent years as the company has got bigger. “It’s not just predicting growth but looking at the risk of growth, and saying have you got the confidence to say that your business is going to be twice the size in the next two years?” he explains. “Historically we have always hedged this a bit, just said, ‘ok let’s focus on the key metrics and growth will come’, but over the last two or three years we have actually said instead ‘let’s make the investment and give the business the freedom and flexibility to grow’. That has been a fundamental change of mindset for us.” Future growth could well come from outside the UK, with exports already going really well in Italy and France and a recent foray into the emerging Chinese market.
on Edinburgh and local, that was our mainstay, and we were so busy and invested in that we didn’t really have the opportunity to look internationally. But we are starting to do that now. We have got some good national distribution in supermarkets, Sainsbury’s and Lidl have been very useful in helping us gain a more national footprint. And then through that bigger exposure we’ve then found bigger opportunities internationally. So we are now working with a company in France that is taking a lot of beer from us and we have partners in China. We went out to China in October, we were working with some guys at Panda Brew in Beijing – their head brewer and our head brewer actually went to Heriot-Watt together, and they did a collaboration brew called Flying Panda, an oak smoked Scottish Ale. We are now selling that out in Beijing and we are looking at exploring opportunities to do a bit more out there. The problem is it is so vast, everything is on a completely different scale. As a place of opportunity you can’t help but think that if you get this right you could do very well and it could be very good for you – we are just in that place on contemplation at the moment to make sure we get it right.” Whether through export or national and local sales, looking ahead to the rest of 2019 and start of 2020, Stewart Brewing is continuing to grow and is almost at capacity again with its current kit. Steve is now planning a major project to build two new buildings on the current site to increase both brewing capacity and retail. “One building will allow production to expand, with more packaging facilities, and storage. We also have space to put more tanks in,” says Steve. “And then on the other side we are expanding our retail offer – the Craft Brew Kitchen has been very successful so we are looking to double that space and also expand our brewery tap and the destination aspect and visitor’s centre. We will probably be spending around £2.5M on it so that is a big investment for us, we are just putting the finance in place now, but I believe it is right for the business.”
“We were a bit late to the export party,” says Steve. “We were focused purely
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At 12,000hl, Stewart Brewing is already well over the 5,000hl cut-off for Small Breweries’ Relief (SBR), but I ask Steve if as a growing brewery he feels there is a need to address the duty shelf faced by brewers as they grow larger. “There is no doubt about it that SBR was so helpful in us getting started up – breweries who started up before SBR I take my hat off to them for actually being able to make it work,” he says. “I don’t think we would have got to where we have got to without SBR. We are at that awkward stage at the moment where we are chasing the duty escalator so next year’s duty rate will be based on this year’s volume and that can be a scary place to be. You really need to have the confidence to know that your beer is right, your brand it right and your sales and marketing are correct so you can drive through it. I can see why some people would think the 5,000hl cut off was a disincentive to growth, but we never really looked at it like that. I am not sure what the likely outcome of any review could be but it is imperative that there is a support mechanism for small breweries to get established. Clearly they have to then use that money to reinvest in the business, if they don’t then it drives down the price of beer for everyone in the market.” As our interview draws to a close, I ask Steve if there are any trends or any brewers in the market that particularly excite him at the moment and, with a nod to the Scottish brewers both old and new, who he sees very much as driving forward creativity, innovation and quality, he declines to name any one trend or brewer but instead says this, which I think sums up very well his positive outlook on the industry: “I just like the fact people are discovering local breweries. Trends can be very quick to be jumped on and turned into cash but what I really like is that members of the public are discovering that their local brewery can produce some fantastic beer, and are supporting their local brewery. There’s a general mood in the market that I love – brewing is perennially young and when I look at some of the people who are getting into brewing there’s a real excitement about the whole industry.”
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THE CASK CHALLENGE
Matt Eley, the Editor of the latest Cask Report, and former editor of Inapub, looks at what the future might be for the cask sector. There’s a lot of love for cask in the pub and beer world but this hasn’t been translating into sales or a growing fan base of new recruits to the category for quite some time. This was the dilemma we were tasked with confronting when the Cask Report team, including myself and beer writer Pete Brown, started pondering the direction of last year’s report. We were in agreement that simply repeating mantras about how great cask is and how it can drive profits for a pub were not going to make a blind bit of difference to turning around sales that are worryingly underperforming against the rest of the on-trade beer market. For clarity (another issue in itself) the yearon-year decline in cask sales is around the seven per cent mark. We believed the job of the report was to spell out what the situation is before attempting to solve those problems. Focus groups, surveys, and statistics from across the trade all pointed in the same direction: cask has an image problem. Outside of its core drinkers (middleaged men with a few quid to spare) cask is often seen as “dark, strong and old fashioned”. That is based more on perceptions than taste. When people drink cask, by and large, they like it. Getting them to try it in the first place is the challenge. Most people don’t know enough about cask and can be intimidated to order it unless they have guidance from someone in their group with a bit of knowledge, or some help from behind the bar. Too often quality can be inconsistent, and while licensees say they know how to look after their cask and how long they should have
it on for, this doesn’t always translate into reality. Cask fonts also fail to grab the eye in the same way that those shiny, ice-cold lager taps, with the big marketing budgets behind them manage to. Speaking of which, temperature is also an issue that emerged in the report. One of the key findings was that licensees are struggling to serve cask at the recommended temperature of between 11-13. Inspections by Cask Marque in July found that around seven out of 10 pints were served warmer than 13. Things were not much better in January last year when 61 per cent of cask was served outside of the temperature spec. Coupled with this, and perhaps in part due to the success of craft keg products, 64 per cent of the people we surveyed said they wanted cask served cooler than 11. You can see the sense in Sharp’s trialling
MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT CASK AND CAN BE INTIMIDATED TO ORDER IT UNLESS THEY HAVE GUIDANCE FROM SOMEONE IN THEIR GROUP WITH A BIT OF KNOWLEDGE, OR SOME HELP FROM BEHIND THE BAR
GUEST COLUMNIST
Now, as one highly respected brewer pointed out at a recent meeting to discuss how we take things forward next year, you can still get the temperature right and have a poor pint. This is of course true, but it is a starting point and one that generated plenty of discussion about how cask should best be presented and how good it can be when done properly. Cask Marque, whose members fund the Cask Report, has since started the Make Cask Cool campaign. Again, achieving this will take more than getting the temperature spot on. Thousands more inspections are planned, Cask Marque is working closely with corporate members on the issue and information on keeping cask cool is being sent to pubs across the country. A glance at figures from recent inspections shows that much work is still required. In November 80.2 per cent of freehouses were serving cask between 10-14 - good enough for a Cask Marque pass, but there were still 13 per cent above those temperatures. It is a similar story in leased and tenanted (18 per cent above 14) and managed (15 per cent). Clearly lots needs to be done in this area and in improving the image of cask to make it a more tantalising prospect for those at the bar, whatever their age or gender. It is therefore positive news that breweries such as Cloudwater have returned to cask.
Doom Bar Extra Chilled because there appears to be a big gap between what people want and what they are getting when it comes to cask temperature. These figures, along with the fact that the report needed a peg to hang its hat on, were significant enough for us to put a great deal of emphasis on licensees getting the temperature of beer right.
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We hope to have more positive news on the cask category next year as we start to consider the direction of the next report. But to do that the industry needs to respond and tackle the issues that have been clearly identified. We know what the challenges are for cask. Now we need to solve them.
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
THE
BIG
INTERVIEW
In the last issue of the Journal we featured the news that SIBA had joined forces with the independent craft brewing associations of eight other European countries to form a new body, the Independent Brewers of Europe (IBE). This new organisation aims to work to promote and advance the mutual interests of its members with the European institutions and media. The bodies from France, Italy, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands and the Czech Republic, all of whom represent smaller, independent craft brewers, agreed the plan at a meeting in Brussels in September last year, and among them was Italy’s Unionbirrai, which represents small craft brewers in the Italian market. For our Big Interview in this issue we spoke to Unionbirrai’s Operational Director Simone Monetti, who is also a brewer himself, to find out more about his own home market and what current challenges are facing his members.
SIMONE MONETTI, OPERATIONAL DIRECTOR, UNIONBIRRAI 34
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
The modern Italian craft brewing sector started with some pioneers in the mid-90s, and although it remains much smaller than the UK sector, today it is growing increasingly rapidly. The current estimate is that average annual production per brewery member of Unionbirrai is 622hl which corresponds to 3.3% of total Italian beer production, against only 450hl and 1.1% of the market just four years ago. Founded in 1998, Unionbirrai, in a similar way to SIBA, aims to protect and promote small brewers within the Italian market, encourage quality and consistency and celebrate the diversity of the beers being produced by its members. It also lobbies government on their behalf, among other things fighting for a fairer taxation system throughout Europe, and puts brewers in touch with Italian suppliers and distributors. The Journal’s Editor Caroline Nodder spoke to Simone to find out more…
THE BIG INTERVIEW
WE HAVE MEMBERS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, MOSTLY FROM NORTHERN ITALY. WE ALSO HAVE HUNDREDS OF ENTHUSIASTS, SUPPORTERS AND TECHNICAL PARTNERS WHO SUPPORT AND FOLLOW OUR INITIATIVES.
What is your background and how did you first get into brewing?
What are your priorities in your role within Unionbirrai?
Who are your members and where are they spread geographically?
“I studied statistics and then worked for many years in management control and audit for well-known fast food chains. I've always been fond of beer, its history and its culture. Since 2000 I was homebrewing and getting more interested in the world of brewing, and I then opened my brewpub in 2005, which I ran until 2008. I am a brewer after all!”
“As an operational director, my role is to give practical execution to the activities promoted by the board of directors, in close collaboration with the general manager Vittorio Ferraris. In particular, I deal directly with the organisation of our beer competition Birra dell’Anno, the 14th edition of which will be held in Rimini from 13th to 15th of February 2019. I was also elected to the board of directors of EBCU, the European Beer Consumer Union, last November.”
“Our members are independent craft beer (non-pasteurised non-microfiltered) producers that produce less than 40,000hl/year. We have members all over the country, mostly from northern Italy. We also have hundreds of enthusiasts, supporters and technical partners who support and follow our initiatives.”
When did you join Unionbirrai and what does the organisation do for its members? “I joined Unionbirrai in 2002 to attend tasting courses and receive support during the start-up phase of my brewery. Today Unionbirrai is the reference point for all the small independent craft beer producers in Italy wanting their voice heard by government and other institutions, for professional training and for spreading craft beer culture.”
What are your key membership criteria? “Our members must produce nonpasteurised and non-microfiltered craft beer, and they must be independent and produce less than 40,000hl of beer per year. Then there are plenty of non-brewing passionate members as well, supporters and technical partners, who support all our activities.”
What main issues does Unionbirrai tackle on behalf of its members? “Small breweries in Italy have always suffered from too much bureaucracy and, in particular, major taxes - among the highest in Europe on beer. In fact, Italy has not implemented the provisions of the EU Directive 92/83 which provides discounts on excise duty for independent breweries producing less than 200,000hl/year. Recently the Chamber of Deputies has approved an amendment to the budget law that introduces a discount on excise, equal to 40%, for those who produce less than 10,000hl/year. We are now awaiting final approval. We are also very focused on consumer oriented communication and we have just launched our brand ‘Indipendente Artigianale Una Garanzia Unionbirrai’.”
What styles of beer are currently popular in the Italian market? “Regarding the craft beer world, certainly Apa and Aipa, with a growing interest in hybrid styles, sours and IGA (Italian Grape Ales), for example.”
How much do consumers typically pay for a craft beer in a bar in Italy currently? “Around 3.5 to 4 Euros for a half pint (0.3lt) on draught, and 5.5 to 7 Euros for a pint (0.5 lt).”
How does the Italian craft beer market differ from the UK market? “Definitely in per capita consumption and in the seasonal consumption. We consume little, only 31 litres per capita/year, but with a positive trend, concentrated in summertime. We have big margins for growth.”
Continued on page 37 WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
WE HAVE MUCH COMMON GROUND ON MANY VITAL ISSUES FOR OUR SECTOR THAT ARE PLAYED AT EUROPEAN LEVEL. WE INDEPENDENT EUROPEAN PRODUCERS HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THESE ISSUES AND WE NEED TO HAVE A COMMON VOICE WITHIN THE COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS.
How much of the beer production in Italy comes from small brewers? “Almost 3.5%. In 2012 it was only 1.2%.”
How have you seen the Italian craft brewing sector developing in recent years? “It has grown in many ways: the number of producers, the volume of beer produced and market penetration. Consumer awareness about quality craft beer has increased significantly.”
What are the key challenges your members are facing at the moment? “The access to the market and the effective communication on what is really craft, and to conquer more and more space on the shelves and in pubs.”
How does the beer duty system work in Italy? “As mentioned above, we do not yet have a lower rate for small producers, for whom the existing regulations are unfortunately extremely expensive. In fact, microbreweries pay according to the volume of wort produced, not the beer, and this is then multiplied according to the plato scale of the wort (a measure of the density of the wort) and then multiplied by 3.02 Euros.”
What plans do you have for 2019 at Unionbirrai? “To promote our new logo "Indipendente Artigianale" to as many producers as possible and launch the new system that allows consumers to easily locate pubs and clubs where Italian craft beer is served. In addition, we are working on a substantial change in the current legislation on beer, which dates back to 1962.”
You recently joined other EU beer associations in forming the Independent Brewers of Europe, what are the aims for the group from your perspective? “We have much common ground on many vital issues for our sector that are played at European level. I refer, for example, to excise duty rates on alcohol and the method of assessment, to labelling, to communication on all aspects related to the relationship between beer consumption and health, to correct access to the market for small brewers. We independent European producers have a lot to say about these issues and we need to have a common voice within the Community institutions.”
Continued on page 39 WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
How do you see the small brewery sector developing in mainland Europe as a whole? “What I see is an important growth in awareness of the sector, in the number of producers, even in countries only recently touched by the phenomenon that is bringing new life to the entire sector. There are an increasing number of consumers looking for diversity and quality. We must always guarantee that they can get this through small craft brewers.”
WHAT I SEE IS AN IMPORTANT GROWTH IN AWARENESS OF THE SECTOR, IN THE NUMBER OF PRODUCERS, EVEN IN COUNTRIES ONLY RECENTLY TOUCHED BY THE PHENOMENON THAT IS BRINGING NEW LIFE TO THE ENTIRE SECTOR. THERE ARE AN INCREASING NUMBER OF CONSUMERS LOOKING FOR DIVERSITY AND QUALITY. WE MUST ALWAYS GUARANTEE THAT THEY CAN GET THIS THROUGH SMALL CRAFT BREWERS.
Are there any major threats to the craft beer market in Italy at the moment? “I suppose that for Italy the same is happening as in other countries, with the invasion of the so-called "crafty beers" from large brewers. We have to counteract the phenomen at a global level.”
What is your view of the UK craft beer market? “We know very well of the work done by CAMRA in protecting real ales and pubs, and that is a very fascinating world for all beer aficionados. And it's brilliant to see the growth of craft breweries that are leading a movement towards quality, diversity and innovation. We are paying lots of attention to what can be called "health lobbying" as well, as that seems particularly active in the UK and Ireland.”
What is your view of how Brexit might affect the European beer sector? “I think it is difficult to make any predictions. Certainly if the restrictions on the circulation of goods should be rigid, we will experience a move away from the UK brewers in Europe, who today are very much present and appreciated.”
Who do you particularly admire in the Italian craft beer market? “The tenacity, the desire to experiment and grow in a country that struggles to give support and often hinders small businesses.”
Are UK craft beer imports significant to the Italian market?
Which of your member breweries are currently leading the market?
“Yes, absolutely. Lots of UK craft beers are found all over Italy.”
“No comment :)”
Is export to the UK a key focus for Italian small brewers?
What is your personal favourite beer?
“The UK is still the most important foreign market for Italian craft breweries, even for our limited volumes.”
“I’m a Pilsner fan, more or less hopped. And in Italy we have the best ones!”
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AROUND THE WORLD
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THE W
In this issue of the Journal we are introducing a new regular ‘Around the World’ section featuring an interview with an International brewer who has been making waves in the global market. This is in response to SIBA Members’ interest in what is happening out there in the wider beer world and also a result of some of the trends which are hitting the UK market from other shores, and some of the interesting collaborations SIBA Members have been working on with brewers from outside the UK. If you have collaborated with, or visited, an International brewer you think would make an interesting focus for a future ‘Around the World’ feature please do put them in touch with Journal Editor Caroline Nodder at caroline.nodder@siba.co.uk.
For our first ‘Around the World’ feature we are travelling to Sweden, and more specifically Landskrona in Skåne, the most southern part of Sweden. Here we find the three brothers who founded Brekeriet, a small, specialist sour beer brewery. The brothers Ek - Fredrik, Christian and André - all have different backgrounds in business and food engineering and decided to team up and launch a beer import firm in the spring of 2010. Their future goal was to start a brewery of their own, which they eventually did in 2012 when their first batch was brewed in Djurslöv, outside of Malmö. In the spring of 2015 they began the hunt for a larger site and in September the same year they brewed their first 20hl batch with brand new brewing equipment in newly renovated facilities in Landskrona. In March 2017 they hired what they refer to as their first 'step brother' to the Ek family, Amadeus. With a background as a chef and a brewer, he now works as a brewer and product developer at Brekeriet, and was followed in October last year by another ‘step brother’, Tobias, a former sushi chef who is now studying to become a brewer.
