Flashes of inspiration

Beer is Wychwood managing director Rupert Thompson's burning passion. Adrian Tierney-Jones meets the

compellingly enthusiastic spirit behind Hobgoblin

An encounter with a flashing Hobgoblin can hardly be considered usual on a night out at the pub. But more than 3,000 south of England pubs recently received a special Hallowe'en pump clip for Wychwood's Strong Dark Ale, named after the spooky character.

Is a beer clip with a leering Hobgoblin and flashing lights embedded in a pumpkin just a Hallowe'en gimmick? "Of course," agrees the brewery's managing director Rupert Thompson. "The beer industry needs a bit of fun, and our Hobgoblin is quirky and anarchic."

Wychwood's Hobgoblin is the brewery's strongest brand, having thrust itself into the consciousness of many beer-drinkers, especially via its "Lager Boy" posters.

"That campaign worked well, although one person wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to say that, as a lager drinker, he felt offended. We just thought: 'Get a life' - it was meant as a bit of fun," says Thompson.

Phenomenal growth

We're talking in the new cellar bar at Wychwood in Oxfordshire, not far from Witney's bustling high street. This is the home of Refresh, which owns the brewery and a large selection of beer brands and was set up by Thompson in 2002. The impressive bar area has been unveiled to the press to show off its exposed brick wall, hung with brewing paraphernalia, a cosy corner bar and bottles of Wychwood's beer beside Brakspear's, another of Refresh's beers.

Pride of place is taken by a massive metal wheel sunk into the floor, a valuable relic from the bottom of a mash tun.

Thompson started Refresh after leaving Morlands, when it was bought and closed by Greene King. Formerly a director in charge of brands and brewing, overseeing the emergence of Old Speckled Hen, he needed a new job, so he returned to his specialism - brands.

"Having had experience of Old Speckled Hen, I thought it was possible to have a stand-alone business with brands and no tied estate," he explains.

"I believed that many businesses valued their pubs but not their brands. If you have real passion and a good team, especially in sales and marketing, you can add plenty of value. I couldn't take the risk of building a brewery and wasn't convinced that we needed one for our brands, which included beers from the recently-closed Ushers, so I started contracting them out to other brewers."

Refresh appears to have set up a new brewing and branding template: cask ales, bottled beers and imported lagers jostle for space within its portfolio, though the Wychwood brewery is as time-honoured as any. Wychwood was bought in 2002 when Thompson realised that not all his beers could be contract-brewed, and approximately half the company's 100,000-barrel output is brewed here. There are no pubs, either.

These six years have seen phenomenal growth, with the company currently turning over £22m. But Thompson is modest about his progress with Refresh: "It isn't necessarily a new way of doing things, but a different way," he says. "People have done all these things in the past, but we were unique then and we still feel the same."

Eternally grateful

Many beer-drinkers will be eternally grateful to Thompson for picking up the Brakspear's brands when the Hendon brewery was closed and rescuing them from a lonely fate of being contract-brewed up north. "Certain brands, such as Brakspear's, need a home," he says.

"It was only when we started operating the famous double-drop fermentation system for the beer that I realised how important it was to brew traditionally. Wychwood's brands needed a home, but Ushers and Manns don't."

Back at the brewery, the business of making beer never stops. A warm fug of mashed barley fills the air as the mill works its noisy way through a batch of malt. Five different malt varieties are used: Maris Otter, Optic, Plumage Archer, Organic and Lager, while Fuggles, Styrian Goldings and Goldings are among the hops used. Two separate fermentation rooms, one for Wychwood and Duchy Originals beers and the other for Brakspear's, have the double-drop fermentation system. This is traditional infusion mash-brewing, with 150 barrels of beer brewed at any one time.

Many of Refresh's beers are bottled and supplied to supermarkets and Löwenbrau is imported from its Munich home to be packaged. Brakspear's Organic, Wychwood's Circle Master and Duchy's Originals Organic Ale extend the range. And a new member is due to join the Duchy's Originals family soon - Refresh also owns Manns Brown Ale.

The 2.8% abv sweetish Southern Brown Ale recently celebrated its 100th birthday and is the UK's oldest continuously-brewed beer brand, mainly selling in working men's clubs.

Thompson is intrigued. "We would love to bring it back to growth," he says, offering serving suggestions. One glass gets the Magners' treatment, while a tot of Tia Maria is added to another. "We're going back to the idea of it as a mixer - it's a new idea, but how can it be commercialised?"

An active campaigner in the brewing industry, Thompson has an astute grasp of the very real concerns affecting his company and the brewing industry.

"The biggest issue facing the industry now is the squeeze on profit," he says. "There are more people between us and the consumer, which means less margin. Why does that matter? In any industry, profitability is crucial - if that goes out of the window there will be fewer suppliers, and brewers will just walk away.

Retailers such as pub companies and supermarkets need a closer relationship with brewers. The current balance favours retailers."

Thompson is also concerned by what he perceives as the unfairness of Progressive Beer Duty (PDB).

"PBD has gone against us," he admits. "We used to brew seasonal beers but our market has dried up because of the micros doing seasonals. On a positive note, more breweries mean more variety and choice. They are also local, but commercially it isn't great for us. We pay far too much duty in this country, so we support PBD as an initiative, but it has created a disparity between very small and medium-sized brewers like us. For some small breweries, annual subsidies can be worth up to £140,000. We feel it would be fairer to have a graduated line in duty."

Despite these problems, Thompson remains excited by the challenges he faces. Refresh has a good beer portfolio, catering for occasional beer drinkers and real-ale lovers. There's an energy and sense of creation in the way the company comes to the market with its wide variety of beers.

Initiatives that promise hope

"It's an exciting time for cask ale," he says. "A company such as ours is well-placed because we rely on innovation and brand-building and we don't have a tied estate. Innovation is the real key and a number of initiatives that we will announce soon give us hope."

One idea is to push the bottled-beer market in the on-trade. "There's great potential in pubs for premium bottled ales," he says.

As a founder member of the Beer Academy, Thompson believes that education of customer and trade is absolutely fundamental.

"We need to rebuild enjoyment of beer," he says. "If customers start enjoying beer, they will pay a good price for it and that means

reasonable profit for all. We have just developed a two-hour beer-and-food course that is shorter and less expansive than our usual ones. We want to be able to introduce new courses to fit in with the needs of industry."

It's good to meet someone so positive and passionate about brewing and beer - Thompson is one of these infectious people who fizz with ideas; his enthusiasm on the differences breweries can make to both drinker and trade is compelling. Continually searching for ways of stirring up the beer market, he has views on sustainability, the organic market, social responsibility of brewers, pubs, beer and food and the squeeze on profits by pub companies, always sustained by a fierce joy about beer.

"Brewers can play many more tunes than win