The way of the Dragon

Copper Dragon boss Steve Taylor invites Tony Halstead into his lair and reveals how he plans to expand

without compromising his beliefs

Real-ale enthusiast Steve Taylor may run Britain's fastest-growing independent, but it's not just increasing Copper Dragon brewery barrelage that brings a smile to his face.

Entrepreneur Taylor also gets a kick from running pubs - he has acquired 10 in quick succession since his brewery was launched four years ago in Skipton, North Yorkshire.

Taylor's ever-expanding shopping list of pubs underscores a whirlwind industry arrival that has already seen the company outgrow its current brewery site.

Taylor and his business partner Ruth Bennett are now hurriedly devising plans for a new £2m brewery to meet burgeoning demand for its beers.

It's an impressive success story by any standards, proving the theory that small players really can carve a niche for themselves in an industry dominated by big brewers and pub companies.

Maximising production capacity

From a standing start back in 2002, Copper Dragon is now producing 13,000 barrels every year - 80% of it delivered directly into genuine free-trade accounts.

Its sales team has mined a rich seam of business throughout the Yorkshire Dales and beyond, providing stiff competition for household-name beers that have held sway for years in the region.

The brand-new German brewing plant installed four years ago by Taylor is approaching its maximum capacity. Later this year, Copper Dragon will move into larger premises, where its new site will provide up to 30,000 barrels of extra capacity to guarantee output and service business growth.

Taylor's quest for new pubs is set at a short-term target of 32 - the exact number owned by the last brewery in Skipton before it closed down 100 years ago.

The longer-term aim is to establish an estate of 50 pubs, which the company feels is a manageable number.

"We've come a long way in a short time and I never quite imagined we would grow at this rate," Taylor says. "But we founded the operation on sound principles and haven't allowed ourselves to be knocked off course."

An engineer by trade, Taylor ran his own aircraft tooling-system business, servicing companies such as Rolls Royce and Bae Systems, before embarking on this very different career path.

Selling the tooling company helped finance the launch of Copper Dragon and ensured that the new operation was not wholly dependent on bank loans and other financial props.

"We searched far and wide for the perfect brewery site and eventually decided on Skipton, a strategic location with an excellent soft-water supply," Taylor recalls.

"Opening a brewery wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision - I had been interested in craft-brewing for some time and wanted to take things one stage further."

He and Bennett carried out a rigorous feasibility study into a small brewery's chances of making its mark in a cluttered and competitive beer market. Nothing was left to chance, right down to the choice of head brewer, and several quality candidates were interviewed.

Eventually, Gordon Wilkinson, former brewing boss at Samuel Websters in Halifax and Barnsley's Oakwell Brewery, landed the job.

Given free rein to source the best raw materials without compromising quality, his brief was to develop a range of cask beers to suit a northern drinking palate and challenge the dominance of established brewery names.

"I think our beers struck a chord with drinkers right from the beginning," says Taylor.

"We could tell from anecdotal feedback that we had things right and early repeat orders quickly confirmed our hopes. Today we have three sales people on the road, but the number of unsolicited calls from licensees and wholesalers still surprises us," he adds.

Fair deals with licensees

As the brewery business developed, Taylor turned his attention to pubs, using his local knowledge to acquire freehouses when neighbourhood gossip alerted him that they might be coming on to the market. Now Copper Dragon operates 10 pubs, each tenanted on a 21-year assignable lease. Six more pubs should come on-stream this year, pushing the company closer to its 32-figure benchmark.

Licensees enjoy the luxury of a trading contract virtually free of normal tied supply restrictions, while hosts have free rein on all wines, spirits and soft drinks and are able to choose guest ales from a list of other brewery suppliers nominated by Copper Dragon.

"Our licensees can reap the benefits of the buying power we have secured through deals we have struck with other brewers. The only strict tied obligation is on Copper Dragon beers," Taylor explains.

"It gives our tenants a great chance to build business and gain financial rewards, and I don't think you'd find a comparable trading deal anywhere else in the industry," he says.

"We don't believe in penalising licensees for success, so rent isn't geared to increased turnover or barrelage. We want our brewery's success to be reflected in our pubs, and we won't achieve this by charging rent on the basis of their success."

Taylor is a cask-ale devotee and it's a mark of his philosophy that no nitro-keg smooth beers feature in his pubs. Copper Dragon produces five cask ales: Best Bitter, Black Gold, Challenger IPA, Golden Pippin and Scotts 1816, which, with the exception of Best Bitter, are also available in bottles.

Infiltrating competitive markets

Bottled products are already finding their way into the export market, with Russia proving to be a fruitful sales ground.

At home, the brewery currently supplies more than 1,500 accounts across the north of England and that figure is growing.

North Yorkshire is not short of quality

regional breweries, with the likes of

Theakston, Timothy Taylor, Black Sheep and a host of other independent companies creating a highly competitive cask-ale market in the region.

But Copper Dragon has quickly established a name for itself and Taylor is delighted with the progress made by the company over its first four years of trading.

"We have succeeded in infiltrating other areas, such as the north-east, Lancashire and Cumbria, and now we have established a presence across the whole of the north of England," Taylor says.

"From our standing start four years ago, we have taken the first important step towards becoming a fully-fledged regional brewer."