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Brekeriet is unique in that it is the only brewery in Sweden to ferment its beers with nothing but wild yeast and bacteria, and it also uses secondary fermentation in many of its beers using berries, fruit or whatever the team find interesting to try. Brekeriet beers are complex, rustic and often tart farmhouse ales with lots of flavour. They’re all fermented with the wild yeast strain Brettanomyces which gives the beer its unique characteristics. Many of the brewery’s beers are organic and all of them are vegan (except for B My Honey and B My Alphahoney in which they use local honey). And if you’re looking for a gluten free beer you could try their Pink Passion. It’s a sour ale fermented with passionfruit and hibiscus flowers. Every batch is lab tested to ensure that the gluten level is below 20ppm in the beer. The SIBA Journal’s Editor Caroline Nodder caught up with one of the brothers, Fredrik, to find out more about how Brekeriet was founded and how the Swedish market differs from that of the UK, as well as asking him about some of his current challenges as a small brewer in Sweden…
Photo credit Moob
AROUND THE WORLD
Brewery Basics NAME: BREKERIET (BEER AB) FOUNDED: 2010 AS AN IMPORTER, 2012 AS A BREWERY LOCATION: LANDSKRONA, SWEDEN OWNER(S): THE BROTHERS FREDRIK, CHRISTIAN AND ANDRÉ EK AND THEIR FATHER. NUMBER OF STAFF: 5 KEY BEER BRANDS: CASSIS, SOUR & SALT, PINK PASSION, PURPLE RAIN ANNUAL PRODUCTION: 2,000HL KEY EXPORT MARKETS: NORWAY, AUSTRALIA, FINLAND AND RUSSIA.
Photo credit Ulf Mellander Photo credit Jeff Flindt
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AROUND THE WORLD
Photos credit Jeff Flindt
When and how did you (and your brothers) first get interested in brewing?
How has the Swedish craft beer market developed in recent years?
“Christian started to homebrew in the year 2000 after his exams in food chemistry. The rest of the family acted as Christian’s guinea pigs! The brothers then took advantage of that, and would meet and discuss the different tastes, aromas, colours etc. of Christian’s homebrews. They also went to festivals together and started ‘nerding’ about beer way before there were any beer rating apps available.”
“From 2014 to 2016 the Swedish craft beer scene really exploded with lots of new breweries opening. Today we see the number of new breweries are fewer and also some of them are closing relatively fast.”
How and when did you come to found Brekeriet?
“In Sweden we have the same alcohol tax for all the producers no matter how big your production is. This means it’s pretty hard for new breweries to get over the threshold where you actually earn money on your products. We have to work with a monopoly system (at retail – see below) and that sometimes is really hard.”
“Brekeriet was founded as an import company in 2010. We wanted to start a small hobby business with the aim of seeing each other more often. We put the focus on importing beers that weren’t represented in Sweden at that time. We also took the opportunity to learn all the Swedish rules about working with alcoholic beverages. We also started to build the brand Brekeriet. The name Brekeriet comes from BR for brothers, EK as our last name and the word bryggERIET which means brewery in Swedish.”
What current challenges do you face as a small brewer in Sweden?
How is the beer retail market structured in Sweden and how does this affect your sales model?
“Sweden is one of few countries having a monopoly system for sales on all alcoholic beverages. The name of the monopoly in Sweden is Systembolaget and they sell all products above 3.5% ABV. Products below 3.5% ABV can be sold at the breweries What is the ethos behind Brekeriet and your beers? or grocery stores if they have certain permissions to do so. “Brekeriet stands for genuine hand crafted high Systembolaget is owned by the government and quality products that contain nothing but pure has to work with the same terms for all producers natural ingredients and natural flavours, most of and providers and can’t use favouritism or choose BREKERIET STANDS FOR them organically and/or locally produced.” whatever products they like. They work with a GENUINE HAND CRAFTED tender system so that all registered providers, What do you do differently at Brekeriet? micro and macro breweries, are allowed HIGH QUALITY PRODUCTS both “I think we are very creative and open minded to respond with whatever product they think THAT CONTAIN NOTHING matches the request. This means it’s hard to in trying new things in all areas, production wise, experiments and listening a lot to what the change the Swedish market since it’s decided BUT PURE NATURAL consumer says.” on beforehand by Systembolaget. As a Swedish INGREDIENTS AND micro brewery you can’t put all your eggs in the You specialise in sours, using same basket. You have to have products that NATURAL FLAVOURS. wild yeasts. What challenges fit Systembolaget’s requirements and products below 3.5% and also work a lot with export to has that presented for you? be successful. We have a pretty good insight in to what’s going “To work with wild yeast and bacteria only is a bit risky, both on in different markets around the world through lots of travelling economically and in production. You have to be patient to let the and the interest we have in trying other brewery’s products. We yeast work the way it works to get the beer fermented. We have are also friends with a lot of brewers around the world and that eight weeks production time on the quicker beers and up to 12 helps us find out what the trends are in other markets. Since months in barrels which means a lot of beer under production all Systembolaget is pretty slow on following trends around the world the time.” it means we can create a beer for export a year before it gets trendy in Sweden and be prepared for a tender offer.”
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AROUND THE WORLD
How does the Swedish beer duty system work and are there any issues for small brewers in your home market? “As described above, all producers have the same taxation. When it comes to export, Sweden works with the same EMCS-system as the rest of Europe which means selling to other EU-countries is pretty easy paper wise.”
How have consumer beer tastes developed in Sweden? “Since Sweden has no particular historical Swedish beer style the tastes of Swedish craft beer consumers typically follow the American and Belgian styles. In the beginning of the craft beer boom lots of Swedish beers were really bad and almost undrinkable. Consumers today are more aware of “faulty” beers and much more selective about the beers they choose.”
What is your view of the UK beer market? “The UK beer market seems similar to Sweden in trends but much faster to get them out on to the market. But I know you face other problems in the UK compared to Sweden.”
How do you see the brewing sector in Sweden evolving over the next five to 10 years? “The combination of high taxes on alcohol, the difficulty of running small businesses and the monopoly system means some breweries will no doubt disappear from the market but we will keep the ones that are creative. I think the monopoly will be eased in some way to allow Swedish breweries to sell beer above 3.5% ABV at the brewery.”
WE TRY TO LISTEN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE TO THE END CONSUMER. WE LOVE MEETING THEM AT FESTIVALS AND EVENTS
What do you see as the ‘next big thing’ for craft beer? “I’m still waiting for the sour beers to boom.”
What’s new at Brekeriet for 2019? Photo credit Ulf Mellander
“In 2019 Brekeriet will focus on sustainable quality, environmental friendly production and machines that spare our bodies the heavy lifting!”
Who do you most admire in the brewing sector worldwide, and why? “At the moment I’m a big fan of Jester King. Their way to meet different markets in different ways is always amazingly fun to see.”
Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from? “We try to listen as much as possible to the end consumer. We love meeting them at festivals and events to discuss what we made that was bad and what has been good. We also get inspired by other breweries around the world that are creative and dare to experiment.”
Are there any trends in the brewing market that you are currently excited by? “Beers fermented with Kveik-yeast.”
What are your three favourite beers worldwide? The Kernel - Biere de Saison - Crab apple Girardin Gueuze Black Label Rodenbach Cacartère Rouge
Photo credit Niklas Jorgensen
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BUSINESS PROFILE
LOCAL HEROES Wayne Roper and his brother-in-law Shaun Reynolds were bitten by the brewing bug back in 2008 after buying each other homebrew kits for their respective birthdays. A holiday to Portland in Oregon in the US cemented their passion. So much so that just three years later Wayne had left his day job in retail solutions for the large supermarkets, bought a brew kit off eBay and ploughed his redundancy money into starting his own brewery in partnership with Shaun. With a joint love of darker beers – stouts and porters – and Wayne’s passion for light hoppy beers, they launched Blackedge Brewery in 2011, specialising in those two ends of the beer spectrum. The name came from a combination of Blackrod and Edgworth, where
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the two lived at the time. And the brewery expanded quickly from its launch, moving through three sites before finding its home in an old mill building, which now houses the brewery bar on the first floor – a real showcase for the Blackedge range of cask, keg and lager. Wayne has kept to the ethos he started with which is focused on quality traditional ales aimed very much at a local market - mainly within 25 miles of the brewery itself in Horwich, near Bolton. Caroline Nodder, the SIBA Journal’s Editor, spoke to Wayne to find out more about his experience in starting the business and his plans for the future…
BUSINESS PROFILE
Brewery Basics NAME: BLACKEDGE BREWING COMPANY FOUNDED: 2011 LOCATION: MORETON MILL, HORWICH, BOLTON OWNER: WAYNE ROPER AND SHAUN REYNOLDS CAPACITY: 70BBL PER WEEK BREWING TEAM: 3 STAFF: 5 (NOT INCLUDING BREWERY BAR) KEY BEERS: SESSION (3.5% PALE GOLDEN ALE), HOP (3.8% PALE ALE), PIKE (4% PALE ALE) AND BLACK STOUT (4% STOUT) PRODUCTION: JUST UNDER 2,000HL – 83% CASK, 15% KEG, 2% BOTTLES KEY EXPORT MARKETS: NO EXPORT
Tell me a bit about your background and the background to the business. “My background is retail and in the latter end of my career it was retail solutions, so I was working in the world of shopfitting, merchandising for the big retail brands like Tesco, Sainsbury’s etc. I was getting quite bored with the job I was doing. I’d worked my way up to quite a high level in the company and was doing a lot of travelling which was grating on me a bit. It was in about 2008 Shaun bought me a little homebrew kit for my birthday – one of the ones where you just throw the water in, open the packet of yeast and shove that in, and then stick it in the airing cupboard and wait a couple of weeks. It was actually quite nice going in every day, opening the tap, checking it, and it made me think that I’d like to have a look at brewing beer properly. Our birthdays are in the same month, so while mine was fermenting I bought a proper kit that was a bit more advanced for Shaun and we did another batch. The beers were terrible! But the principle of how we put it together was nice, as a hobby and something we could do together. We used to always go on holiday together because our wives are sisters so that is how we initially met. And on holiday we started discussing homebrewing with whole grain, we came back from holiday and went out and purchased a stainless steel kit from a homebrew shop. While we were there picking it up we realised we didn’t really know how to brew so we asked the guy behind the counter and he gave us a full run down on the process, and a recipe for a Timothy Taylor’s Landlord clone. So we went and set it up in my shed in the back garden and spent six or seven hours brewing our first beer – and the results were really good. The beer just came out so fantastic. We were going
out on a Saturday night and drinking beer that didn’t taste as good, so we thought we’d perfect it and do our own brews. We were then there every Saturday night brewing in the shed and we both really enjoyed it. And it got to the point where a year later we set up a company to launch a brewery with the idea of doing it part time. I saw a really cheap 2bbl kit on eBay and bought that. And when we got it back to the house we realised it could only just barely fit in the shed. So we decided to look for premises and have a proper go at it. We took a premises on in late 2010 but it was in a really bad state so we spent many hours and weekends getting it into a fit state to install the brewery. We did our first big commercial brew and it came out very well – we put it into a local festival and it got voted beer of the festival. So we thought actually we can brew here! My background in retail involved a bit of procurement so I was used to sitting in front of people and selling. So I thought surely I can go into a pub and sell beer. I found it a bit hard going at first – I was maybe unlucky in my choice of pubs and the landlords were quite vile and very against you coming in and selling to them. But my Dad had been in sales for years so he gave me a few pointers and he spent 12 months doing a bit of selling for us and driving the van around delivering the beer as well. We are still local – we deliver within 45 miles of the brewery but our core customer base is within 25 miles of the brewery. We don’t wholesale much beer because of the prices you get paid and getting paid can be an issue, we just deal with Flying Firkin, which is our primary wholesaler I guess, and then we deliver ourselves because that way we know the beer is in good condition and it’s been stored correctly. Our vans are our own vans and they’re clean and tidy and we know when the beer arrives at the pub it is in the right condition to sell.”
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BUSINESS PROFILE
What were your aspirations for the business?
Where are you investing at the moment?
“It took off very quickly, and after we’d been in for a few months I decided it was definitely for me. I liked being local to home and actually producing something that people would be happy to drink, and I liked the idea of making a career out of being in the brewing industry. Just luckily that happened at a time when my employer was looking to relocate from Northampton down the Welwyn Garden City and it was the final straw for me being an extra hour down the road so when they restructured they were making a lot of people redundant. So I went to see the director and suggested if he got rid of me he would save himself a few quid. He went for it. I got a pay out that effectively left me with nine months when I could earn zero cash out of the business and I thought that gave me a good fighting chance to get it off the ground and start to earn some money so I decided to go for it. I had a real passion for ale at the time because there were some good local breweries near us – Bank Top was one of them – but there were lots of pubs I was going in to and the beer was terrible. There was a real market for making the quality of beer Bank Top was producing. So I thought I could make a living for myself and in effect produce a pension for myself. That was before the explosion in breweries – it meant I LIKED BEING selling quite a lot of beer but at the LOCAL TO HOME AND time I thought I’d be happy if I could earn the same sort of salary I was on ACTUALLY PRODUCING before. I went in with a plan when I SOMETHING THAT had stopped my job, in late 2012, and realised the unit we were in PEOPLE WOULD BE wasn’t satisfactory so within a week HAPPY TO DRINK I’d signed us up to a new lease on the unit next door but one. The plan was to expand what we’d got – and I very quickly ordered two 5bbl fermenters and got someone to build us a 5bbl boiler, so we expanded really quickly and within three months in the new unit we had quadrupled capacity.”
“We are looking to grow the keg side. The way the market is going, cask is starting to suffer. And that is down to quite a few factors, but the main factor for me is the quality of cask beer. There is a lot of poor quality beer out there in the marketplace, with people selling it cheaply as well. So a lot of pubs you go in to are just buying cheap beer. And the beer quality is not great, so people are switching to the keg stuff. I have been into pubs and seen people sample all three ales on the pumps – so they are obviously a cask ale drinkers – and then after that give up and order a pint of San Miguel. The traditional pub landlord doesn’t really exist any more, there are a lot of them still around but there are a new breed of manager coming in that are used to dealing with kegs and don’t have the patience to handle casks. So the quality of cask in a lot of pubs now is not good – it has gone back 15 or 20 years. And the new generation of drinkers is thinking that cask is an old man’s drink so they are jumping on the keg beers. I don’t think the trade is helping itself. Some people are adamant they will only pay a certain price for a firkin of beer and it’s just not enough, so they end up buying cheap rubbish effectively. So we are looking to expand our keg beers. We tend to do the stronger beers from our range in keg and we do a lot of rotational stuff as well. At the Bolton Beer Festival where the SIBA beer competition was held last year we had 17 beers on. And I wouldn’t imagine there are a lot of brewers in the UK that would have been able to showcase 17 beers at one festival. We were quite proud of that, and that’s what we try and do to keep things fresh and keep the sales up. We found two years ago we were growing 30-35% year on year to the extent we agreed another move to a unit just across from where we were and we did spend quite a lot of money on the new premises, kitting it out and getting it ready. We took on an old mill building on two levels and I could see the potential in having a bar above and the brewery down below. We bought a new 10bbl kit, two new vans, and put in a bar and that has probably helped us in the last two years because things did stagnate a bit with so many breweries coming in to the market. It was quite a challenging period but things are coming back up now and we seem to be getting through it. For the brewery bar we initially had guest kegs on but about three months ago I made the decision that it would be a complete showcase for our own beers, so all the keg now is ours, we have nine keg beers on now including a couple of lagers. We cottoned on when in 2014 in the old brewery site when we installed a second hand bar in the middle of the brewery, and on a Saturday would open and we’d have 50, 60, 70 people turning up. At that time there were not many brewery taps in the UK, but we couldn’t believe the response we got. In the summer, for example, we were on a back street and out the front people would be clambering to sit all along the wall on the ramp down to the loading bay. We thought that was unbelievable and saw there was a real opportunity there. So we knew if we could put a proper bar in we could really see some turnover and that has worked a treat for us. I’ve recently been looking at finding a separate retail outlet, a micro-pub or shop, but trying to find the location is really difficult. Hopefully this year we’ll get at least one open.”
How would you describe your brewing ethos? “The majority of the beers in the range are beers I like to drink. I like nice hoppy beers with good aroma and I like bitterness in a beer. And at the opposite end of the scale I really like dark stouts and porters. So the majority of the beers we brew are brewed to my taste really. Shaun in particular loves dark beer. So it fits with both our thinking. That’s how we set up at the start. We wanted to produce beers that had real full flavour but not to the extent that some breweries go where there is too much flavour and your tongue starts to dry up! We have always looked at the quality of the beer, we have never scrimped on ingredients, we have always bought fresh ingredients and we use leaf not pellets for the hops. We are still doing it very much by hand as well. A lot of breweries have equipment to help with the mashing but we are still doing it by hand. We have always strived for that quality. We don’t really do anything too experimental. We have done a few specials – we did a beer using fresh ginger last year – but it’s nothing groundbreaking. We try to brew traditional beers but brew them well.”
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BUSINESS PROFILE
What is your view on the proposed reform of the beer duty system?
WE NOW GET A LOT OF YOUNG PEOPLE BUYING CASK BEER WHICH IS THE NEXT GENERATION OF OUR SALES. I THINK PEOPLE ARE MUCH MORE WILLING TO EXPERIMENT TOO.
How is Blackedge different to other brewers in the sector? “I genuinely believe we have better beer than a lot of our competitors and that’s through feedback from customers and trade customers. Pub landlords always say our beer sells really well, and we get good live feedback on the bar as well. There is nothing better than having people telling us what they’ve been drinking what they liked and didn’t like. We are proud of the quality of our beer, it is a good stable product. We are quite reasonably priced as well. Where we are on the Lancashire/ Manchester border we are not in a trendy city where you can command a high price for the beer, we are in a genuine local pub zone, where people want value for money. So we are competitively priced.”
Can you describe the challenges you’ve faced as a business? “For me it is the level of competition. I think competition generally is quite healthy, if you’ve got good breweries in a local area. But there are so many breweries where the beer is not good and also there has been an explosion of hobby brewers, who have gone and got themselves a brewing licence and sell the three or four casks they produce every weekend. If there’s 10 of them selling three firkins a week that’s 30 firkins going out in an already competitive local market. And for me there are so many breweries that are not legitimate out there – they are not paying their duty because they can’t be on the prices they are charging. We have seen a few disappear over the last few months though round here, it is catching up with them and they are realising there’s no money in it.”
Are there any mistakes you’ve made that you have learned from? “In the early days if I had invested in staff a bit quicker we might have got going a bit faster. I was on my own trying to do everything – producing the beer, delivering the beer, collecting the empties – and I think it was at a time when there was starting to be a small explosion in breweries, so if I’d have had a bit more faith in investing in people rather than wanting to take money as quickly as I could, we might have advanced a bit quicker.”
