I think yesterday’s newspaper article clearly explains why my co-investors
and I are setting up a microbrewery. It’s more to do with being involved in the
community and producing a tangible product (rather than pushing bits of
information around the ether), but it’s also a sound business opportunity.
Well the cat is truly out of the bag, in fact he has run off with next
doors supper and headed for the hills. The article below is our first press coverage in the Berkhamsted & Tring
Gazette and Hemel Today on-line. I now it’s not the Guardian or Financial Times but it’s a start. We
have tried to keep the microbrewery under wraps, until we have set-up, but the
journalist tracked me down after he saw our planning application notice.
It’s the second day of my Start up Brewing course at Brewlab. Tomorrow is a nice easy day
with a visit to a few local microbreweries and a beery lunch at the wonderfully quirky Big Lamp Brewery. But the first two
days have been intense. In summary: I found the review of ingredients fascinating,
I found the marketing and branding piece particularly interesting, I enjoyed
learning how to create new beer recipes and like the idea of exploiting new
markets, I also found I am good at detecting problems with beer through bad flavours
and odours, but I got thoroughly confused by the brewing process.
Today I was fully immersed in our microbrewery business. We
had four brand consultants and web designers pitch to us down at the Old Mill – it seemed an appropriate place for such a meeting. I used all the life skills I learned as a Civil Servant to ensure we procured the consultants by the book. Seven local firms were invited to tender and then four
were shortlisted for interview/presentation.
The name of the brewery is probably one of the most important decisions
to be made in the early stages of any microbrewery. The name sets the tone for
the beers and the ethos behind producing the beers; the name reflects
the brand, it conjures up images to the consumer and it represents the aspirations and values of
the brewery. Basically, it’s important.
So I’ve started another blog. Why I hear you ask? Well it’s
because I now have plenty of experience blogging (see Henry Vill and WorkplaceUnlimited), but very little experience brewing. You see I have invested my hard
earned cash, my children’s inheritance as Theo Paphitis would say, in a new
microbrewery in Berkhamsted. As a newbie brewer (technically a non-brewer)
my focus will be on marketing and sales. I’m assured that my fellow investors, supported
by various consultants, can brew beer – but like at Dyson I think we all need
to brew our beer at least once and I suspect I won’t get away with not occasionally washing
and humping barrels.
