Protz: If it ain't broken then don't fix it

By Roger Protz

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Brewing Beer India pale ale

Protz: If it ain't broken then don't fix it
Brewing companies seeking success and profit interfere with well-loved and unique beer brands at their peril, says Roger Protz Brands rather than...

Brewing companies seeking success and profit interfere with well-loved and unique beer brands at their peril, says Roger Protz

Brands rather than breweries are the key to success these days. That's why Marston's bought the Brakspear and Wychwood brands from Refresh UK.

And Heineken, when it finally takes over the helm at Scottish & Newcastle, will find it has a highly valuable brand in Deuchars IPA brewed by the Caledonian Brewing Company in Edinburgh, which became a wholly-owned S&N subsidiary last week.

Just a few weeks ago I was praising Refresh for the enormous success it has made of its strong dark ale Hobgoblin, one of the top premium beers in cask and bottle.

So it was a shock to find that Rupert Thompson had agreed to sell a company he has built with such success, while Marston's can now add Refresh to Jennings and Ringwood, its other recent acquisitions.

Then early last Friday, as I was having my muesli, Steve Crawley, managing director of Caledonian, phoned to say that S&N had bought out the remaining independent shareholders.

The "Caley", as it's affectionately known to Edinburgh drinkers, is now owned — lock, stock and barrel — by S&N.

This was less of a shock. The Caley-S&N arrangement was always rather odd. In 2004, S&N bought the brewery site on Slateford Road and also took a 30% share in the company. This looked like an arrangement that was liable to change and now S&N owns both the company and the brewing kit.

Since 2004, S&N has used its enormous marketing muscle to turn Caley's leading beer, Deuchars IPA, into a national brand, on sale as far away as Cornwall.

As S&N has been bought by a consortium of Carlsberg and Heineken, and the Dutch group will be responsible for S&N's British activities, we can safely assume that buying Caley has been approved by Amsterdam.

The unknown unknown, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, is what Heineken will do with a top cask brand, as the Dutch giant has no actual experience in this sector.

As Marston's managing director Alistair Darby told the MA last week, the Brakspear and Wychwood brands — Hobgoblin in particular — will give his company entry into a different sector of the craft-beer market.

Marston's brews classic pale ales and will now be able to offer drinkers a quirky beer in the shape of Hobgoblin, Duchy Originals organic beer and Brakspear Bitter and Special. It's true the Brakspear beers are also pale ales, but their rich flavour, with a hint of butterscotch, is a long way removed from the sulphury character of Marston's Pedigree.

Brakspear

Brakspear could be the reason why both the Refresh breweries in Witney and Caledonian in Edinburgh will survive the takeovers.

Rupert Thompson told me that sales of Brakspear have been a little disappointing since he rescued the Henley brewing kit, with its famous "double drop" fermenters and moved them to Witney alongside the separate Wychwood plant.

He blames the lack of a big enough sales team to sell the beers to the freetrade, as Refresh owns no pubs of its own. He feels that mighty Marston's will be able to make a better fist of building Brakspear's success in draught form.

But there may be a second reason: consumer resistance to moving Brakspear from its original home to Witney.

That's not Rupert Thompson's fault; he didn't close the Henley brewery and he rescued both the beers and the kit. However, modern craft beer drinkers are fussy about where their beers are made and don't like them being moved around like pieces on a chess board.

Marston's will realise that if it were to move Brakspear yet again, to either of its major plants in Burton or Wolverhampton, the impact on sales could be catastrophic.

Similarly, much of the success of Hobgoblin is due to the beer's slightly scary roots in the witches and weirdies of the surrounding Oxfordshire countryside. It wouldn't have the same ring brewed in Wolverhampton.

And, Heineken please note, Deuchars is a Scottish beers so forget any thoughts of moving it south of the border. It's a beer that wears a kilt.

I shall now return to the kitchen and attempt to finish my muesli before another brewery goes down the Swanee.

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