“I can understand the reasons why the larger breweries are getting edgy about it and either want us to pay more or them to pay less, but I think beer duty in general is quite disgusting in this country and it is ruining the industry as a whole. We just pay way too much. The price of a pint now in a pub is too high for the average person to be able to afford and the pubs are suffering. You used to go to a traditional pub Monday to Thursday you would have seen a good few people in there having a few pints after work, but now there are pubs out there doing nothing Monday to Thursday because the price of a pint is too high. There are people out there who can’t even afford to feed themselves at the minute, and we’re paying this ridiculous duty on beer, the highest in Europe, and it is just excessive. They keep coming out with the heroics that they’ve not put duty up or they’ve cut a penny off, but it’s not good enough. They need to be taking 20p or 30p off a pint to make a difference. When you think about how many people this industry employs, from the manufacturing, even the growers in the farming industry, and the pubs – if you look at it now I bet there are a lot fewer employed than there were three or four years ago. They must be losing revenue through pay and corporation tax and that sort of thing. It needs changing.”
How are you seeing consumer attitudes to beer change and how has this affected your range? “What’s really nice, particularly at the brewery bar, is that we have a lot of local customers now who are women, and they are buying pints of cask ale. I think when we started and probably before that there was almost a stigma attached to a lady going to the bar and ordering a pint of beer, but that has gone. You have lots of women coming in to our bar and they drink cask ales, keg ales, and I think that is really good to see. There has definitely been a change in that direction, but also the amount of young people who are starting to drink craft beers. When I was young we used to drink lager, which was terrible stuff, so I went on to Guinness and spent 10 years drinking that before going on to cask beer. But we now get a lot of young people buying cask beer which is the next generation of our sales. I think people are much more willing to experiment too. If you put something on now that is really unusual they will try it. This summer was horrendous for cask – with the hot weather everyone switches to cider or lager – so we did a couple of lagers and in this area the unfiltered beer hasn’t really taken off yet, but we took a bit of a risk with one of the lagers we did. We did a lighter unfiltered lager and people were drinking it more than the filtered – that is a huge change for me.”
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BUSINESS PROFILE How do you see the structure of the brewing sector changing over the next few years? “I think there will be a massive swing to keg and a swing to more experimental and adventurous beers. A lot of people are throwing anything into beer and getting it to market and people will drink it. We ran a competition recently to get some more interaction on Facebook and we asked people to challenge us with suggestions for the most weird and wacky beers they could think of. It had to be something we could sell, but the most challenging thing we got was chocolate and orange. In our area people thought chocolate and orange or liquorice was the most challenging thing they would think of. So we are slightly behind the rest of the market, but I think people are looking to go more adventurous and that will eventually spread to the local markets.”
You recently swept the board at the NW SIBA awards. What impact has this had on your business and what do awards like this mean to you?
WE WENT FOR A TRIP TO SEATTLE AND THEN PORTLAND IN OREGON AND I FELL IN LOVE WITH THE PLACE. THE BEERS THEY WERE PRODUCING WERE JUST FANTASTIC AND I DON’T THINK WE HAD A BAD BEER ON THE WHOLE TRIP.
“The funny thing is since we first went in for the SIBA awards in 2012 we have actually got a 100% record on winning Gold. But because of the way the market has changed and become very price driven we have always found the awards haven’t really done anything for us – we go in and say we’ve won all these awards and they just want to know what the price is! But in 2016 when we won seven I said to Shaun we’d never reach that level again and when this year we won nine it was just unbelievable. It was such a great feeling and it is nice to have recognition from your peers and from the industry. And it was almost a bit of a confidence booster for us after the year we’d had – we were 20% down after the summer although we bounced back in October. For the first time it has actually made a difference to sales. We got a lot of publicity this time, and we had quite a lot of the local newspapers jump on the story, and a lot of local beer bloggers were tweeting about it. So we got a lot of exposure and in October and November we went 20% up, driven by the beers that won the awards. We were pretty chuffed with that.”
Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from? “Initially when we first started out one of the big influences on us was the American craft market. As I said, me and Shaun and the two girls have always gone on holiday together and we went for a trip to Seattle and then Portland in Oregon and I fell in love with the place. The beers they were producing were just fantastic and I don’t think we had a bad beer on the whole trip. So we were asking people about their specialist equipment and whatever, and that was where we got most of the inspiration from. That was in 2007 or 2008, and we still use probably 90% American hops in our beer.”
Where do you see yourself being in five year’s time? “I hope we’ll still be here! We have always said we want to keep it tight. We want to stay local. And the end game for me was to earn a living from it and for Shaun to earn some cash out of it too. We are not looking to rule the world, we don’t want to over expand, or get any bigger than we are now really. We have the capacity to put a couple more bits of kit in but we will keep it small, keep it compact, keep it local. There is still local expansion to do, we have still got to fully crack the local market, and that could take us five years to do to be honest.”
Who do you most admire in the sector and why? “There is one brewery where I think the beer is always stunning, and that is Marble in Manchester. The other one would be Red Willow, our fellow competition winners. When we came back from America both myself and Shaun found the Red Willow branding really good and always enjoyed their beers – their pumpclips are really unusual and really stand out.”
What is your favourite beer and where would you drink it? “I do love Marble Earl Grey IPA, and maybe I’d drink it in Portland because I absolutely loved it there.”
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LEGAL
UNCERTAIN TIMES: WHAT IMPACT ON THE BREWING AND LEISURE SECTOR? In this article, Napthens’ business recovery partner Grahame Love looks at the increasing pressure the brewing and leisure sector has been under as consumer confidence and changing trends make the future outlook uncertain. Uncertainty is of course a concern for the wider economy in an industry estimated to employ 900,000 people, worth c£23bn to the economy, providing a tax take of c£13bn.
Current economic pressures: Evidence of pressure can be seen in: • Pub closures for the period 6 months to July 2018 of 476 (up 16 on the preceding 6 month period) - a relatively consistent rate of 18 per week • Increased rents and business rates for ‘casual dining’ restaurants coupled with higher employment costs as a result of the National Living Wage. This together with food inflation has resulted in several companies forced into restructures, including: - Byron Burger: CVA (Company Voluntary Arrangement) approved January 2018 - Jamie’s Italian: CVA approved February 2018 - Prezzo: CVA approved March 2018 - Carluccio’s: CVA approved June 2018.
What is a CVA? A CVA (Company Voluntary Arrangement) is an offer made by a company which is insolvent to its creditors to agree a combination of debt re-scheduling and debt forgiveness, in return for which the unsecured creditors receive a proportionately equal payment in respect of debts. CVAs work well in the casual dining sector because they allow a company to terminate liabilities or otherwise vary leases, providing the majority of creditors by value (75%) agree. Several recent successful CVA proposals have asked that landlords either allow tenants to leave some sites or accept significant rent reductions. The above is facilitated by the division of properties into different categories and provides for different treatment of landlords within each category. This approach stretches the
concept of ‘fairness’ amongst creditors which is central to the CVA concept – however, it continues without successful challenge for reasons Grahame Love is Napthens’ business recovery partner of commercial expediency, with institutional landlords content to take a longer term view on the prospect of a tenant’s survival.
Insolvency and the sector Increasing pressure on the sector will bring into sharper focus the evolving law which deals with business failure. Philip Hammond announced in his last budget that the government intends to re-introduce ‘Crown Preference’ in formal insolvency processes for certain taxes that are collected by businesses on behalf of the State (PAYE, NIC deductions and VAT). In any insolvency process creditors are paid in a predetermined, statutory, order. Currently the Crown ranks alongside all other unsecured creditors, which has been the situation since the introduction of the Enterprise Act 2002 in 2003. This policy announcement has attracted criticism from the insolvency sector, with R3 (the Association of Business Recovery Professionals) describing it as potentially a “retrograde and damaging step”. Further consultation is expected before implementation. If implemented HMRC’s gain shall represent a loss to floating charge creditors in respect of book debt collections and cash at bank. These floating charge creditors will often be banks and other providers of finance who will presumably identify this change as an increase in risk and in turn pass on the increased risk in cost - or by reducing finance availability. At the very end of the queue, unsecured creditors (including most trade creditors) will be at higher risk and shall have to think even harder about securing their positions in the event of insolvency. This may lead to more focus on Retention of Title clauses and Personal Guarantees before credit terms are offered.
For advice on this topic or on legal issues affecting your business please contact SIBA Legal Helpline: 0845 6710277 North West law firm Napthens LLP is a SIBA supplier associate and gold standard sponsor. The firm has a team of specialists looking after the legal requirements of clients in the leisure and licensed trade sector, with clients including Daniel Thwaites plc and Sceptre Leisure Ltd. Napthens manages the SIBA Legal Helpline which offers legal advice and guidance on a wide range of legal issues affecting your business including: general commercial, intellectual property, corporate finance, dispute resolution and litigation, commercial property, licensing, debt recovery and employment law. Any enquiry through the helpline will receive up to 1 hour of free legal expertise (if further work is required, you’ll be advised of the appropriate charging structure) Full details of the helpline can be found on the SIBA Members Toolbox.
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SIBA BUSINESS - BACK OFFICE
DIGITAL
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2019 2018 was an exciting and also a tumultuous year in Social Media. Whilst there were various scandals around Social Media, it also introduced many new ways to engage your customers. Instagram, video and live has all been given greater significance over the last year. Here are some of the things you can expect to be thinking about in 2019 in regards to Social Media… Live and video content will continue to be the best way to develop your Social Media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are all looking to continue to focus their development on tools for creating better and more varied video content. Videos often get double the organic reach of normal posts. If you have a beer or event that you are trying to showcase, think of different ways in which you can do that on a video. Doing this in 2019 will become more important. As an extension of that look to use live video. Live is considered more authentic as it cannot be rehearsed or planned out as easily. Because of this, customers are more likely to pay attention to those videos. Mark Zuckerberg has said that live gets eight times more reach and they are looking at how to make that higher. He also said Facebook has decided to “shift a lot of our video efforts to focus on Live, because it is this emerging new format; not the kind of videos that have been online for the past five or ten years." In the New Year, creating video content in this way will become more important. Following on from the success of Instagram, Facebook and Instagram have also launched IGTV. This is a long form video platform where videos can last for up to an hour. It is designed to allow users to create a channel of content, much like having your own television station. It is not expected to have as much brevity
as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Brewers should look to sign up to this new platform and try long form videos. Signing up to this now will give you an advantage in the New Year. Due to the events of 2018, many social media users no longer give as much credibility to what happens on the platforms. This is due to the effect of the Cambridge Analytica and Russian election interference we have seen come out in the past year. This has affected the type of content that users will engage with and if they believe it is true or not. For brewers this means that they will have to come up with more ways of showing authentic and real content. In 2019, the best way to achieve this will be to show customer feedback and interactions as being part of your Social Media Strategy. You telling customers how good your products are (however true that may be) will not get as much engagement as having your customers do it for you. Look at ways of showing your followers what your real customers think of you and your products. This could be sharing reviews of the beers. It could be sharing what people think of your tour. You can even film and record customer testimonials of how your beer sold in the business, or how people like the taste of your beer. The more real and authentic you can make this content, the better it will perform in the age of fake news.
Matt Jones. Inapub's Digital Services Manager
Instagram stories have been around for a while now and have become one of the most common ways for users to post. Instagram has increased its overall monthly engagements by over 200 million people in 2018, and this rate of growth shows no sign of slowing as we enter a New Year. Instagram stories are one of the best ways in which brewers can engage their customers. While posts which are only available for 24 hours may seem of little worth, they are in fact the most engaged with. As these feeds appear at the top of all users apps when they login, they are often the first thing that they engage with. You can add pictures, boomerang clips and videos to these posts along with live. Once again these kinds of posts are more authentic and therefore have more of an impact on the user’s perception of products and businesses. Brewers should look to use Instagram and its stories more if they want to increase their reach in 2019. All of this is just what is expected to come in 2019. We will likely see some more surprises also. But the things we know are that Instagram and video content are becoming the best ways to reach customers in an authentic and real way. Follow the trends on Social Media and use videos and Insta to get your message out, and therefore increase your sales.
Inapub is the leading supplier of digital marketing solutions for Britain’s pub and beer trade, offering news, advice, training and website services. If you’d like to know more about how Inapub can help grow your business, email sales@inapub.co.uk or visit www.inapub.co.uk.
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SIBA BUSINESS - BACK OFFICE
MARKETING
WHAT WILL DRIVE DIGITAL MARKETING IN 2019?
Mark McCulloch is the Founder & Group CEO of WE ARE Spectacular
I have just interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk (Chairman and CEO of VaynerX) for The Spectacular Marketing podcast. He is the world’s leading digital marketing specialist and owner of a $200m digital agency looking after incredible clients like Chase Bank, RBS, Budweiser and many more. Big thinking and big budgets, but looking to what the bigger companies are doing and you can take some hints and tips of what you should be doing and what great looks like. Gary also said that he has no interest in persuading people to do digital marketing. Unfortunately for me, that is my entire job and such a small percentage of people in food and drink truly understand the power of digital, social and influencers. They are not willing to learn something new or take the risk on digital when they will either do no marketing or spend their budgets in the places where they feel safe but where the customer’s eyes and attention is not. I don’t get how so many people we speak to stopped learning at email/CRM and leave social and digital to untrained under-25’s and take their social insight from their teenage kid and bring it into meetings/the board room. It is rather ridiculous. Constant contact and relevancy in the places where people are looking on average 220 minutes per day (their phone screen) is where you need to market, build your brand and get your stories across. My tip is to sit down and look at your total sales/marketing spend (everything and I mean everything) and work with someone to plan the budget against digital (80% to 90%). Here are 8 reasons why you need to shift focus, mindset, skillset and budget to digital marketing…
Hot digital marketing opportunities for 2019: 1. Creating constant content – Would it not be amazing to see the moment where Fuller’s first perfected London Pride or Jeff Bezos at Amazon’s first year working all of the hours, packing books and shaping what became Amazon? Hire a videographer and start documenting everything. Make TV style shows and put them out daily. 2. Facebook advertising – The backend of Facebook is still largely untapped by the drinks industry. Get to
know it well and constantly target your competitors (big brewers’) customers to get their business over to you. 3. Being ‘grammable’ – Horrible word, but it is true. How can your brewery and tap room create a stage for people to perform on (i.e. take photos to share on their channels as part of their own personal brand – sadly everyone is a brand these days). 4. Having a voice strategy – Speech is taking over touch. What are you going to do to change ordering, booking and how you are found online when it comes to the world’s move to speech via Siri, Alexa and more? 5. Facebook groups – Find, at a local level, the main Facebook groups/communities where people share information. Give them special offers and insider info to bring them to your brewery tap or encourage them to choose your beers in pubs and off-licences and make you feel like part of the community. 6. What’s App and Facebook Messenger groups for VIPs. If you add these two messaging platforms together, they have more monthly active users than Facebook itself. There is a huge opportunity for you to make this a loyalty platform where you create groups and market to them as VIPs and giving them reasons to constantly come back to you and your beers. Forget plastic, stamp cards and points, this is a new age way of making your audience feel valued and special. Please do at least one of these things in the next 90 days or ask for professional help to do so. It will work if you put the effort in and learn all about the possibilities of social. There are so many videos on YouTube on this for a start and great help sections on all social channels.
Mark McCulloch, Founder & Group CEO of WE ARE Spectacular. Mark has 15 years experience in brand, marketing, digital, social and PR. WE ARE Spectacular have worked with many leading pub, food, beer & wine clients including Long Arm Brewery and Harviestoun Brewery. www.wearespectacular.com Twitter/Instagram: @spectacularmark
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TECHNICAL FOCUS
DIASTATICUS DILEMAS So what’s the difficulty with diastaticus? A topic spoken about surreptitiously in brewing circles as if admitting to some embarrassing personal illness.
By Dr Keith Thomas of Brewlab, Sunderland
In fact diastaticus is no hidden horror but an all too public one when your packages explode violently on opening, on shelves in a warm outlet or tragically in a customer’s hand. Gushing beer is embarrassing and hazardous and equally badly an indication of problems in a brewery’s microbiology.
There are two basic questions we should address at the outset. What exactly is diastaticus and where has it come from all of a sudden?
beers being inoculated during packaging where contaminated environments in the filling area may introduce the yeast either from the environment or nearby biofilm.
The first of these is microbiological. Simply put diastaticus is a yeast which can produce glucoamylase enzymes to digest dextrins in beer. This action releases sugars which can then be fermented. Now as we all know starch is digested in the mash to produce fermentable sugars and non-fermentable dextrins. Fermentable sugars are converted to ethanol and carbon dioxide in fermentation while dextrins remain inert to contribute to body and mouthfeel. The rule we typically work to is that dextrins can be safely left in a cask or bottle conditioned beer as they are not fermented by brewing yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and S. pastorianus.
Gushing thus suggests a contamination in beers with live yeast (although there are some cases where inert materials from malt may be the cause). A simple solution to diastaticus contamination is to maintain hygiene in the production of these beers particularly throughout fermentation and packaging. Naturally this would be standard practice but there is the complication where the yeast stock itself may be contaminated. In this case using a reliable yeast source is essential – ideally one with the facilities to check for purity.
However, this is not universally true for other yeasts. In fact, most non-brewing or wild yeasts are well able to produce enzymes to digest larger sugars into fermentable ones which thus cause problems when carbon dioxide builds to unsafe levels. Any contamination with these yeasts in your beer will cause gushing.
