The Wells wishers
From championing St George's Day to promoting Banana Bread Beer, Charles Wells is a busy brewer. By Mark Stretton.
Charles Wells is not your average regional brewer. Alongside the normal diet of real ale, tenanted pubs and managed houses, the company brews Jamaican, Japanese and Mexican lagers and does an interesting line in pre-mixed cocktails with flavours such as blue lagoon, sex on the beach and zombie.
It has pubs in Italy, Moscow and Paris, and its marketing department, noted for punching beyond its weight, is currently promoting Banana Bread Beer.
And instead of pheasant shooting, salmon fishing or horse riding, the managing director prefers to throw himself down very steep hills on a bike in the quickest time possible, a pursuit known as downhill mountain biking (like skiing but with wheels).
The brewery is a modern, state-of-the-art factory, far removed from the company's Victorian roots, producing more than 400,000 barrels each year, making it the sixth largest brewery in the UK.
The company has undergone wholesale change since 1998. "We had a huge shift in strategy," explains the mountain-biking boss Paul Wells. "We came out of a very production-led, own-label brewing operation to one working with brands, adding value, running a customer-focused pub operation.
"Most importantly, we asked ourselves 'what is it that people want?' instead of assuming that we already knew."
Under the leadership of Paul, the company has concentrated on "occupying ground that no-one else is in", hence the launch of its Muse range of bottled cocktails. "Why did we get into cocktails?" says sales director Nigel McNally. "Because we listened to a customer who wanted to be able to produce a cocktail in 30 seconds rather than three minutes."
The brewer hired a top mixologist and Muse was born. The product is on trial across nine airlines, in P&O and Stenna ferries, a host of pub companies and at De Vere Hotels. "People are buying into it," says Nigel. "We're getting enquiries every day and it gives us another reason to talk to potential customers." Other stuff in the new product development locker includes Banana Bread Beer. "It polarised people within the company," says Paul. "Some people loved it, others hated it, which is a good thing, like Marmite. The really important bit is the flavour profile. The fruit notes are banana but it finishes really cleanly - just beer." Charles Wells is testing Banana Beer at a handful of London bars. It is not "gimmicky" stresses Paul and it recently won an award from CAMRA.
The brewer is committed to enhancing the reputation and image of beer unlike the big boys. "The national brewers talk a great game about beer reverence but don't deliver. Then we see Carling ads with people licking the floor and toilet bowls," says Paul.
The company contract brews and markets the number one Mexican lager Corona for the whole of the UK and Europe. Since taking the brand from Whitbread in 1996, cases have gone from 100,000 to almost 750,000. It is also one of only four brewers outside Japan with a licence to brew Kirin, Japan's number one lager. The others are in China, Hong Kong and Los Angeles.
Charles Wells recently won back the rights to brew and market Red Stripe from Bulmers. The troubled cider group handed back a 30 per cent decline in Red Stripe which the brewer has already halted. A £2.7m marketing campaign should see Jamaica's number one beer return to growth. "It's impossible to say how pleased we are to get Red Stripe back," says Paul.
The company has not forgotten the real ale foundations on which it was built and has focused on growing Bombardier. In 1994 it was an 11,000-barrel brand, now it is in excess of 40,000. The brand has grown 30 per cent annually for the last three years through a concentrated marketing campaign. "The success of Bombardier has been built on a completely new understanding of brands and marketing," says Paul. Charles Wells wants to establish Bombardier as the national beer, with its "frightfully English" promotions focusing on the idiosyncrasies of the English, and campaigning for a national holiday on St George's Day. "We were quite nervous about researching St George's Day as it could be seen as jingoistic and xenophobic," says public relations manager Sarah McGhie.
"Our researchers said they had never seen a more positive consumer reaction."
The company has built Bombardier campaigns around other "English" events like Bonfire Night, and decorated a double-decker bus in Bombardier colours.
While adopting an English message for its flagship beer, Charles Wells has abandoned some of the stuffy Englishness associated with UK business and family brewers.
Gone are the suits and the company cars to stop men "hiding behind status".
"I'm very conscious of the fact that family companies can be hard to work for, constricting creativity and innovation," says Paul. "We needed to break down barriers and encourage the ownership of problems, free-thinking and innovation."
The managing director is convinced that without changing the culture of the company, products like Muse and Banana Bread Beer would not have been possible, nor the rebirth of Bombardier.
Despite the biggest shift in strategy and culture since Tony Blair kissed goodbye to old Labour, there are still a few reminders of the past at the Bedford headquarters.
Important people have a car-parking space and their names on their office doors, like other family brewers the company boasts a fashionable range of ties and, touchingly, the brewery has its own petrol pump and car cleaning service for staff, corporate excess if ever there was.
Established in 1876, the company has 260 pubs in the UK and a further 45 in Europe - it bought the John Bull chain from Allied Domecq and has a pub presence in most of Eastern Europe as well as Paris, Italy and Scandinavia.
Paul concedes there is still work to be done on the company's Bedford doorstep. "This is a journey," says Paul. "We have some duff pubs but we don't have as many. We have a commitment to making the pubs work - they are crucial to the stability of the business.
"We are as attractive as possible to tenants with training [a new £1.5m training centre is about to open], financial assistance and strength of brands we can offer."
Most independent family brewers sell around 80 per cent of their beer through their own estate, at Charles Wells the figure is less than 15 per cent. And many of the brands, like Corona and Red Stripe, are not its own. So is Charles Wells a regional brewer or a modern drinks company? "I am tempted to say a drinks company but we are whatever our customers want us to be," says Paul.
"We are a regional brewer with a large number of pubs in our heartland and we are a drinks company with global brands.
"The idea of making beer and putting it into a pub is a very ordinary business but it is a very good thing to do. We have taken wings and gone beyond just brewing beer and running pubs but, ultimately, that is still the essence of it."
Pictured: Managing director Paul Wells (right) and sales director Nigel McNally
