From time to time this job gives me a warm glow of satisfaction. Instead of writing about pub closures, supermarket discounts and all the other problems that beset brewing and retailing, this week I can doff my cap in the direction of the Wye Valley Brewery in Herefordshire.
A bottle of beer arrives through the post in an attractive box. It's a 7% ABV Imperial Stout from Wye Valley, a limited-edition, bottle-conditioned beer that celebrates the brewery's first 25 years in business.
And what a roller-coaster quarter century it's been. A few years ago, when I visited the Barrels pub in Hereford, Peter Amor took me in to the backyard and showed me an old stables block where his brewery used to be based. The pub, run by Wye Valley, was heaving. It needed sharp elbows to fight your way through the crowd and order a beer at the bar.
"Busy tonight," I said to Amor. "It's like this every night," he laughed. The pub used to be called the Lamb. It was owned by Whitbread and it sold 60 barrels a year. Peter Amor has boosted that figure to 600 barrels. It's now an Enterprise outlet, but the pubco gives Amor free rein to sell his beers along with ales from other craft breweries: it would be absurd to impose a central beer list on such a stunning success.
Amor learned the brewing skills with Guinness at Park Royal in London. But as well as loving stout he also had a love for cask beer and he founded Wye Valley in 1985 in Canon Pyne.
A year later he moved to the stables at the Lamb in Hereford. He was soon brewing seven days a week and in 2002 he took the momentous decision to move yet again, this time to the spacious, 18th-century cider factory once owned by Symonds.
His first task was to scrub every floor, wall and ceiling to remove any lingering cider yeasts from the place. With his son Vernon, who is now managing director, he installed spanking new brewing kit. A few years later additional fermenters had to be added to keep pace with the insatiable demand for the beers. A total of £250,000 has been invested at Wye Valley, which can now produce around 18,000 barrels a year.
Wye Valley is a smart, well run company with a staff of 20, far removed from the bucket-and-shed image of microbreweries. As well as the spacious brewhouse run by head brewer Jimmy Swan from the Isle of Man, there's a large reception area and bar as well as marketing and sales departments. A fleet of vehicles delivers beer throughout the Midlands, into Wales and down to Bristol.
In between all this brewing activity, Peter Amor found time to be-come chairman of Siba, the Society of Independent Brewers. He became a familiar figure on the brewing
circuit, well known not only for his boundless enthusiasm for the craft brewing sector, but also his devilish humour and his penchant for trilbies and fedoras. He's now officially retired, which means he remains chairman of Wye Valley and is as active as ever.
Vernon Amor trained at Young's brewery in London and believes passionately in using locally-grown ingredients for his beers. Neighbouring farmers grow Maris Otter malting barley for him, while Herefordshire and Worcestershire supply most of his hops, including such traditional varieties as Fuggles, Goldings and Target.
Range of beers
Wye Valley made its name with a beer called Butty Bach — Little Friend in English — a 4.5% ABV ale produced as a one-off for a Welsh beer festival, but which has become an important regular in the portfolio. The best-selling beer is HPA or Hereford Pale Ale, 4% ABV, fashionably pale in colour and with a superb hop character, while Wye Valley Bitter is a splendidly drinkable standard bitter at 3.7% ABV.
The brewery has achieved recognition and some controversy well outside its region with a range of beers under the Dorothy Goodbody name. Dorothy is a blond and amply proportioned young lady, similar in style to the buxom women that US airmen painted on the fuselages of bomber planes in WWII.
Seasonal beers and an award-winning stout are brewed using her name. She's a purely mythical figure, the fictional daughter of an equally fictional former head brewer. It's claimed she found his old recipe book in a desk, recipes that form the basis for the Goodbody range.
Politically incorrect or not, Dorothy Goodbody's Wholesome Stout (4.6%) on draught and in bottle is a superb beer. Does the roasted grain, bitter hops and burnt fruit character remind you of a stout once brewed at Park Royal? Perish the thought.
Dorothy won't lie down, so to speak. The celebratory Imperial Stout brewed to mark the company's 25th birthday carries her curvaceous figure on both box and bottle. The label tells you the Maris Otter barley that is the basis of the beer was grown by Chris Davies at Upper Derndale Farm in Canon Pyne while Challenger and Northdown hops are also grown locally.
Wye Valley is about to open a third pub to add to the Barrels and the Rose & Lion in Bromyard. The Morgan in Great Malvern takes its name from the Morgan sports car, which used to be built nearby. The Old Speckled Hen was once an MG prototype and perhaps, knowing the chutzpah of the Amors, Greene King may soon find itself facing competition from a beer called Morgan.