Bottle gush
Normally this should be limited to cask and bottle (or canned) conditioned beers as filtration and pasteurisation will remove yeast and thus the hazard. However, there remains the possibility of filtered or pasteurised
Looking in more depth to the problem it is relevant to note that diastaticus yeast is the normal condition and that brewing yeasts have been selected because they have a mutation in the STA glucoamylase gene rendering it inactive. This selection will have happened over centuries of use to provide the standard beers we generally brew today. However, recent surveys of yeast genomes show that many wild and some brewing yeast carry an active STA gene. This then answers our second question – why is diastaticus suddenly appearing? Aside from hygiene being less attentive during busy production new beer styles such as saison and sours are using these very yeasts with active STA genes. While these provide the low attenuation associated with such beers once they are introduced to your production environments the possibility of contamination into standard beers is enhanced. These details are both worrying and reassuring. Worrying in that they enhance concern if you are using multiple yeast strains but reassuring in that they point to actions to minimise the hazard. Hygiene is paramount to prevent cross contamination including not only local environmental cleanliness but also
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Yeast discard strict separation and management of yeast cultures from pitch to discard. For example, throwing a bucket of saison yeast slurry into the central drain is sure to create an aerosol you don’t want to mix with your standard pitching. Segregating vessels and pipework for sole use by STA positive yeast is advisable as is double decontamination of any packaging system after use. Finally ensure that your yeast is from a tested source or checked by a competent laboratory. Reassurance is important in order to be confident of your product’s safety but testing is not simple. Using starch or copper sulphate agar plates are one possible method but do not guarantee that all negatives are true. Alternatively forcing tests will give a predictive indication of problems if samples are kept warm at around 30°C. This though takes time. Molecular biology PCR techniques are more rapid and reliable as they are based on the gene sequence but require capital investment and laboratory skills. Diastaticus may be viewed as a consequence of the innovations of contemporary brewing and a cost of diversifying beer portfolios. It is manageable but one further worry is the possibility of standard brewing yeasts incorporating the gene directly from the environment or mutating back to the active form. It is fortunate that we have the techniques to test this but is another indication that brewing is set to become even more technical in future years.
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PREVIEW
BEERX UK 2019: RETURNING TO LIVERPOOL BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER
SIBA is very pleased to be hosting BeerX UK for a second year running at the ACC Exhibition Centre in Liverpool. The two day event will take place on Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th March 2019 and is open to SIBA member and non-member breweries alike, as well as representatives from brewing industry businesses and the media. Featuring a packed schedule of expert workshops, panel debates, networking opportunities, an expanded exhibition from suppliers of products and services, and the SIBA AGM plus a trade-only beer showcase exclusively featuring award winning independent craft beers in cask, keg, bottle & can - BeerX UK 2019 is back bigger and better than ever at the fantastic purpose-built Exhibition Centre Liverpool. All this within one massive space.
BOOK YOUR TICKET TODAY!
Its location in Liverpool gives easy access to more than 5,000 hotel rooms within a 20 minute walk of the Exhibition Centre, good transport links from most major cities in Britain and across the world from Manchester Airport; and plenty of pubs, bars and restaurants to socialise in after a hard, but enjoyable, day's work at BeerX UK!
Tickets for Brewing Members and Supplier Associates can be booked online at
www.beerx.org WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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Johnson Brewing Design has over 20 yrs experience designing, manufacturing, installing and commissioning brewing and beverage systems throughout Europe and the UK • Industry Experts • Over 20 years experience • Over 100 craft breweries installed • Quality equipment designed and manufactured in the UK • Member of the Institute of Brewing & Distilling 07739 456 655 | 01204 887754 | vincent@johnsonbrewing.co.uk
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WE’LL DO THE SEARCHING YOU DO THE BREWING Whilst you are busy running your brewery, it’s good to know you can rely on us to find and select the right people to fill important roles within your business.
Visit us on our stand 18 and see what we can do to help you grow
Connecting Talent in the Drinks Industry www.carlingpartnership.com
01483 893100 64
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
WHAT’S NEW AT BEERX UK FOR 2019? PREVIEW
NEW AND IMPROVED SIBA NATIONAL INDEPENDENT BEER AWARDS The National Independent Beer Awards taking place at BeerX UK represent the culmination of a year’s worth of regional beer competitions and are where the very best of the best independent craft beers in the UK will be crowned. A shake-up of the categories this year has seen more modern, current beer styles such as session IPA, New England IPA and sour or spontaneously fermented beers being judged in the competition, whilst the awards continue to support classic British bitters, milds, porters and stouts. The competition categories now better reflect the diverse nature of the British beer market and BeerX UK 2019 will be the first National finals featuring these updated style categories. What’s more, delegates and exhibitors at BeerX UK 2019 will get the chance to be the first people anywhere in the UK to taste the 2019 winning beers in our trade-only beer showcase – spread across eight regional bars right in the heart of the exhibition space.
A PACKED SCHEDULE OF FRESH, EXCITING WORKSHOPS We’ve listened to feedback from last year to further improve the packed schedule of workshops, debates and presentations that make BeerX UK a must-attend event for British brewing professionals. 'BREWING In 2019 the workshop content will focus on what you’ve told us are the two most important things to your breweries: ‘Brewing the best beer possible’ and improving ‘the Business of Brewing’. We want you to do that really important job that just never gets done – something you put off because there is always something else more important!
THE BEST BEER POSSIBLE’ AND IMPROVING ‘THE BUSINESS OF BREWING'.
With expert speakers and brand-new content scheduled around these two core ideas we are confident that 2019 is going to be your best BeerX UK ever, so keep an eye out for updates to the programme online and make sure you mark your diaries with everything you want to attend.
EXPANDED
‘FRINGE EVENTS’ SCHEDULE
BOOK YOUR TICKET TODAY!
We were blown away by the number of fringe events, tap takeovers and beer launches taking place around BeerX UK in 2018 so this year we are doing everything we can to promote and support these events as an integral part of the BeerX UK experience. If you’re running an event that you would like SIBA to promote as part of BeerX UK 2019 - on the website, social media and even IT'S FREE in the event programme - then email OF CHARGE!
membership@siba.co.uk for more info.
Tickets for Brewing Members and Supplier Associates can be booked online at
www.beerx.org WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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YEASTS
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With E2U TM active dry yeasts, you can pitch directly or rehydrate; depending on your equipment, habits and feelings. We offer you the opportunity to make your life easier, and eventually contribute to sustainability by saving water and energy. Any process you choose, we will be happy to ensure you the highest standards of quality, productivity and security. Discover all our solutions on www.fermentis.com SAVE TIME. GET COMFORT. ACT GREEN.
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
in a railway arch plus the multi-coloured autumn leaves which are typically associated with New England resulted in a fantastic repeat pattern which has an engaging story and reason behind it. It is a celebration of our roots, our heritage but most importantly is contemporary in its approach: bright, fresh and incredibly striking. With a geometric influence that is inspired by the 80’s and 90’s, it resonates with children of this era who are fast becoming key influencers and brand leaders and adds visual excitement as well as a touch of nostalgia.
The SIBA Business Awards 2019 will once again be presented at BeerX UK, and are open for entries until the end of this month (January 31st). The Business Awards highlight the UK’s best independent craft beer businesses, retailers, pubs and restaurants across a broad range of categories. The winners will be unveiled at the prestigious awards ceremony which will take place during BeerX UK, at the Exhibition Centre in Liverpool in March. The awards, celebrate excellence in the brewing industry across a variety of categories, from pump clip, can and bottle design, to efforts taken by brewers to make their business more eco-friendly, innovative or successful. The coveted awards also have categories for bars, restaurants, retailers and companies promoting independent craft beer in the UK. “The SIBA Business Awards celebrate businesses of all shapes and sizes which excel in promoting and championing independent craft beer – from national retailers such as Waitrose to small independent beer shops such as Hop Burns & Black. There are also categories for the UK’s best craft beer bars, pubs and restaurants, as well as a range of awards for brewers which have shown impressive vision and business acumen.” Mike Benner, SIBA Chief Executive. The SIBA Business Awards are unique in being both free to enter and judged by a panel of independent beer industry experts, who alongside selecting category winners also choose a ‘Brewery Business of the Year’, the top award which is reserved for a brewery which has shown true vision and business acumen. In 2018 that winner was East London’s Signature Brew, who’s unique fusion of music and beer culture struck a chord with judges,
PREVIEW
BEERX UK 2019: THE SIBA BUSINESS AWARDS ARE OPEN FOR ENTRIES!
“Winning SIBA’s prestigious Brewery Business of the Year Award continues to prove beneficial for Signature Brew. Recognition from independent brewing’s leading body has emphasized our unique approach to the industry by putting our passion for beer and music in the spotlight. In our current crowdfunding campaign, the acclaim of having SIBA’s top Business Award further validates the fact that we are one of the UK’s most exciting brewery business and helps set us apart from the pack. We are grateful that SIBA’s expert judges recognised the tireless work our team puts in to push the boundaries of what an independent brewery can achieve." Tom Bott, Signature Brew Alongside the brewing, craft beer promotion and retail categories, this year SIBA are continuing their partnership with Inapub to find the UK's Best Independent Craft Beer Bar or Pub (in categories ‘City’ and ‘Rural’), last year won by Wigan Central (City) and The Cove in Devon (Rural).
Business Awards 2019 Categories: • Marketing Implementation • Green Business • Best Individual Design • Best Total Concept Design • Supplier Associate of the Year • Business Innovation • Commercial Achievement • UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Retailer – Multiple • UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Retailer – Single • UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Bar or Pub – City • UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Bar or Pub – Rural • UK’s Best Independent Craft Beer Restaurant • Best Independent Craft Beer Promotion – On-trade • Best Independent Craft Beer Promotion – Off-trade • SIBA Brewery Business of the Year (No entries for this category - it is the judges’ decision taken from the best of all of the entries they have received).
ENTRY DEADLINE 31ST JANUARY 2019
Think you’ve got what it takes to be a winner? Entries are now open online for the SIBA Business Awards 2019, and you can find full details of the criteria for each category plus an online entry form at: www.siba.co.uk/business-awards
BOOK YOUR TICKET TODAY!
Tickets for Brewing Members and Supplier Associates can be booked online at
www.beerx.org WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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• Extended range for tempered glassware • New standards in glass and decoration design • Innovative solutions for the UK beer market • Powerful logistical services
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
11/12/2018 10:16:02
JOIN US
FOR BEERX UK 2019 PREVIEW
KEGSTAR NAMED BEERX UK 2019 HEADLINE SPONSOR SIBA is delighted that cask and keg rental specialists Kegstar have been named BeerX UK's headline sponsor for the next three years running. Thank you to Kegstar and all our supplier partners who make BeerX UK possible.
BEERX UK EXHIBITION BOOKINGS NOW OPEN!
THE
If you are a Supplier Associate looking to book exhibition space for BeerX UK, applications are now open. The best spots do go quickly so act now to secure your place.
HUB
Visit www.beerx.org/exhibitors/index.asp to book your space or contact jenna.barningham@siba.co.uk directly for further information.
MEET THE TEAM IN ‘THE SIBA HUB’ This year the ‘SIBA Hub’ is becoming a true meeting and networking area and a space where you can meet the SIBA staff, ask questions and make use of our comfortable networking space for your own BeerX UK meetings.
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We’ll also be publishing a schedule of specialist sessions on Public Affairs, Press, Beer Competitions, Membership and much more closer to the event. So keep an eye on the BeerX UK website.
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The SIBA Hub is the centre of BeerX UK 2019 and will be the first thing you see when entering the event - So grab a lanyard, pocket a programme and make use of the expert staff on hand to answer any questions or queries you may have.
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beer garden
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THE BeeRX SPONSOR
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Main Entrance exhibition stand key Gold Member
Large Space 4m x 1.5m
Regular Space 3m x 1.5m
Small Space 2m x 1.5m
WE LOOK FORWARD TO WELCOMING YOU TO BEERX UK 2019 IN MARCH! BOOK YOUR TICKET TODAY!
Tickets for Brewing Members and Supplier Associates can be booked online at
www.beerx.org WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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North West Region Cask Winners
REGIONAL BEER COMPETITIONS
SIBA North West Region
Overall Champion of the Cask Competition
Cask British Dark Beers (up to 4.4%)
Sponsored by
Sponsored by
Napthens Solicitors
SPASoft Ltd
Cask British Dark Beers 4.5 to 6.4%
Bolton Whites Hotel, Macron Stadium, Bolton. 18th October 2018
Samantha Faud, Napthens Solicitors presents Ian, Mark, Wayne, Shaun with the gold award
Nigel Hoppit, SPASoft Ltd presents Luke Ashburne & Peter Booth with the gold award
Nigel Hoppit, SPASoft Ltd presents Paula Reeves with the gold award
GOLD Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd West Coast 4.1 SILVER Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd USAle 4.0 BRONZE Stockport Brewing Company Magnum 5.5
GOLD Irwell Works Brewery Marshmallow Unicorn 4.4 SILVER Coach House Brewing Co. Ltd Gunpowder Mild 3.8 BRONZE Red Star Havana Moon 4.2
GOLD Stockport Brewing Company Magnum 5.5 SILVER Northern Monkey Brew Co Underdog 6.0 BRONZE Hooded Ram Brewing Company Limited Red Neck 5.3
Cask British Bitter (up to 4.4%) Sponsored by
Cask British Premium Bitter (4.5 to 6.4%) Sponsored
Cask Session IPA (up to 4.3%)
Cask Premium PAs (4.4 to 5.4%)
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Shaun Reynolds with the gold award
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Sam Evans with the gold award
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Wayne Roper with the gold award
Nicholas Brading, Murphy & Son Ltd presents Steve Briscoe, Proxy with the gold award
GOLD Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd West Coast 4.1 SILVER Keswick Brewing Co Keswick Gold 3.6 BRONZE Prospect Brewery Ltd Cascade Blonde 4.1
GOLD Weetwood Ales Old Dog 4.5 SILVER Barngates Brewery Red Bull Terrier 4.8 BRONZE Keswick Brewing Co Keswick Special Bitter 4.8
GOLD Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd USAle 4.0 SILVER Moorhouse's Brewery Scaredy Cat 4.3 BRONZE Lancaster Brewery Mosaic IPA 4.2
GOLD Spitting Feathers Empire IPA 5.2 SILVER Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd Blonde 4.5 BRONZE Bowland Brewery Buster IPA 4.5
Cask IPA (5.5 to 6.4%)
Cask Speciality Light Beers
Cask Speciality Mid to Dark Beers
Cask Strong Beers 6.5% and over Sponsored by Bulk
Beth Eaton, Charles Faram & Co Ltd presents David Cross with the gold award
Beth Eaton, Charles Faram & Co Ltd presents Mel Mason with the gold award
Bill Egerton, Bulk Storage & Process Systems Ltd presents Craig Hall with the gold award
GOLD RedWillow Brewery Ltd Smokeless 5.7 SILVER Northern Monkey Brew Co Reeny's Beans 4.0 BRONZE Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd Treacle Stout 4.9
GOLD Bowland Brewery Dragonglass 7.4 SILVER Bank Top Brewery Herkules White Walker 6.7 BRONZE Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd DIPA 8.0
Rastal GmbH & Co. KG
Sponsored by
Charles Faram & Co Ltd
Beth Eaton, Charles Faram & Co Ltd presents Michael Meaney with the gold award
GOLD Bowness Bay Brewing Steamer IPA 5.7 SILVER Brewhouse and kitchen Lucky sam 6.0 BRONZE Irwell Works Brewery Mad Dogs & Englishmen 5.5
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Rankin Brother & Sons
GOLD Avid Brewing Co Limited Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream Pale 4.6 SILVER Brimstage Brewery Elder Pale Ale 4.1 BRONZE Beartown Brewery Bluebeary 4.0
Sponsored by
Murphy & Son Ltd
Storage & Process Systems Ltd
North West Region Bottle & Small Pack Winners Overall Champion of the Bottle/Can Competition Sponsored by Brewology
Bottle/Can British Dark Beers up to 4.4%
David Grant, Brewology presents Mel Mason with the gold award
Dave Sweeney, SIBA Regional Director presents Mark Dickman with the gold award
REGIONAL BEER COMPETITIONS
Bottle/Can British Dark Beers 4.5 to 6.4%
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Keith Jefferson & Mark Green with the gold award
GOLD RedWillow Brewery Ltd Weightless 4.2 SILVER Weetwood Ales Old Dog 4.5 BRONZE Hawkshead Brewery Hawkshead Lager 5.0
GOLD Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd Black Stout 4.0 SILVER Coach House Brewing Co. Ltd Gunpowder Mild 3.8 BRONZE Keswick Brewing Co Keswick Bitter 3.7
GOLD Keswick Brewing Co Dark Horse 6.0 SILVER Joseph Holt Sixex 6.0 BRONZE Hesket Newmarket Brewery Ltd Old Carrock 6.0
Bottle/Can British Premium Bitter (4.5 to 6.4%)
Bottle/Can Session IPA (up to 4.3%)
Bottle/Can Premium PAs (4.4 to 5.4%)
