Goblin' up the trade - Hobgoblin thrives

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Hobgoblinns is moving with the times and proving to be a genuine market success.A television critic in The Guardian recently whinged, "who in their...

Hobgoblinns is moving with the times and proving to be a genuine market success.

A television critic in The Guardian recently whinged, "who in their right mind calls a pub Hobgoblin?". He was writing about a detective series, McCready & Daughter, which told a tale of murder in a fictional London pub called the Hobgoblin.

The reviewer went on to imagine that it would attract "a Dungeons & Dragons crowd with JRR Tolkien quiz nights and Terry Pratchett monthly fancy-dress evenings".Of course, the Hobgoblin in Brixton, south London, where the programme was filmed, is a real pub (although the licensee is still very much alive). It is part of a chain of 22 pubs across the South and Midlands, all branded as Hobgoblin, and none of them has ever organised a troll theme night.

Managing director Ian Rogers has proved he was very much in his right mind when he opened the first pub in Staines, Middlesex, after taking on nine leased sites from Allied Domecq and Inntrepreneur in 1992.

Admittedly, the concept featured the odd image of a goblin or witch dotted around, but it was more about creating a traditional pub with modern décor. They are aimed at younger people and students but attract a broad range of people through the day.

They also feature beers from Hobgoblinns' sister business, Wychwood Brewery, in Witney, Oxfordshire, including its core real ale brand Hobgoblin and seasonals such as the notorious Dog's Bollocks.

The standard look of stone floors and dark wood is now being updated at a handful of the pubs, with more carpet, softer furnishings and lighter-coloured wood.

"Our main clientele of students and young people have moved on," Ian said. "The clientele is now a little bit more sophisticated. We had to evolve. People get bored very quickly.

"Our original pubs had a short shelf life because there were other similar pubs coming along, such as It's a Scream."

One of the first sites to be revamped was the original Hobgoblin in Staines. At a cost of £350,000, the work also included expansion of the trading space by 40 per cent and now weekly sales have gone from £8,000 a week to as much as £4,000 a day.

"We managed to keep the people who were staunch regulars and increased the trade by bringing in new customers," Ian said.

The company continues to look for about three new Hobgoblins a year, but its most recent innovation has been unbranded superpubs and bars.

"We didn't find enough pubs that we could take on, so we started to look at bigger sites," Ian explained. "In the past, Hobgoblins were targeted at the young market but, when you are spending larger amounts of money doing these sites up, you have to be able to cater for the widest possible market."

Two years ago, it opened a 5,000sq ft pub in Weymouth, Dorset, called the Old Rectory, and followed this with the Old Institute in Derby. But it has made its biggest impact with Qube, the only bar or pub in the new Millennium Square in the heart of Leeds.

Open until 1am or 2am every night and featuring DJs, the two-storey venue achieved weekly sales of £65,000 only a month after opening.

"We could have started a second brand like other companies, but we think people are getting fed up with some of the bigger branded operators," Ian said. "We want our pubs to have a local identity."

The company is now looking for one or two new sites each year in large towns and cities and is about to open a site in the Lace Market area of Nottingham.

While Hobgoblins fit into an average trading space of 2,000sq ft, the unbranded pubs tend to be between 4,500sq and 6,000sq ft.

The only real evidence of Qube's links with the Wychwood Brewery is the ales and own-brand alcopops at the bar. While there is now a Hobgoblin pub run by a joint venture in Tokyo, it is the brewery that is giving the company an international reputation.

Dating back to 1983, the brewer has grown dramatically since it moved to its present site in Witney 14 years ago. Over the past year, annual barrelage has risen from 24,000 to 30,000, which has been driven by phenomenal demand from supermarkets. Hobgoblin is now the fifth biggest-selling bottled ale in the UK alongside brands such as Goliath and Black Wych and the UK's best-selling organic ale Circle Master.

About 10 per cent of production is exported to countries such as Sweden, Canada, the US, Japan and Thailand, which leaves about a third going into the on-trade. It has gained national distribution through wholesalers such as The Beer Seller despite never spending a penny on advertising.

Cask ale sales increased by 32 per cent in volume last year, boosted by the growth of the pub estate and growing demand from the freetrade.

"People like having something that is independent and a little bit different - and not part of a big national or regional brewer," Ian said.

Hobgoblinns Ltd

Address:

Eagle Maltings, The Crofts, Corn Street, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX8 7AZ

Tel:

01993 702574

Website:

www.hobgoblinns.co.uk

No of pubs:

26 mgd

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