Czech mate - the man behind Starobrno lager

Ben McFarland meets the man behind Starobrno, Robert Thomas

The pub trade has forever been a magnet that attracts people from all walks of life, but Robert Thomas, the man behind Starobrno Czech lager, has more strings to his bow than most.

The former national backstroke swimming champion left school to set up a business selling private car tours of Britain to American travel agents.

He hit the headlines when he hired a couple of double decker buses from a company in Essex and took 100 US students on a drinking tour of England visiting pubs in what Robert called "Ye-Olde England".

He said: "It got so much publicity that there was even a question tabled in the House of Commons asking if it was a correct way to introduce Great Britain to young, impressionable Americans."

Months later, the same Essex bus company contacted Robert to ask if he wanted to buy two double deckers. They'd been shipped to Montreal for a British trade fair and it was too costly to bring them back.

So, having driven nothing bigger than a Morris van, Robert and a friend travelled to Montreal to pick up the new acquisitions. Before long he started buying redundant double deckers for as little as £1,000, doing them up and selling them for upwards of $15,000. Over the next 20 years Robert shifted 2,000 buses.

It wasn't until 1985, however, that Robert dipped his toe into the pub trade. It all began when he stumbled across the Prince George - a dilapidated boozer situated in the "rough around the edges" Hackney area - with the intention of converting it into flats.

"Although we'd never worked in one before, the temptation of having a pub just the way we wanted proved too much, especially as there wasn't a decent one in the area," said Robert.

The first thing he did was to introduce quality real ales. His predecessor claimed there was no demand from the locals, helpfully informing Robert that "all those kind of people have moved to Basingstoke".

Robert ripped up the carpet, tore down the flock wallpaper and added real fires, sympathetic lighting, a "good classic jukebox" and hard furniture.

"If English people want to enjoy themselves they've got to be slightly uncomfortable otherwise they feel guilty," added Robert.

The arrival of the Beer Orders in 1990 meant you could get a pub in Hackney for as little as £90,000 so Robert and his wife Jean looked to expand their business at a time when Hackney, Dalston and Shoreditch were beginning to be transformed from areas of ill-repute to gentrified neighbourhoods frequented by arty media types.

They formed the Remarkable Pub Company and bought their first freehouse, the Shakespeare in Stoke Newington.

Within two years they'd added the Rosemary Branch in Islington and the Royal Inn on the Park nearby - a pub that had been sold after a regular had his head blown off with a shotgun. Signs of the deed were visible when they moved in. "My idea of calling it the Shot in the Park was turned down on grounds of good taste," said Robert.

The ever-increasing affluence of the pubs' catchment areas prompted Robert to introduce a premium Czech lager, Starobrno, into the estate.

After faxing the Czech commercial attaché and getting a list of Czech brewers, Robert did a whistle stop tour of the breweries before opting for Starobrno.

A brave move saw the two draught versions of Starobrno, at 3.2 per cent and five per cent ABV, replace Heineken and Stella Artois throughout the Remarkable estate. They're now proving a major success with a turnover of 160 barrels every three weeks and Robert is looking for distribution beyond his estate.

He said: "The margins are about the same but the quality is better. It's my way of cocking a snook at the big boys and besides - it's a lot of fun."