Steve Briscoe, SIBA Regional Director presents Sam Evans with the gold award
Steve Briscoe, SIBA Regional Director presents Mel Mason with the gold award
Sponsored by
Beatson Clark Ltd
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Neil Jenkins with the gold award
Bottle/Can British Bitter (up to 4.4%)
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Luke Ashburne & Peter Booth with the gold award
GOLD Irwell Works Brewery Copper Plate 3.8 SILVER Prospect Brewery Ltd Silver Tally 3.7 BRONZE Hawkshead Brewery Red 4.2
Bottle/Can IPA (5.5 to 6.4%) Sponsored by
Beer Box Shop
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Michael Meaney with the gold award
GOLD Weetwood Ales Old Dog 4.5 SILVER RedWillow Brewery Ltd Sleepless 5.4 BRONZE Bank Top Brewery Pavilion Pale Ale 4.5
GOLD RedWillow Brewery Ltd Weightless 4.2 SILVER Hawkshead Brewery Windermere Pale 3.5 BRONZE Irwell Works Brewery Breadcrumbs 3.6
GOLD Coach House Brewing Co. Ltd Post Horn 5.0 SILVER Brightside Brewing Company Ltd IPA 5.0 BRONZE Bollington Brewing Co Endurance IPA 5.1
Bottle/Can Imperial IPA 6.5% and over
Bottle/Can Premium Lager & Pilsner (4.5% to 6.4%)
Bottle/Can Speciality Light Beers
Bottle/Can Speciality Mid to Dark Beers
Steve Briscoe, SIBA Regional Director presents Phil Parkinson with the gold award
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Robin Cousins with the gold award
Dave Sweeney, SIBA Regional Director presents Ian with the gold award
GOLD Blackedge Brewing Company Ltd DIPA 8.0 SILVER Keswick Brewing Co Thirst Celebartion 7.0 BRONZE Wily Fox Brewery Chakra 6.6
Steve Briscoe, SIBA Regional Director presents Robin Cousins with the gold award
GOLD Hawkshead Brewery Hawkshead Lager 5.0 SILVER Joseph Holt Diamond 5.0 BRONZE Brightside Brewing Company Ltd Helles 4.8
GOLD Joseph Holt Humdinger 4.1 SILVER Brightside Brewing Company Ltd Wildside Cherry Tart 4.6 BRONZE Coach House Brewing Co. Ltd Blueberry Classic Bitter 5.0
GOLD Bowness Bay Brewing Steamer IPA 5.7 SILVER Irwell Works Brewery Mad Dogs & Englishmen 5.5 BRONZE Brimstage Brewery Brimstage IPA 6.0
GOLD Hawkshead Brewery Tiramisu Imperial Stout 10.0 SILVER DonkeyStone Brewing Co ltd Javanilla 5.0 BRONZE Bank Top Brewery Port O'Call 5.0
Bottle/Can Strong Beers (6.5% and over)
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Mel Mason with the gold award
GOLD RedWillow Brewery Ltd Perceptionless 6.6 WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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Scotland Region Cask Winners
REGIONAL BEER COMPETITIONS
SIBA Scotland Region
Overall Champion of the Cask Competition
Cask British Dark Beers (up to 4.4%)
Cask British Dark Beers 4.5 to 6.4%
Ian Fozard presents Craig Steven with the gold award
BIll Egerton presents Craig Steven with the gold award
Bill Egerton presents Connor Grady with the gold award
GOLD Orkney Brewery Orkney Dark Island Reserve 10.0 SILVER Loch Lomond Brewery Southern Summit 4.0 BRONZE Loch Lomond Brewery Lost in Mosaic 5.0
GOLD Orkney Brewery Orkney Red MacGregor 4.0 SILVER Strathaven Ales Craigmill Mild 3.5 BRONZE Fyne Ales Ltd Vital Spark 4.4
GOLD Windswept Brewing Co Ltd Wolf 6.0 SILVER Loch Lomond Brewery Silkie Stout 5.0 BRONZE Keith Brewery Ltd. Stout Keith 5.0
Cask British Bitter (up to 4.4%) Sponsored by
Cask British Premium Bitter (4.5 to 6.4%) Sponsored
Cask Session IPA (up to 4.3%)
Cask Premium PAs (4.4 to 5.4%)
Nicholas Brading presents Tom Hunter with the gold award
NIcholas Brading presents Mark Moran with the gold award
NIcholas Brading presents Fiona MacEachern with the gold award
Nicholas Brading presents Fiona MacEachern with the gold award
GOLD Fyne Ales Ltd Hurricane Jack 4.4 SILVER Loch Lomond Brewery Bonnie n Blonde 4.0 BRONZE Orkney Brewery Orkney Raven 3.8
GOLD The Ferry Brewery Co. Ltd. Ferry Witches Brew 4.5 SILVER Born in the Borders Dark Horse 4.5 BRONZE Fyne Ales Ltd Highlander 4.8
GOLD Loch Lomond Brewery Southern Summit 4.0 SILVER Beath Brewing Secret Coming over 4.0 BRONZE Hybrid Brewing Groat 3.8
GOLD Loch Lomond Brewery Lost in Mosaic 5.0 SILVER Windswept Brewing Co Ltd Hurricane 4.5 BRONZE Spey Valley Brewery Stillman's IPA 4.6
Cask IPA (5.5 to 6.4%)
Cask Speciality Light Beers
Cask Speciality Mid to Dark Beers
Bill Egerton presents Fiona MacEachern with the gold award
Bill Egerton presents Connor Grady with the gold award
Bill Egerton presents Craig Steven with the gold award
Bill Egerton presents Fiona MacEachern with the gold award
GOLD Loch Lomond Brewery Bravehop 6.0 SILVER Ride Brew Co. Glasgow Pale 6.4 BRONZE Arran Brewery Arran ID 6.0
GOLD Windswept Brewing Co Ltd Weizen 5.2 SILVER Jaw Brew Wave 4.6 BRONZE Williams Bros Brewing Co. Birds & Bees 4.3
GOLD Orkney Brewery Orkney Dark Island Reserve 10.0 SILVER Loch Lomond Brewery Lost monster 10.0 BRONZE Windswept Brewing Co Ltd Werewolf 6.0
GOLD Loch Lomond Brewery Outlander 6.5 SILVER Orkney Brewery Orkney Skullsplitter 8.5 BRONZE Five Kingdoms Brewery Dark Storm 6.9
Drygate Brewery. 6th November 2018
Rastal GmbH & Co. KG
Sponsored by
Charles Faram & Co Ltd
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Rankin Brother & Sons
Sponsored by
Murphy & Son Ltd
Cask Strong Beers 6.5% and over Sponsored by Bulk
Storage & Process Systems Ltd
Scotland Region Bottle & Small Pack Winners Overall Champion of the Bottle/Can Competition
Ian Fozard presents Matt Corden with the gold award
Bottle/Can British Dark Beers up to 4.4%
REGIONAL BEER COMPETITIONS
Bottle/Can British Dark Beers 4.5 to 6.4%
Bottle/Can British Bitter (up to 4.4%)
GOLD Drygate Brewing Company Orinoco 6.0 SILVER Fyne Ales Ltd Mills & Hills 9.5 BRONZE Loch Lomond Brewery Bravehop 6.0
Chris Palme presents Mark Hazell with the gold award
Chris Palmer presents Connor Grady with the gold award
Chris Palmer presents Craig Steven with the gold award
GOLD Jaw Brew Fathom 4.0 SILVER Merchant City Brewing Unit 1 Red Ale 4.0 BRONZE Strathaven Ales Mild 3.5
GOLD Windswept Brewing Co Ltd Wolf 6.0 SILVER Spey Valley Brewery Spey Stout 5.4 BRONZE Sulwath Brewers Ltd Knockendoch 5.0
GOLD Orkney Brewery Orkney Raven 3.8 SILVER Cairngorm Brewery Stag 4.1 BRONZE Harviestoun Brewery Bitter and Twisted 4.2
Bottle/Can British Premium Bitter (4.5 to 6.4%)
Bottle/Can Session IPA (up to 4.3%)
Bottle/Can Premium PAs (4.4 to 5.4%)
Bottle/Can IPA (5.5 to 6.4%)
Chris Palmer presents Tom Hunter with the gold award
Chris Palmer presents Craig Hannigan with the gold award
GOLD Fyne Ales Ltd Highlander 4.8 SILVER Five Kingdoms Brewery Wee McAsh Bitter 4.5 BRONZE Harviestoun Brewery Broken Dial 4.5
Bottle/Can Imperial IPA 6.5% and over
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Lewis Hill with the gold award
Sponsored by Beatson Clark Ltd
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Fiona MacEachern with the gold award
GOLD Cross Borders Brewing Company Ltd Wee Braw 4.0 SILVER Barney's Beer Ltd Vital Juices 3.8 BRONZE Fyne Ales Ltd Jarl 3.8
GOLD Drygate Brewing Company Seven Peaks 5.0 SILVER Cross Borders Brewing Company Ltd Braw 5.2 BRONZE Merchant City Brewing Moteuka Pale Ale 4.4
GOLD Loch Lomond Brewery Bravehop 6.0 SILVER Fyne Ales Ltd Workbench 5.5 BRONZE Williams Bros Brewing Co. Impale IPA 5.5
Bottle/Can Session Lager & Pilsner up to 4.4%
Bottle/Can Premium Lager & Pilsner (4.5% to 6.4%)
Bottle/Can Speciality Light Beers
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Lewis Hill with the gold award
Neil Walker, SIBA presents David MacDonald with the gold award
GOLD Swannay Brewery Muckle 6.6 SILVER Fyne Ales Ltd Remote Parts 7.0 BRONZE Top Out Brewery LLP The Cone 6.8
GOLD Swannay Brewery Magnus Blonde 4.3 SILVER Drygate Brewing Company Bearface Lager 4.4 BRONZE Merchant City Brewing Klassisches Pilsner 4.0
Bottle/Can Speciality Mid to Dark Beers
Bottle/Can Sours/ Spontaneous
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Matt Corden with the gold award
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Matt Corden with the gold award
GOLD Drygate Brewing Company Orinoco 6.0 SILVER Loch Lomond Brewery Lost monster 10.0 BRONZE Harviestoun Brewery Ola Dubh 12 year old 8.0
Chris Palmer presents Matt Corden with the gold award
GOLD Keith Brewery Ltd. Larger Keith 4.5 SILVER Windswept Brewing Co Ltd Lighthouse 4.7 BRONZE Knops Beer Company Cold Fury 5.2
Bottle/Can Strong Beers (6.5% and over)
GOLD Drygate Brewing Company Take Me To The River 3.9 SILVER Cross Borders Brewing Company Ltd Autumn 5.0 BRONZE Keith Brewery Ltd. Frank 4.0
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Kate Russell with the gold award
GOLD Inner Bay Brewery Ltd Pearl 6.0 SILVER Top Out Brewery LLP Copperheid 3.4 BRONZE Williams Bros Brewing Co. Birds & Bees 4.3
Neil Walker, SIBA presents Tom Hunter with the gold award
GOLD Fyne Ales Ltd Mills & Hills 9.5 SILVER Loch Lomond Brewery Outlander 6.5 BRONZE Williams Bros Brewing Co. Alba 7.5
WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
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GOLD MEMBERS
Ben O’Gorman
Scotland & North of England M: 07703 562401 E: bogorman@brewersselect.co.uk
Caoimhe Nugent & Chris Watters Loughran Family Malt Republic of Ireland & Northern Ireland
T: +353 42 9322041 or +353 42 9322013 W: malt.ie
Ken Steer-Jones Midlands and North M: 07887 823133 E: Ken.SteerJones@brewersselect.co.uk
David Hughes South Wales and South M: 07970 767601 E: dhughes@brewersselect.co.uk
Brewers Select recently turned 5 years old and celebrated delivering quality ingredients with great service. Our team actively listen and react to customer feedback and the past two years we have implemented some huge business changes... www.brewersselect.co.uk | sales@brewersselect.co.uk 74
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
GOLD MEMBERS Ben O’Gorman
Scotland & North of England
M: 07703 562401 E: bogorman@ brewersselect.co.uk Ben has a lot of experience with malt and brewing from his time working for Bairds Malt near Edinburgh.
Loughran Family Malt Republic of Ireland & Northern Ireland
T: +353 42 9322041 or +353 42 9322013 W: malt.ie For all your malt needs, please contact our partner in Ireland - Loughran Family Malt. For hops, please call Brewers Select directly on 01733 889100
Ken SteerJones
Midlands and North M: 07887 823133 E: Ken.SteerJones@ brewersselect.co.uk A master maltster, Ken has worked in the malting industry for nearly 40 years including several years running a malting’s.
AB, BB, BD, BD, CA, DD, DG , DH, DL, EH, FK, G, HG, IV, KA, KW, KY, LA, LS, ML, NE, PA, PH, SR, TD, TS, YO
We offer all our customers:
For all your malt needs, please contact our partner in Ireland Loughran Family Malt. For hops, please call Brewers Select directly on 01733 889100 AL, B, BL, CB, CH, CM, CO, CV, CW, DE, DN, FY, HD, HU, HX, L, LE, LL, LN, LP, LS, LU, M, MK, NG, NN, NR, OL, PE, PR, S, SG, SK, SS, ST, SY, TF, WA, WF, WF, WN, WS, WV
• Dedicated Key Account Manager • Dedicated Customer Service Officer
David Hughes
South Wales and South M: 07970 767601 E: dhughes@ brewersselect.co.uk David has 15 years’ experience in the beer industry with brewing giant Molson Coors and a bit more before that in wine with Majestic.
BA, BH, BN, BR, BS, CF, CR, CT, DA, DT, DY, EN, EX, GL, GU, HA, HP, HR, IG, KT, LD, ME, NP, NPT, OX, PL, PO, RG, RH, RM, SA, SL, SM, SN, SO, SP, TA, TN, TQ, TR, TW, UB, WD, WR
As a supplier of a complete range of brewing ingredients for the craft industry, Brewers Select continues to add new, innovative product ranges in line with the demanding craft market. Along with new malt, hop and yeast varieties, we have added fruit purees, enzymes, and casks and kegs to our range. All your brewing needs conveniently sent on one pallet! Responding to regular customer feedback, our team has worked hard to improve warehouse efficiency to allow for next day delivery on orders placed before 12pm and same day collections. In August, Brewers Select launched a new, easy to navigate website which is compatible across all devices. The site is the best source of information
/BrewersSelect
• Office opening hours 8am-6pm Monday-Friday
• Next day delivery and same day collection services available
for our full product range and for convenience, orders can be requested through the site. Whilst launching the new site, we also implemented a LiveChat service for quick responses on product or general enquiries by our helpful team. A reorganisation led to three Key Account Managers on the road to provide product information and technical advice whilst having an in-house customer service officer manage and support your account. For more information, please visit our website or call us on 01733 889100.
/brewersselect WWW.SIBA.CO.UK
@BrewersSelect SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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GOLD MEMBERS
Brewman Premier Systems’ cloud-based brewery management software, BrewMan, has been designed specifically for breweries and distilleries and is trusted by over 200 businesses in the UK.
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www.premiersystems.co.uk Phone: 02380 811 100 Email: sales@premiersystems.ltd.uk
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
What Our Customers Say Premier Systems have been an excellent
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GOLD MEMBERS
the staff from Premier Systems
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some changes. Our server was 10 years old and
growth. Initially through the data migration
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latter has been a complete revelation for our team,
home and on the road. Having made the decision to go ahead we had discussions about how the
migration would happen with Matt and Jackie, all
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looking after all of the security, backups and database
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Duncan Sambrook – Sambrook’s Brewery
due to the total professionalism of the Premier
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a bit of support, the support
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They are a friendly bunch who are knowledgeable about their product, offering quick solutions and support.
Frans Muller – The Porterhouse Brewing Company
in the office the system is far faster to respond.
Another benefit being that we no longer have to
worry about software updates and compacting the data base. Certainly, a huge step forward which I would recommend to all”
Richard Shardlow – Tring Brewery BrewMan has become a
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Claire Ashbridge-Thomlinson - East London Brewery
communication, support and continuous development of the software. We are really benefiting from the
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Alun Morgan – Skinners Brewery
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01524 599980 enquiries@jwpc.co.uk
SIBA brewers' news
SIBA BREWERS' NEWS
Andwell Brewing Company unveils Wooden Spoon Charity Ale Wooden Spoon, the children's charity of rugby has partnered with Andwell Brewing Company, based near Hook in Hampshire, to launch a rugby themed charity ale, Crouch Hold Engage, to help raise awareness and funds for the organisation. Crouch Hold Engage, an award-winning ale, has been relaunched by Phil Burgess, Team GB and International 7’s Rugby Player. The ale is a scrummy, rich amber, traditional English bitter and is the perfect
accompaniment to the world of Rugby. It’s brewed with a blend of pale ale, brown and crystal malt giving a gentle spicy hoppiness and is available in bottles at 4.6% ABV and cask at 4.5% ABV. The charity alewas found in many bars and pubs throughout the South of the UK from November 2018, with plans to expand circulation Nationwide in 2019. Andwell Brewing Company will donate a percentage of all sales of Crouch Hold Engage to Wooden Spoon to help the charity support children and young people with disabilities or facing disadvantage across the UK and Ireland through the power of rugby.
Woodforde’s Explores New Territory with Innovative Conquest Lager Woodforde’s Brewery has added a lager to its line-up of award-winning ales. Called Conquest, the 4.5% ABV beer is described by the Norfolk brewer as ‘refreshing and thirst-quenching’. Best known until now for its traditional ales, Conquest is Woodforde’s latest innovative brew, and signals the beginning of further innovation in response to emerging market trends and drinkers’ changing tastes. James Armitage, Woodforde’s commercial and marketing director, said: “This is a real milestone for us, because Conquest is the first lager to be brewed under our own name. We brew British Lager for Marks & Spencer, which is part of its own label beer range. It’s proved hugely popular, and is selling well. That success, coupled with the fact Woodforde’s always seeks to respond to customer demand and prevailing industry trends, prompted us to create our very own lager.” Woodforde’s has also announced that Volt, it’s shocking Indian Pale Ale, is joining the core range of beers and will be available for stockists all year round. Volt (4.5% ABV) is a refreshing IPA packed with the best American hops; offering citrus, floral and pine scents. A beer with some serious voltage with a fruity and hoppy taste, it’s one of the brewery’s most aromatic brews to date. As part of an initial launch period, Conquest will be available on draught in specially selected pubs across East Anglia, with publicans able to order it in 30-litre kegs. The Woodbastwick-based brewer plans to roll out Conquest in cans in 2019.
You can keep up to date with Woodforde’s Brewery by following @WoodfordesBeer on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or at Woodfordes.com.
For more information email beer@andwells.com
Abbeydale Brewery invests in the future Sheffield based Abbeydale Brewery has announced a dramatic expansion and investment into the business in order to meet the ever growing demand for their range of high quality beers. Abbeydale Brewery is now able to boost capacity by around 20% having acquired an additional 7,426 square feet of space in units adjoining their existing site. This follows on from extensive recent investment into new equipment, with over £200k being injected into four new vessels, a malt milling system and laboratory equipment. Abbeydale Brewery have made no secret of their plans for expansion, having grown continually since their inception in 1996, and their search for larger premises has been ongoing since 2014. In being able to take advantage of the recent opportunity to take on an addition to their current site, they have been able to create much needed extra space to grow without substantial upheaval and thus production has been able to continue uninterrupted. Fortuitously, as founder and director Patrick Morton explains: “it’s fantastic that we have been able to expand right next to our existing premises and have been able to stay right at the heart of the thriving Abbeydale Road community which inspires so much of our identity and is a key element of our ethos”. As well as increasing brewing capacity, the new space will also lead to the improvement of warehousing capabilities and new office facilities for the team. There is also the potential to create Abbeydale’s first dedicated on-site events space which is sure to add to the area’s thriving beer scene. This is just the start of a major development programme which will be ongoing throughout 2019, in order to meet the ever growing demand for Abbeydale’s beers. These plans include the development of Abbeydale’s first ever lager which they are aiming to have on general release by the spring, and the installation of their own canning line.
