Focus North East: Timothy Taylor
As a rule you can pretty much guarantee that behind closed doors the brewing fraternity like to bitch about their rivals. While in public they may make encouraging noises about competitor brands, away from the glare of publicity and with the tape recorder off, the insults fly - questionable pricing policies, poor stocking deals with poor retailers, even insults about the taste of the brand.
But Timothy Taylor's Landlord is one of those rare exceptions. I have never heard a bad word said about it - quite the opposite in fact; nothing but praise and eulogies for one of the great British beers of the past 50 years.
"Well, that is very kind," says Charles Dent, the genial managing director of Timothy Taylor. "But we are only half of the partnership. The other party is the licensee and we love a really good licensee.
"As I once said to someone, we don't do one-night stands with licensees - we want a longer- term relationship with a great landlord!"
Timothy Taylor is undoubtedly a brewer of other great beers, such as its Best Bitter and Golden Best. But in Landlord the company has a beer which has had more awards bestowed upon it than you could shake a stick at. It is a four-time Campaign for Real Ale Champion Beer of Britain and a winner of innumerable other festival medals.
It is what you might call a star brand. And it certainly has been mixing with the stars.
It has now been three years since Madonna went on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and in an attempt to show how she had come to adopt the best traits of the English said: "I have learned to love ale. Timothy Taylor's the best - real ale.
"We go to the Dog and Duck [in Soho] and with my flat cap drawn over my face I order a pint and a half of Timothy Taylor's Landlord."She is a lady of great taste!" says Charles. "It was an extraordinary moment really. She also mentioned the fact she drove a Mini Cooper, trying to show how English she has become.
"So what you had was a megastar, who drives a mega brand who mentions an insignificant beer from Keighley with no marketing budget!"
Landlord now makes up 75 per cent of the Yorkshire brewer's output - "a far cry from the 1950s", says Charles. "Back then we were known as the 'common brewer of Keighley' because 80 per cent of our output was mild." The brewer is celebrating its 150th birthday, and is spending this landmark 12 months expanding its brewing operations- mainly to cope with the growth of Landlord.
"Our pub estate is up and down. A great landlord in a great pub will still perform well and is, to be honest, a joy to behold. But we are putting our resources in our anniversary year behind producing really great cask ale. That is our focus as a company."
Charles does admit that there has been an element of good fortune in Landlord's success over the last decade. "The brewing industry has reconstructed itself and there is a demand for great beers again - so we have been lucky," he says.
But luck can only get you so far. It does not get you the kind of repeat custom that Landlord gets, and moresignificantly the kind of freetrade listings across the country that it has attracted.
"It is successful because of its great taste - that is why people come back to it, says Charles. "We back that up with great service - a good barometer for our standards comes from our regulars. If a pub is not serving the beer correctly, or looking after it well they tend to leave and find somewhere else to go pretty quickly."