For more information go to www.abbeydalebrewery.co.uk
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Unit 2/2, 307 West George St Glasgow G2 4LF
gustavo@beaumontpps.com 0141 226 3411
Come visit us
at Stand 91
Find out more
saxonpackaging.co.uk | 01502 513112
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
SIBA brewers' news
SIBA BREWERS' NEWS
Hogs Back Brewery to expand hop garden and build a traditional hop kiln Hogs Back Brewery is embarking on an ambitious new project to almost triple the size of its hop garden, as well as building a new hop kiln on the brewery site at Manor Farm in Tongham, Surrey. The new hop garden will cover 8.5 acres, compared to the 3.5 acres planted in 2014, and is located within Manor Farm, where the brewery itself is sited. Work started in October 2018 by preparing the ground for the arrival of hop poles which, thanks to an absence of overhead power cables, will be taller – and therefore higheryielding – than the old garden. A majority of the poles are now in place, along with several miles of hop wire providing the framework for the high-tension wire work. Along with 2,500 hop plants lifted from the old site and planted by hand, there are 3,700 new plants. The planting has been overseen by Matthew King, Hop Garden Manager and brew team member. Three varieties have been planted: Farnham White Bine, a traditional local hop which Hogs Back revived from nearextinction; Fuggles, used in the brewer’s flagship TEA (Traditional English Ale), and Cascade, used in Hogstar Craft Lager. Work on the new garden is expected to be completed by early 2019, and will also include a test area for different hop varieties. Hogs Back Brewery Managing Director, Rupert Thompson, said: “This is a huge investment in the future of Hogs Back Brewery and we’re proud to be continuing the journey that started with the planting of our hop garden in 2014.
“In the competitive beer market, every brewery has to find its own niche, and as a country, farm-based brewer this is very much the right direction for us. Expanding into the new hop garden will make us more self-sufficient in hops, ultimately providing more than half our requirements, compared to below 25% currently. We’re taking a long-term view that makes our beers and business more sustainable, and relevant to consumers who are increasingly concerned to know how their food and drink is produced. “Just as importantly, growing our own hops has made us better brewers, as with each harvest we’ve learned more about how the flavour of the hops is affected by the weather, and how that influences the quality and taste of the beer, which is something that benefits the entire beer sector.” The new kiln will be operational ahead of the harvest next September, just yards from the brew house and the new hop garden. It will stand on the site occupied for many years by an original hop kiln, and will be used to dry hops for around one month a year. At other times it will serve as an event space and visitor centre, educating people about the local hop farming industry which Hogs Back is helping to revive. Siting the kiln so close to the hop garden and picking machine means hops can be
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dried immediately after picking. Hogs Back is also investing in state-of-the-art vacuum packing technology to capture the hops’ freshness, with the aim of picking and packing within 24 hours. Once packed, hops will be stored in optimum conditions in a new warehouse in a converted barn on the farm. Thompson said: “A £700,000 investment, at a time of some uncertainty in the beer market, speaks volumes for our long-term commitment to the craft of specialist brewing and to our links with our local Surrey community. “With the new hop garden and kiln our hops will be travelling from field to firkin in just a furlong! Combined with our new vacuum packing facility, it means that we will have some of the freshest, best quality British hops, which in turn ensures consistent quality and flavour for our beers.” He added: “Getting closer to this key ingredient has given us a level of control over our beers, that helps us continue to build a commercially and environmentally long-term sustainable business with genuinely different, high quality products that consumers will increasingly respect.”
For more information go to www.hogsback.co.uk
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SIBA brewers' news
SIBA BREWERS' NEWS
Welbeck Abbey Brewery introduces innovative new range Welbeck Abbey Brewery, a traditional microbrewery housed in a listed barn in Welbeck, a traditional landed estate bordering Sherwood Forest, has developed an innovative new range of specials centred around sustainable production. Entitled “Foraged & Found”, each ale within the range will be brewed with a food by-product from food producers, eateries, and community groups local to the brewery. A key part of their new campaign “Go Green for 2019”, the range showcases the brewery’s efforts to have a positive impact on environment and local community, and highlights their commitment to reducing unnecessary waste. A variety of typical
beer styles from across the world will be brewed, chosen to enhance and highlight the key flavour notes of the foods utilised. The brewery will enter the New Year with a coffee porter made with coffee grounds for the nearby Harley Cafe, suitable named “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee”. To follow we will see an experimental stilton porter titled “Out of the Blue”, made with the whey from the award-winning Stichelton Dairy. Established in 2011 by General Manager Claire Monk - once the youngest female Head Brewer in the country - the microbrewery now produces over 17,000
of hand crafted ales each week using the estate’s own spring water and a unique strain of nurtured yeast. Claire Monk said of the new range: “We’ve teamed up with some of the local producers on our doorstep that source their ingredients carefully and considerately to make use of their by-products, as well as sourcing products from nature itself, and created a range of beers that highlight the way in which we can all help to repurpose, reuse and recycle ‘found’ foods.”
For more information go to www.welbeckabbeybrewery.co.uk
St Peter's Brewery introduces alcohol-free beer on draught Suffolk Brewery, St Peter's, has just launched Without Gold on draught in a bid to capitalise on the huge growth and opportunity for alcohol-free beer sales. UK consumption of no and low alcohol beer is growing ahead of all other beer categories and St Peter's believes this trend is set to continue and that draught is the next step to increasing sales. “We all know bar taps are at a premium so it is probably a little too soon to see no alcohol beers appearing on huge numbers of bars just now, but, given the rapid growth, I suspect it will not be long, especially as international brands continue to enter the category,” said John Hadingham, MD at St Peter's Brewery. “We've just launched Without Gold on draught in Old Spot Pub Company and it has performed very well indeed.” John feels that with more staff training, alcohol-free beer could become very
popular in pubs and bars up and down the country. “I think it's essential that consumers have the same experience when ordering a no or low alcohol ale, as they would when ordering an alcoholic ale. Staff training, tastings and point of sale materials are important,” added John. Without Gold is available in 30 litre stainless steel kegs and is part of the new range of kegs offered by the brewery, which includes English lager and a new wheat beer. “Giving landlords the opportunity to serve our beers in kegs makes perfect sense, particularly as we want to boost our ontrade sales and work more closely with landlords to serve our beer at its best,” continues John. “It is our aim to offer an even greater selection of our beers on draft. We've also joined Cask Marque to ensure we can help train staff to serve our beer in perfect condition so the customer always gets to enjoy the best possible pint of St Peter's,” added John.
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For more information on St Peter's Brewery visit www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk
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SIBA brewers' news
SIBA BREWERS' NEWS
Derby Brewing Company hosts Tap Takeover featuring renowned Manchester breweries The award-winning Derby Brewing Company hosted a new year Tap Takeover combining a Manchester brewing icon and one of the latest new craft breweries. The first ever Derby Tap Takeover took place at its two city centre venues, The Tap on Derwent Street and The Greyhound on Friar Gate. Marble Brewery have been ‘brewing up a storm since 1997’ and have earned legendary status in Manchester. All their beers have been strictly organic and vegan since 2000. Originally famous for cask they have now embraced craft and are especially known for their craft stouts. Many of Manchester’s new wave of craft brewers learned their trade at Marble before setting up many of Manchester’s new iconic breweries such as Cloudwater. Wander Beyond Brewing have been going less than a year but have already caused a stir in the Manchester brewing scene. They are currently ranked the ninth best brewery in England on Untappd and are very innovative, using the finest fresh ingredients in their brews. Twenty different beers from these two breweries were served across The Tap and
Greyhound from 27th December through the new year. This is the first time these beers have been sold in Derby. Paul Harris, Managing Director of Derby Brewing Company, said: “we enjoy sourcing beers from other leading breweries to offer our pub customers something new and exciting, and to complement our Derby Brewing beers. We love spending New Year’s Eve in our favourite pubs trying different beers so thought it would be great to round off 2018 with a big Tap Takeover across both of our city centre pubs so that people in Derby can spend the days after Christmas and into the new year sampling a wide range of excellent beer. It’s really exciting to be the first people in Derby to showcase these two renowned Manchester breweries together in a Tap Takeover.”
For more information go to www.derbybrewing.co.uk
North Brewing Co opens its first city centre Tap Room
North Brewing Co has opened its first ever city centre tap room in its home town of Leeds. Situated on the corner of Swinegate and Sovereign Street, their new venue is only three minutes’ walk from Leeds Train Station and showcases its own award-winning beer amongst the very best from the UK and afar. Combined with a creative food offering from street food residents Little Bao Boy and artisan coffee from local roastery Darkwoods, the venue is the ideal spot for the local community.
With 24 taps to choose from, the tap room offers an exciting and extensive range of fresh beer brewed only a mile away at the brewery located in Sheepscar and from other top breweries. For those looking to grab beers on-the-go there is also an array of the latest collaborations and modern classics to take away. The taproom will also be launching the latest new beers from North Brewing Co, freshly packaged only a day before, and will regularly host monthly tap takeovers from leading and up and coming and craft breweries from across the world. John Gyngell, Founder and Director of North Brewing Co, said: “It’s absolutely amazing to have a North Brewing Co taproom open seven days a week. Our opening hours at our current brewery tap are restricted by it being a working brewery, so this new space is gives us a real scope to introduce new people to our beers.”
Follow the new taproom on Twitter and Instagram at @northbrewtapLDS
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SIBA BREWERS' NEWS
Stroud Brewery becomes a Certified B Corporation
A star is born with East Yorkshire brewery's festive offering
Organic beer producer, Stroud Brewery, has announced its certification as a registered B Corporation. Joining a global community of 2,600 companies, only 175 in the UK, B Corporation (B Corps) businesses are those that have been certified by B Lab as having met rigorous social and environmental standards which represent its commitment to goals outside of shareholder profit. Greg Pilley founded Stroud Brewery in 2006 with a vision to develop a thriving, dynamic and resilient enterprise, recognised for its ethos of sustainability and producing a nationally respected range of cask ales and organic bottled beers. Pilley said: “Gone are the days when a business’ only aim should be to make money for its shareholders, industry is changing. Good businesses now understand their responsibility to support workers, communities and the environment, which is just as important as the products and services that they offer their customers.” The B Corp certification covers five key impact areas of Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. The certification process is rigorous, with companyies having to score over 80 and provide evidence of socially and environmentally responsible practices - including energy supplies, waste and water use, worker compensation, diversity and corporate transparency. To complete the certification, the company will legally embed their commitment
to purpose beyond profit in their company articles. The B Corp community is reflective of the UK economy with businesses from a cross section of industries and sizes. These include well known brands like innocent, Patagonia, Pukka Herbs, Ella’s Kitchen, Divine, and JoJo Maman Bebe. “B Corp Certification doesn’t just evaluate a product or service; it assesses the overall positive impact of the company that stands behind it,” Pilley said. “That sort of evaluation is thorough, there is a lot of detail. The process was challenging and has made us all really think about how enterprise can have a positive impact.” He concluded: “We scored an impressive 87.5, which we are really proud of. Being certified as a B Corp is just the beginning for us. We believe being part of this community will keep us actively trying to improve our standards and we will be setting new goals each year.” A spokesperson from B Lab UK said: “Being able to welcome Stroud Brewery to the B Corp community is hugely exciting. Their commitment to doing business differently will be an inspiration to others and really help spread the idea that we can redefine success in business to be as much about people and planet as it is about profit.”
For more information go to www.stroudbrewery.co.uk
The team at Yorkshire brewery Wold Top celebrated the festive season with Christmas brew
Star of Wonder, the sixth and final limited edition beer in Wold Top Brewery's Constellation Series. Star of Wonder, 4.1% ABV, is a dark and complex malt forward brew, ideal for relaxing with around the fire over the festive period, Brewery Manager Alex Balchin said. "It's the perfect time of year for a dark, warming beer and although we're passionate about creating great beers all year round, we wanted to release a special beer for Christmas and the New Year. With subtle hints of coffee and deep malty notes, this style of beer harks back to a time when brewers would typically produce a rich, strong and warming beer for wintertime." Star of Wonder is brewed using a blend of First Gold and Bramling Cross hops, Pale Ale, Wheat, Dark Crystal, Chocolate and Roast Barley malts and chalk-filtered water from the farm based brewery's borehole. Wold Top Brewery was founded by in 2003 and is located on the Mellor family farm at Hunmanby Grange. The team brew 26,000 litres of beer a week in a bespoke brew plant and produce a range of seasonal and all year round bottled and cask beers.
For more information go to www.woldtopbrewery.co.uk
Padstow Pilsner wins prestigious National award Padstow Brewing Co. has taken first place in The Great British Food Awards with its Czech-style Pilsner, beating off stiff competition from the likes of Adnams Ghost Ship. This prestigious competition was judged by a panel of experts, including high profile chefs, Michelin-starred restaurateurs, broadcasters and more. The beer category was judged by beer expert, author and broadcaster Melissa Cole. Melissa had this to say about Padstow Pilsner: “Perfectly clean, light and super-refreshing, it’s everything I want from a well-made beer of this style, which is tough to make and even tougher to package well.” The award comes quickly after the cold-fermented Pilsner was awarded a Gold at the 2018 Taste of the West Awards, one of only two awarded to Cornish Breweries (Padstow won both). Padstow Pilsner (4.4% ABV) was one of the first Padstow beers to move into a contemporary 440ml can format, and certainly isn’t the last. “Canning gives us complete control over the final product and presents it to the consumer exactly as it left the brewery. Perfectly chilled and enjoyed cold, it suits the style of beer extremely well,” said Head Brewer Caron Archer.
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For more information go to www.padstowbrewing.co.uk SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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SIBA BREWERS' NEWS
Consett Ale Works launches new branding
Consett Ale Works, which is based at The Grey Horse pub in the County Durham town, has developed a powerful new brand, which truly reflects the whole ethos of the brewery and the industrial heritage of the North East. The brand has been implemented across all materials, from bottle labels to glassware, pump clips, packaging, online and vehicle livery. Consett Ale Works beers include Steel Town Bitter (3.8% ABV), Molten Ale (4.5% ABV), Blast Bitter (4.1% ABV), Cast Iron (4.1% ABV) and White Hot (4.0% ABV) which celebrate The Company itself, while Men of Steel (4.2% ABV) is a tribute to the resolute workforce, and Red Dust (4.5% ABV) recalls Consett’s infamous blanket of iron oxide that settled on the whole area and coloured its already vibrant sunsets. Brewery founder Jeff Hind commented on the brand: “We wanted to create an identity which reflected the heavy industry which dominated this landscape for such a long time. The importance of these huge factories to the region was matched by the workers who lived here. The workers were proud of the region. We wanted
Fyne Ales reveals new look and first canned beers
an identity which promoted the strength, authority and raw energy of the region and the amazing people who made the North East such an industrial powerhouse.” Rufus Thompson, Master Brewer at Consett Ale Works, said: “Since we were established in 2005, we have created a reputation for quality and distinctive flavours. We have consistently grown our portfolio of beers, and the rebrand allowed us to bring the whole range back together under one single banner. The use of a colour palette to define the ales, bitters and stout will ensure our customers see our full range of drinks and understand that the quality in depth in our drinks.” The inspiration for the brand came from local artist Mick Oxley, who worked with Consett Ale Works’ Jeff Hind to create an identity, which pays homage to the town and steelworks or, ‘The Company’ which was an integral part of the whole area for decades. The Brand Identity ‘TO THE WORKERS,’ uses the iconic graphic style of Soviet propaganda to depict the dominating image of the steelworks. Jeff Hind said: “There were many reasons behind the need for a new brand. We wanted a brand which will position us as we continue to grow the business. We wanted a single identity which would bring together the outstanding range of products we have created. Finally, we wanted a brand which reflected our own heritage and provided a sense of our own gratitude and respect to this fabulous region. I believe the new identity has worked on all levels.”
For more information go to www.consettaleworks.co.uk
Independent Scottish brewery Fyne Ales has unveiled an updated brand identity and outlined plans to introduce new products to its core range, including two canned beers. The brewery’s new look, set to be rolled out in the coming weeks, draws inspiration from its farm brewery status and rural location on a 4,500-acre estate at the head of Loch Fyne. Not only will the brewery’s current core range, including flagship pale ale Jarl, be updated, but three beers have been added to the Fyne Ales’ year-round brews. From December 2018, the Argyll brewery’s Workbench, a 5.5% IPA, and Easy Trail, a 4.2% session IPA, became available in 330ml cans, and North West, a New Zealand-hopped lager joins them as a permanent keg offering. “Fyne Ales has always been recognised for the diversity and quality of our beers, but the look and feel of our brand put us
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at risk of falling behind in this fast-moving industry,” commented Fyne Ales managing director, Jamie Delap. “We set out to create a new identity that better tells the story of who we are and where we come from, but also reflects our ambitions as a modern, progressive brewery.” Fyne Ales partnered with Glasgow brand and design consultants O Street for the project, working closely with them to create the new look - each beer features stylised textures created using photography from the brewery’s farm estate, chosen to help tell the story of the beer and brewery. Fyne Ales, which launched its smallbatch farmhouse and mixed fermentation brewing project, Origins Brewing, in 2017, believes the new, more rustic branding which features SIBA's Assured Independent British Craft Brewer seal, will appeal to its current followers and new drinkers alike.
For more information go to www.fyneales.com
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The CANPRO filling system is a state-of-the-art, high-speed, mechanically controlled can filling system designed around proven European counter-pressure-gravity filling technology and can seaming technology. The CANPRO is designed to fill beer in a variety of can sizes and volumes offering today’s craft brewers a wide range of flexibility. The CANPRO filling systems achieve filling speeds ranging from 80 cans per minute with (330ml cans) up to 600 cans per minute while delivering very precise fill levels, very low O2 pickup and minimal product loss. Please contact us at info@moravekinternational.com for further information. Moravek International Limited Pure Offices, Kestrel Court, Harbour Rd, Portishead, Bristol BS20 7AN
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SIBA BREWERS' NEWS
Bowland Brewery welcomes Cask Marque’s newest Centre of Excellence Bowland Brewery has become Cask Marque’s latest Centre of Excellence, hosting training courses for the British Institute of Innkeeping Award in Beer and Cellar Quality (ABCQ) qualification. The brewery, based at Holmes Mill in Clitheroe, Lancashire, will host four courses in 2019. Attendees will experience a tour of the brewery, in addition to learning best cellar practice, how to handle cask ale correctly and managing keg dispense systems. All classroom based activity is held in the Beer Hall at Holmes Mill, and delegates will get chance to explore a range of Bowland Brewery beers. Bowland Brewery joins nine other Centres of Excellence in the UK strategically placed to cover the whole of the UK. Other Centres include Brains, Arkell’s, T&R Theakston, Fuller’s, Robinsons, Marston’s, and Palmer’s.
Paul Nunny, Cask Marque Director said: “We are delighted to bring on board Bowland Brewery as one of our training venues. The facilities offered by the brewery, and the Beer Hall at Holmes Mill, are amongst the best in the country and this venue is a welcome addition, joining our other Centre’s Of Excellence throughout Britain.” Andrew Warburton, Managing Director at Bowland Brewery said: “We are delighted to have been chosen as a venue for Cask Marque’s industry standard training courses. Bowland are totally committed to the highest quality levels of brewing and cellar management and so to be able
Yeovil Ales bottles eight of its favourites using bespoke technology A passion for brewing combined with their engineering background has seen the owners of Yeovil Ales brewery build their own state-ofthe-art bottling line from scratch. Rob and Dave Sherwood, owners of the family-run brewery in Somerset, have used their specialist knowledge and love of ale to produce and bottle on-site “fridge-friendly” unfiltered and unfined bottled beer, with the range including their Summerset blonde ale, Lynx Wildcat bitter and POSH gourmet India Pale Ale. The new bottling line enables the team to have full control over the quality of the bottled beers and maintain the highstandards the brewery is known for. All the beers in the Yeovil Ales range are vegan friendly, and the low sediment content of the bottled varieties means they can be laid down in the fridge. Rob said: “We’ve created from scratch a four-head counter-pressure bottle filler. It’s all computer controlled using technology known as Raspberry Pi. The whole operation is a real blend of skill sets - I designed all the pneumatics and electrical switches circuits, and Dave wrote all the software. I wanted to create a bottling line that allows us to use gravity to clarify the beer, keeping all the flavour in but reducing the variability of yeasty bottle conditioned beers.”
For more information call 01935 414888 or email info@yeovilales.com
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to combine both these aims within our facility in Clitheroe is a source of great pride. Cask Marque have revolutionised consumer perceptions of cask beer and are instrumental in the resurgent interest across the UK in great tasting cask ale. We are very pleased to be associated with them in this excellent initiative.”
For more information go to www.bowlandbrewery.com or visit www.cask-marque.co.uk/training
Beartown Brewery expand its range with an exciting new sub brand called CUB Following a recent brand update by AD Profile, and a UK Silver in the 2018 World Beer Awards for their stunning 'Créme Bearlee’, Beartown continue to build on their success by developing an experimental range of beers to add to their prestigious award winning line-up. Fronted by a devious, tattooed bear cub the boldly illustrated range of can and keg beers include TRAP, a Double Hopped Pilsner, and PIT, a peachy session IPA. Cans will be available shortly.
For more information go to www.beartownbrewery.co.uk SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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01283 565912 www.ubplastics.co.uk UB Plastics Ltd, situated in Burton on Trent, are the primary UK manufacturers of a complete range of 2 piece plastic shives in 6 different sizes to suit all cask bush variants. We also manufacture thermoplastic keystones, hard pegs, keystone re-sealing bungs - which are a far cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to cork - and a complete range of keg caps. Shives, keystones and keg caps can be customised to our customers requirements. We manufacture in a large range of colours and can also offer printing on the shives. UB Plastics are now manufacturing an in mould labelled Plastic 1 Pint Cup offering up to 5 colour branding. The cups are reusable therefore environmentally friendly, fantastic quality and are an excellent advertising tool for festivals / events.
Please contact Steve Brown on 07885 866777 or stevebrown@ubplastics.co.uk for any quotations or information regarding Stainless Steel Kegs or Casks and we will be happy to discuss your exact requirements. brewingbusiness.co.uk
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SIBA supplier news
SUPPLIER NEWS
Garbutt + Elliott work with Meanwood to develop their business vision Officially launching in 2017, The Meanwood Brewery became a reality when the brothers Baz and Graeme Phillips combined their excellent home brewing skills with their love for great bars and their local community and started supplying bottled beers to local events. One year on, and they have opened their own tap room, with beer garden, Terminus, in the centre of Meanwood, Leeds. And in order to fulfil their brewery dreams, the Phillips brothers have been working with Leeds based chartered accountants, Garbutt + Elliott, who have advised on friends and family investments in the business and are now working more closely with them on matters of financial compliance as well as business development and growth strategy.
Garbutt + Elliott have vast experience in the drinks sector, currently acting for a significant number brewery clients throughout the UK. Furthermore, Audit and Accounts Partner, Matt Grant has excellent credentials for an accountant working in the brewery sector. He is not only one of the key organisers of the York Beer & Cider Festival but also sits on the committee for the York branch of CAMRA and is a full member of the British Guild of Beer Writers. Of working with The Meanwood Brewery and Terminus Tap Room, Matt said: “It is a pleasure to be working with a local micro business that is investing time and money, not only in their own business dream but in bringing the local and wider community together. Their plans are exciting and bold, and we look forward to a continued relationship, helping the business and
Utopian chooses Vigo for its new brewery
brand move forward and develop in line with their business vision.”
For more information go to www.garbutt-elliott.co.uk
Lightweight Containers expands manufacturing capacity in Europe
Utopian Brewery has signed contracts with Vigo for the supply and installation of its new 35 hectolitre brewery, bringing Vigo’s installations of American Beer Equipment brewhouses in UK craft breweries to a total of nine. The new brewery, which will produce a range of craft lagers, will consist of a three vessel brewhouse with 12 fermentation and conditioning tanks, and scope for the addition of further conditioning vessels to support annual production of 16,000+ hectolitres in future. Richard Archer, co-founder and MD of Utopian, explained his choice of supplier: “The main factors that contributed to our selection were: the quality of the equipment, the long history of the company in beverage production, the flexibility and understanding demonstrated by the team and the quality of reference visits during the selection process.” Richard Charlton, technical Sales Advisor at Vigo said: “We are delighted to have been chosen to partner with Utopian on this exciting new project. Utopian’s decision to work with Vigo, from a very competitive group of equipment suppliers, further demonstrates our growing reputation as an established supplier of equipment to the craft market. Our great relationship with the manufacturers at American Beer Equipment (ABE) and our experienced team of multi-skilled engineers enable us to offer the full package from initial planning right through to installation, commissioning, staff training and ongoing support. We very much look forward to seeing what the future for Utopian will bring, and working closely with them for many years to come.”
For more information about Vigo’s range, please call Andy, Rich or Paul on 01404 892100, visit their stand at BeerX UK in March or go to www.vigoltd.com
To support growth, flexibility and sustainability, Lightweight Containers, the producer of KeyKeg and UniKeg, is expanding with several new production lines in Europe. The line in Seaham, UK, is already fully operational and the next line will be located in Guadalajara, Spain, and will start production in May 2019. Since KeyKeg and UniKeg are the One Way Keg packaging of choice, it doesn’t end there, since plans for the sixth production line have already been drawn up. The production capacity of the new line in Guadalajara enables Lightweight Containers to meet growing demand in that region. Anita Veenendaal, Chief Executive Officer of Lightweight Containers, said: “We see service as a crucial element of our success. We aim to provide the best service, keeping stock as close to our customers as possible. The new locations and their extra capacity will further improve this service and reduce environmental footprints significantly”. The factories are all state of the art, with the latest blow molding technology and machinery, as well as the latest automation and robotics technologies. With the opening of the production line in Seaham, United Kingdom, Lightweight Containers now has a global presence of five production lines and 10 warehouses. With the planning of a sixth production line in Italy the company is improving its environmental footprint even further.
For more information go to www. lightweight-containers.com
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integrity BEER of thE
malt Chris Garratt, head Maltster . tel: 01985 212014 Chris.Garratt@warMinster-Malt.Co.uk
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SIBA supplier news Building trust with environmentally friendly products Chris Cooney from WBC takes a look at how going green with your packaging can be a good business decision… “If there’s one product that hasn’t lost momentum in surging popularity for artisan products, it’s craft beer. It is reported that there are now more breweries open in the UK today than there were in the 1930’s! And the thing is, for the first time, we’re buying more beer in supermarkets, independent shops and off-licences than in pubs. Wine shops are devoting whole sections to craft beer for the first time. Supermarkets like Waitrose are constantly adding new lines to their existing roster of 90+. Even those who are struggling to drag themselves from the couch, they can buy it online in just a few clicks and be drinking it an hour later. So if beer is big, and the craft market still growing – how can you use craft beer supplies to help you sell even more, without losing the authenticity of your product?
“Craft beer taps into our desire for locally made, handcrafted and artisan goods. Because of its authenticity, the local indie retailer is the best placed retailer to sell it!” – James Stephens, Krafty Kuts Beer Never before have we been quite so happy to hand over a small fortune for a small bottle of Brewdog. It somehow seems worth it. And in the race to find unique gifts for the person who has everything, craft beer works. Especially when you find bottles from a brewery in your local area! At Christmas, what better present to inspire customers with than a small range of locally brewed beer gifts. You get brownie points for being thoughtful, double points for shopping local too. There’s a huge wave of customers looking for slightly better quality and more buying justification based on product ‘roots’ and ‘value’, which means that everything you package your beers in - needs to reflect your business values. At WBC, we see traceability and safety as interlinked with quality. Consumers are savvy. They may not need a SEDEX stamp on their bag, or an FCA approved logo, but being able to tell the story of the product and its value, can secure the sale sometimes more than its price tag. Whoever you buy bags or packaging from, it is important they demonstrate that ethical trade and corporate social
SUPPLIER NEWS
SUPPLIER viewpoint
responsibility is taken seriously. Sedex and SA 8000 are both convenient and practical ways for you to ensure our transparency has been met, but they’re only part of the story. The next one is communicating to your customer that when they buy a bag from you, it’s one that has been ethically and lovingly made. After all, by paying fair prices and looking after the maker, you end up with a product that looks and performs better. And that translates into more sales and happier customers.”
For more information go to www.wbc.co.uk
Family-owned maltster gives long service recognition Berwick-based Simpsons Malt has recognised the hard-work and dedication of 14 members of its team, who between them have given 325 years of service to the family-run business. Now in its fifth generation, the staff being recognised at the family-owned firm were thanked by Simpson Malt board member David McCreath OBE at a dinner marking the special occasion. Vice Chairman Richard Simpson was himself thanked for his 20 years of service, having started as a harvest grain sampler in 1998. Operations Director Steven Rowley was also commended for his 25 years of work for the company. Celebrating his retirement this year, following 40 years’ service, Quality Manager Chris Trumpess started at
Simpsons Malt as lab technician. Alison Inglis, Mark Eden, Malcolm Rodgerson, Mark Mitchell, Brian Williams, Michael McAskill and Steven Wiles have each worked at the company for 30 years, while Noel Rosedale, Neil Fleming, Pat Richards and John Coull were all recognised for 15 years’ service. Speaking about the recognition, Richard Simpson said: “In my 20th year working for the family business, it means a lot to be able to recognise the hard work and commitment that every one of our long service employees has brought to Simpsons Malt. “We are committed to supporting our members of staff with personal development and training opportunities.
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This is just one of the reasons we believe that so many of our employees choose to remain at Simpsons Malt.” Site Manager, Mark Mitchell, one of the maltster’s longest-serving employees having joined the company in 1988 commented: “Working at Simpsons Malt for the past 30 years has been a real pleasure, and that is largely down to the fantastic team there. “Simon, Richard and the rest of the Simpsons have made sure to make us all feel a part of the family, and that’s why they’ve had such a loyal group of people working for them for all these years.”
For more information go to www. simpsonsmalt.co.uk
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BREWERY START-UPS TECHNICAL SUPPORT REGULAR ON-SITE Q.A. SURVEYS ON-SITE TRAINING &
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QUALITY STOPPERS & CLOSURES - SINCE 1774
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SIBA supplier news
SUPPLIER NEWS
A beer is just a beer… and a hose is SUPPLIER viewpoint just a hose… Aren’t they? Gary Shaw, Managing Director of Flextech Hose Solutions, looks at why you need to choose the right hose… “A few years ago, I had a conversation with the owner of a brewery who said to me: “In the end, a hose is just a hose isn’t it?” And I replied: “Isn’t that like me saying your beer is just like any other beer?” Well, I certainly don’t believe this, and I know you don’t! So why is it that people believe a hose is just a hose? The look, smell and taste are all things that make a beer distinctive and the same goes for hoses: the ingredients they’re made from and the way they’re formulated defines the individual qualities they offer. Unfortunately, to a person who doesn’t understand beer or hoses they would argue that they are all the same, however they couldn’t be more wrong. We know your product is special and our brewery hose is too. The term ‘high quality’ has lost its value and has become a generic phrase for
Fourpure chooses GF’s COOL-FIT 2.0 to help control brewing process
promoting hose products. If I were to tell you that many of the ‘hygienic’ hoses available in today’s UK brewery market were manufactured on dirty, uncleaned, greasy steel mandrels, from inferior materials such as NBR and PVC, and even where foreign particles have been found in the hose liner, you wouldn’t believe me… but you should. As a hose assembly solutions company, we have a responsibility to ensure the hoses we supply into the brewery market are actually fit for purpose. That’s the reason we created Brewflex®. Over an 18-month period we designed & manufactured a highquality product, manufactured in a clean production area on high quality automated machines using a 316L stainless steel mandrel. The result? A highly clean and pure mirror finish, smooth, butyl lined hygienic hose. It also has a unique antifriction, easy-clean cover enabling it to be moved around your brewery effortlessly, eliminating issues with cumbersome long lengths. But the hygiene risk doesn’t stop there. There are two main ways to secure end connections to a hose, either with worm-drive clips that must be constantly
Fourpure Brewing Co, the rapidly growing craft beer specialist, has chosen the COOLFIT 2.0 system, manufactured and supplied by GF Piping Systems, to carry coolant around its main building in Rotherhithe, South-east London, making full use of the system’s failsafe fusion welded joints and excellent insulation performance. The Fourpure Brewing Co. moved into its premises on the Bermondsey Trading Estate in 2013 and has seen sales of its beers such as Session IPA and American Pale growing both here in the UK and abroad. It was actually on a trip to the United States that the two brothers who set up Fourpure first saw GF’s COOL-FIT 2.0 pipework installed at a brewery and realised the system’s benefits. As a result, Fourpure’s own technical team investigated the system’s physical characteristics - including composition, working temperature range, resistance to chemicals and installation method before undergoing product training with one of GF’s Area Sales Manager. The Head of Operations for Fourpure, Sean Knight, said: “We moved into what was an existing building five years ago and had it completely fitted out to our own specification. More recently the partners
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re-tightened, snag on operator’s fingers and potentially result in an end connection blow-out or our recommended method, swaging. We would always recommend the latter as it offers a seamless hygienic connection between the hose tail and the liner, drastically reducing the chance of bacterial growth. Brewflex®, unlike low grade rubber and PVC hoses, will provide you with genuine performance enhancements such as hygiene, flexibility and durability in addition to guaranteed quality assurance through full material traceability ensuring that you never lose a batch of beer to hose contamination. The question you should ask yourself now is ‘how well do I know my hose?’”
Visit www.brewflex.com for more information or visit the team at SIBA BeerX UK 2019 on stands 34, 35 & had been over in America, visiting breweries there, and saw COOL-FIT in use and realised we could source it ourselves.” The company decided to purchase the 63mm diameter pipe size, together with fittings also organising the purchase of a custom-built buffer vessel through George Fischer. These have now all been successfully installed to connect a chiller unit, external to the building, with the large capacity stainless steel vessels where the beers are brewed. Sean Knight explained: “We use the pipework to carry glycol at an optimum temperature of -50 C to cool the fermentation tanks and our process water. Our engineer and myself underwent training with GF’s Training Officer one afternoon – learning how to accurately cut the pipe and carry out the electro-fusion jointing process – before completing the entire installation ourselves. Not only was it very straightforward, but it saved us considerable cost in not having to hire a specialist contractor and there has not been a single leak on any of the connections. Now we’re looking to take on more production space and we would certainly consider using the COOL-FIT system again.”
For more information email uk.ps@georgfischer.com or go to www.gfps.com/uk
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The world’s best selling plastic casks
Call 01432 453146 email: info@breweryplastics.com
www.breweryplastics.com
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SIBA supplier news
SUPPLIER viewpoint
Advice for those new to the industry
Brewlab’s Arthur Bryant comments on recent observations made during the course of 2018…
“In recent years we have noticed an increased interest in carbonated craft beer packaged in bottles, cans, or kegs. Traditionally, brewers would rely on casks as the main package format and this was relatively simple to deal with in comparison. For carbonated beers however, people need to learn the theory not just from a technical perspective, but also from a health and safety perspective too. If people want to exploit the opportunities for carbonated craft beer, they need to know how to deal with pressurised systems and understand how to use gas laws such as Henry’s law. In addition to dealing with carbonation, brewers today need to understand how to brew with quality and consistency. This is partly due to the increased competition facing brewers today, but also due to higher expectations from the drinkers themselves. To brew with high quality and consistency, brewers need to understand the theory behind brewing practices in detail and how to use basic analytical measurements such as; gravity, ABV, yeast count and viability, water chemistry and pH control. Taking the measurements is helpful, but understanding what they mean and how to react to them is now very important.
What are the questions you have been asked time and time again? “The most common questions we get asked are concerning how to correct failures such as; poor pH control, poor microbial control, and inconsistent ABV. Again, this demonstrates the importance of getting to grips with these parameters and
AB Vickers release AMG in 1L format
In recent times the increasing use of enzymes by craft brewers has seen demand for smaller pack sizes than those usually favoured by larger ones. AB Vickers are pleased to announce the release of their Glucoamylase 400 in a new 1L pack format. Glucoamylase 400 is an Amyloglucosidase produced from the fungus Aspergillus Niger and works by hydrolysing alpha 1,6 and 1,4 bonds within the starch molecule, releasing free glucose into the wort. This glucose is then utilised by the yeast during
SUPPLIER NEWS
Brewlab launches distance learning course to support brewers worldwide understanding how to use them to your advantage in controlling quality. As we deal with a lot of people who are just setting up, or who are in the early stages of brewing, we also get a lot of questions related to equipment, such as; where to source equipment, and which type of equipment is required”.
What are the potential pitfalls and, of course, the positives too! “The biggest pitfall we come across at Brewlab is neglecting the business side of brewing. We have seen excellent brewers who are capable of producing good quality beer fail to succeed because they have not developed good quality sales and marketing strategies. This is why we now incorporate these essential skills on our training programmes. On the positive side of things, it is great to see enthusiastic people succeed in producing something of their own, which other people also enjoy. At Brewlab, we hold “open nights” where our students get to showcase their beers and receive first hand feedback of the beers they have developed, brewed and packaged themselves. I am happy to say that most of the time, the feedback is positive which really delights the student brewers.”
Arthur is Head of Training at Brewlab based in Sunderland. Brewlab is a leading provider of training, analysis and project support for the international brewing and distilling industry, based in purpose-built premises on the banks of the river Wear in Sunderland.
For more information go to www.brewlab.co.uk fermentation producing alcohol and CO2. The classic use Glucoamylase is to increase fermentability of worts leading to greater alcohol yields and more efficient use of raw materials. Novel and innovative use of Glucoamylase by craft brewers has seen the birth of a new style of beer. Dubbed ‘Brut’ IPA, this beer is characterised by extremely low levels of residual dextrin material at the end of fermentation leading to a dry, but not astringent character, along with a high level of carbonation and moderate hop character. When brewing a Brut IPA an addition of Glucoamylase is made to the mash or fermenter or in some cases to both. The chosen addition point is dependent on the desired final character of the beer, with additions to the mash leaving a greater
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Brewlab has launched a new, online distance learning course called the “Certificate in Brewing Technology”. This course has been designed for brewers wishing to develop a greater technical and scientific understanding of the whole brewing process. Managing Director, Keith Thomas, said: “As the brewing industry advances, and becomes increasingly competitive, the requirement for specialist training and an in-depth understanding of the whole process is more critical now than ever before. A solid theoretical understanding of brewing compliments the practical aspects of the job, allows faster resolution to issues, protects against poor quality and ultimately improves brewery efficiency. We have developed this course to provide training for brewers who can’t undertake a residential course, but still require access to the training provided by Brewlab”. The Certificate in Brewing Technology is an online, distance learning course to educate and train students in brewing theory. The course is split into modules. Each module culminates in an online test, with scheduled tutorials delivered by accredited Brewlab tutors to summarise each section and provide Q&A. The course follows the IBD syllabus and prepares students for General Certificate in Brewing examination.
To find out more about the Certificate in Brewing Technology, please visit www.brewlab.co.uk/courses degree of unfermentable dextrin than those to the fermenter. Dose rates are recipe specific but the suggested range is in the region of 2-6L/tonne of grist or 10ml/hl of wort at the start of fermentation.
Contact AB Vickers / Lallemand for further information at www.lallemandbrewing.com Mechanism of amylase activity α-Amylases Amyloglucosidases
Amyloglucosidases
β-Amylases
Reducing end
Glucose
Maltose
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PUMP CLIPS YOUR ONE STOP SHOP
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Independent Family Maltsters since 1809 Manufacturers of the finest Pale Ale, Crystal and Roasted Malts All Malts delivered ON TIME to your specification, crushed or whole. Main products include: Maris Otter, Pearl, Propino and Golden Promise Ale Malts together with the complete range of Speciality Crystal and Roasted Malts including Wheat, Oat and Rye products. Thomas Fawcett & Sons Limited Eastfield Lane, Castleford, West Yorkshire WF10 4LE Tel: 01977 552490/552460 Fax: 01977 519076 E-mail: sales@fawcett-maltsters.co.uk
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SIBA supplier news
SUPPLIER NEWS
GEA develops yeast propagator for craft breweries GEA has developed the GEA Craft Propagator, a yeast propagation system specially designed for small and medium-sized craft breweries. With production volumes from 5 to 25 hectolitres, the propagator’s dimensions are adapted to GEA's brewhouse solutions CRAFT-STAR™ and COMPACT-STAR™ (25 to 125 hectolitres brew size). Yeast is the most important component in beer production. It influences taste, quality and filterability. This makes it all the more important to select the right strain, maintain and propagate healthy cells and utilise the surplus yeast. In order to handle the increasing number of varieties available on the market, technical automation has intensified in recent years. But this is exactly where craft brewers have
New BeerLab Tests The CDR BeerLab can now be used to measure the vitality of yeast, providing information on its metabolic condition for optimal fermentation. An evaluation of this test by Campden BRI showed a good correlation with the reference method (Acidification Power Test). The Yeast Vitality test was also shown to be equal in precision and repeatability. The BeerLab also features a new test for Vicinal Diketones (VDK), metabolic products of yeasts which form in constant proportions during fermentation. These include diacetyl, which forms in the highest concentration. The BeerLab can monitor VDKs during fermentation; an important measurement as excessive VDK production may be a sign of incorrect fermentation or bacterial or wild yeast infection. Concentration of VDKs also plays an important role in the formation of flavour during the beer maturation period. Comparison of the BeerLab VDK test with the reference method carried out by Campden BRI showed that the results were similar (correlation R2 = 0.99) showing high accuracy, and repeatability was comparable to the reference method. In summary, compared to the reference methods, the CDR BeerLab tests for measuring VDK and Yeast Vitality are much quicker and similarly precise with comparable repeatability.
For more information email sales@qclscientific.com or go to www.qclscientific.com
different ideas from larger breweries: “With the GEA Craft Propagator we are responding to customer inquiries from the craft sector. We have converted our successful YEASTSTAR™, a solution for high capacity utilisation with full automation, into a little sister version,” said GEA Product Manager Torben Bauch. Designed for smaller budgets and smaller capacities, it offers the same functionality as the YEAST-STAR™: gentle homogenisation, highly efficient aeration and adaptive temperature control. However, it allows for more spontaneity – more experimentation via reduced automation. “All in all, we implemented a leaner design and a manual mode with some high-tech features.” “We have designed some of the functions for manual operation and provide a control system tailored for this purpose. On the one hand, this matches the target group's
budget and on the other hand, corresponds to the way craft brewers want to work: No craft brewer wants to simply press display buttons and have the feeling that they are not able to intervene. Here, for example, the brewer is given the opportunity to activate the cleaning-in-place (CIP) manually,” added Bauch. GEA is currently working on further options, including a stand-alone CIP unit for breweries that do not have a CIP system.
For more information go to www.gea.com
SSV Limited appoints ex Cloudwater and Leeds Brewery head brewers The former Co-Founder at Cloudwater Brewing, James Campbell, and ex Leeds Brewery head brewer Venkatesh Iyer have joined SSV Limited to form a new team of commissioning brewers. James was instrumental in the meteoric growth of Cloudwater and left the brewery back in September with the view to helping small breweries grow and expand, with plans to eventually fund a brewery of his own. While Venkatesh spent 11 years as the award winning head brewer at Leeds Brewery, growing and developing a range of highly praised and much loved beers. SSV Limited, UK importers of brewing vessels and brewhouses, celebrated their 1,200th tank installation in July and have recently completed brewhouse projects for Salt Beer Factory, By The River Brewing, and already have a healthy order book for 2019 including installing the new Verdant brewhouse and cold bloc. According to Sam Lawson, founder of SSV Limited, it was time to bring a team on board that could “match our current technical knowledge with brewing pedigree!” He added: “The addition of James and Venkatesh, means we now have an award winning team of skilled brewers to ensure we can offer clients solid brewing know how to back-up our technical
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expertise. Both brewers will work with our commissioning team to ensure the installation of our brewhouses runs smoothly and bolster our after sales service by providing optimisations and recipe development. They will also be on hand to offer consultancy work to clients, while James will be helping to expand and develop our Brew-bloc Brewhouses.” Commenting on his new role, Campbell said: "Working with SSV Limited gives me the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting new brewery projects that are coming up in the UK. It also gives me the chance to work with the high standard of plant that I'd like to become accustomed to. With that in mind, at the end of the contract, there'll be the opportunity to design and buy my own plant, helping me towards my long term goal." The new brewing team will not only work with customers but will advise the current SSV Limited engineering team on projects from the start ensuring the company is focused on the whole brewing process.
For more information go to www.ssvlimited.co.uk
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GOLD AND SILVER MEMBERS
Gold Members BREWERS SELECT
Dan Unwin dunwin@brewersselect.co.uk
CHARLES FARAM & CO LTD Paul Corbett paulcorbett@ charlesfaram.co.uk
MURPHY & SONS LTD Frances Maud Frances.Maud@ murphyandson.co.uk
CLOSE BROTHERS BREWERY RENTALS
CROXSONS
PREMIER SYSTEMS LTD
THOMAS FAWCETT & SONS LTD
Tim Croxson Tim.croxson@ croxsons.com
Reem Mohsen enquiries@ closebreweryrentals.co.uk
NAPTHENS
Malcolm Ireland Malcolm.Ireland@ napthens.co.uk
Jackie Smith Jackie@ premiersystems.ltd.uk
James Fawcett JFawcett@ fawcett-maltsters.co.uk
Quality, Consistency & Support
IC FILLING SYSTEMS LTD
RANKIN BROTHERS & SONS
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KEGSTAR
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Giovanni Solferini sales@icfsgroup.com
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Jim Rankin sales@rankincork.co.uk
Christian Barden Christian@kegstar.com
Nick Crossley ncrssly@aol.com
Chris Sapyta csapyta@keglogistics.com Brent Jordan syoung@lallemand.com
Mike Impson mikeimpson@saxonpackaging.co.uk
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MOESCHLE (UK) LTD
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CASK GLOBAL CANNING SOLUTIONS INC MUNTONS PLC Peter Love peter@cask.com
Joanna Perry joanna.perry@muntons.com
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Jonathan Chaplin jonathan.chaplin@core-equip.com
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Graham Cheesbrough sales@festivalglass.co.uk
FLEXTECH HOSE SOLUTIONS LTD Gary Shaw gary@flextechhose.co.uk
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Darren Seward Darren_Seward@nfumutual.co.uk
NORRIQ LTD
Colin Crow colin.crow@norriq.com
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Jamie Christopher jamie.christopher@paktech-opi.com
PENTAIR FOOD & BEVERAGE SOLUTIONS Debbie Larkin Sales.uk@pentair.com
Mike Hickman mhickman@schaefer-container-systems.com
SPASOFT LTD
Nigel Hoppit enquiries@spasoft.co.uk
VALE LABELS LTD
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SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
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MEET THE SIBA REGIONAL ELECTED DIRECTORS
Meet the regional elected directors NAME: Steve Briscoe REGION: North West
NAME: Gerald Michaluk REGION: Scotland
CONTACT: steve.briscoe@siba.co.uk
How did you first get into brewing?
How did you first get into brewing?
I started home brewing when I was around 17. As an apprentice I earned very little money and with beer at a whopping 18p, home brewing was a good way of supplementing my weekly beer allowance. I started planning a brewery venture back in 2005. Business plans, searches for kit, training at Brewlab all seemed to take ages. Commercial brewing started in 2009.
CONTACT: gerald.michaluk@siba.co.uk I was a home brewer before I was legally allowed to buy beer. However, like most things, brewing was very infrequent to almost non-existent when going through my middle age as my work involved long periods travelling, so not much opportunity to brew. I bought the Arran Brewery in 2008 and things changed. Suddenly I was brewing again and realised how little I really knew. Fortunately my first degree from Heriot Watt University was in Chemistry, and I could understand the text books so brewing professionally was not too much of a challenge and provided me with a lot of fun and it is still doing so, although I am only brewing around once a month as my team are excellent and somehow manage to produce beer without me.
How long have you been involved with SIBA and why did you join?
How long have you been involved with SIBA and why did you join?
I joined SIBA back in 2009 when we started commercial brewing. It made sense to join a trade organisation that represented our own unique industry.
I took the brewery into SIBA in the first year as I firmly believe in the need to work together to our mutual benefit and things like lobbying are not things a small brewery could do on its own. We need to ensure an equal playing field in the market and that is simply not going to happen when you are swimming with sharks unless we are all working together as a shoal not allowing a shark to focus on one business but outmanoeuvre them by us all working together.
What is the main focus of your SIBA role?
What is the main focus of your SIBA role?
As a North West Trustee, it’s my role to attend the regional meetings and meet as many brewers as possible. It’s mainly about picking up feedback. Getting brewers’ opinions on their key concerns. This comes in handy when attending SIBA Board meetings.
How do the regions support SIBA members?
There are regional meetings where brewers can attend. We also have the annual beer competitions. Both events are great opportunities to network.
How can Members get more involved in SIBA locally? The best thing is to come along to the meetings.
What’s new in your area of SIBA this year?
One of the Trustees has set up a Facebook page for North West members and this is useful for raising issues. A key concern this year is cask repatriation. With many brewer’s casks being wrongly uplifted.
What do you do outside brewing?
I enjoy all aspects of food and drink. I love going to food fairs and markets and I also go to pub quite a bit!
What is your favourite beer in your region other than your own?
I love all styles of beer. I always enjoy Weetwoods ‘Old Dog’ which is a very traditional style of ruby ale. Well balanced and with good body. It also won a prize at the last beer comp!
Who do you most admire in the brewing community and why?
Everyone who succeeds. It takes a lot of hard work to get a successful brewery up and running.
I enjoy my work on the Executive committee and Board. It is a complex organisation and a diverse one. It is important we ensure the collective benefits are obvious to our membership and that we focus on access to market.
How do the regions support SIBA members?
It is the other way around, it is the membership in Scotland that supports SIBA. We are the sum of our parts and members take time to attend meetings, support initiatives, lobby MPs and MSPs. SIBA co-ordinates activity, supplies secretariat support and helps individual members with legal and technical advice, but when that’s all said and done it is the members working through SIBA that are making things happen.
How can Members get more involved in SIBA locally?
I have just been with over 15 members helping to set up our annual beer competition and over the duration of the event almost all members will have some involvement. The members in Scotland are not shy at lending a hand when it’s needed. There are lots of things that need doing, especially on the meeting the politicians front and ensuring further damage is not done to our sector by ill informed government decisions.
What’s new in your area of SIBA this year?
Brexit will almost certainly change the landscape and we collectively need to be able to respond to whatever challenges it brings.
What do you do outside brewing?
I am fortunate to brew in some of the finest scenery in the world so just taking time to enjoy this fact takes up a lot of my time. My other passion is flying and if it goes in the air I want to pilot it.
What is your favourite beer in your region other than your own?
This is a tough question, there are so many fantastic beers in Scotland and funnily enough they are not all made by me! It all depends on what I am eating or doing but here are a few of the ones that stand out: almost anything by Fyne Ales, Swanney Brewery, Windswept, Loch Lomond, Born in the Borders. In fact, now I think about it I could say that there is not a SIBA member in Scotland that does not have at least one beer I admire. Scotland.
Who do you most admire in the brewing community and why?
Admiration or Jealousy? I admire many brewers and am jealous of even more - it is my competitive spirit I am afraid! I however really admire the management team at Brewdog. I would not rate their beers as my favourite, and some say they may be heading for a fall, but you have got to admire what they have achieved.
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contacts SIBA Head Office: 01765 640441 Cellar Services: 01765 641099
DIRECTORS
OFFICE TEAM
Mike Benner Chief Executive mike.benner@siba.co.uk Nick Stafford Operations Director nick.stafford@siba.co.uk
Rachel Harriott Head of Operations rachel.harriott@siba.co.uk James Calder Head of Public Affairs & Communications james.calder@siba.co.uk Neil Walker Head of PR & Marketing neil.walker@siba.co.uk
Sara Knox Company Secretary/ Directors Assistant sara.knox@siba.co.uk
Rebecca Kirby Financial Controller rebecca.kirby@siba.co.uk Louise Henley Operations Administrator louise.henley@siba.co.uk Jenna Barningham Operations Administrator jenna.barningham@siba.co.uk
All General Enquiries contact riponoffice@siba.co.uk
BOARD OF ELECTED DIRECTORS Existing members wishing to contact your regional representatives can use the relevant regional e-mail addresses listed below. For individuals, just type firstname.lastname@siba.co.uk Chairman of SIBA Ian Fozard
EAST east@siba.co.uk Sam Abbott Marcus Beecher Richard Naisby
Lincolnshire Brewing Co Elgood & Sons Ltd Milton Brewery
MIDLANDS midlands@siba.co.uk Greg Maskalick Draycott Brewing Company John Allcroft Grafton Brewing Co Lincoln Green Brewing Co Ltd Anthony Hughes
SOUTH EAST southeast@siba.co.uk Tom Bott Signature Brew Jaega Wise Wild Card Brewery Westerham Brewery Robert Wicks
NORTH EAST northeast@siba.co.uk Roosters Brewery Ian Fozard Maxim Brewery Mark Anderson Hop Studio Ltd Dave Shaw Acorn Brewery Dave Hughes
SOUTH WEST southwest@siba.co.uk Exe Valley Brewery Guy Sheppard Driftwood Spars Brewery Peter Martin Red Rock Brewery Paul Arrowsmith
NORTH WEST northwest@siba.co.uk Cheshire Brewhouse Shane Swindells Bank Top Brewery Dave Sweeney Peerless Brewery Steve Briscoe
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SCOTLAND scotland@siba.co.uk Christie Slater Loch Leven Brewery Isle of Arran Brewery Gerald Michaluk Harviestoun Brewery Stuart Cail
SIBA JOURNAL WINTER 2019
WALES & WEST west@siba.co.uk Norman Pearce Corvedale Brewery Teme Valley Brewery Chris Gooch Big Hand Brewing Company Ltd Dave Shaw
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