Discontent brewing over PBD

Don't call Hogs Back Brewery "a micro". This is a regional brewery by any other name.

It produces 20,000 barrels a year in Surrey and there are four new cellar tanks on order to keep up with demand. It's yet a further example of the success of the craft brewery sector, driven by cask beer.

It's also one of the longest-running of the new breed of cask breweries, dating from 1992. The founders are Tony Stanton-Precious and Martin Zillwood-Hunt. They sound like a throwback to end-of-the-pier concerts in the 1950s, two middle-class gents in evening dress and monocles, singing light operatic songs.

Appearances can be deceptive. Martin, with a shaved head and tattooed arms, looks like someone you wouldn't want to disagree with after a few pints in the local (though he's as gentle as a lamb), while Tony, smart casual and quietly spoken, is a man with a strong eye for business.

They met as a result of a love for good beer, but were from different backgrounds. Martin had worked in the US before running a courier service and developing a passion for home brewing. Tony was a surveyor in Canary Wharf, but knew his work there would eventually end.

His interest in beer encouraged him to look at the possibility of starting a brewery. He found a book in the library called How To Start Your Own Brewery. The first word in the book was "Don't". Brewing was a risky business, the book said, with a high divorce rate. Undeterred, Tony phoned the small brewers' magazine The Grist, where the editor put him in touch with Martin, who was seeking investment to move from home brewing to commercial production.

The result was a brewery based in 18th-century barns at Manor Farm in Tongham, Surrey. Before they tried to sell beer, Martin would take samples of his first brews to pubs and leave them for locals to taste. For this shocking crime, he was threatened with arrest by Customs & Excise until he convinced them he wasn't selling beer without a licence.

Martin's benchmark was Hook Norton's Old Hooky. He wanted to brew a similar beer, but with less malty sweetness and greater hop character. He got a supply of yeast from Hook Norton and still uses the strain today. As commercial production began, Martin was joined in the brewery by wife Maureen. They have since divorced, but still work in harmony, even though Martin's new wife also works at Hogs Back.

If it sounds like there's a soap opera waiting to be written about the company, be assured this is a sound operation that has achieved great success. The brewery has expanded into other barns on the farm, which stands in view of the famous Hogs Back Ridge across the South Downs and is the source for brewing water.

The brewery​

The site includes a shop where visitors can take home draught and bottled beers. Hogs Back has a staff of 30, with a sales team based both at Manor Farm and in London. Five hundred pubs regularly take the beers, while a further 500 are supplied with guest beers.

The beer Martin fashioned in the early days became a regular brew branded TEA — Traditional English Ale.

It accounts for 70% of annual production and is joined by other regular beers — Hogs Back Bitter, Hop Garden Gold and A Over T. A Over T stands for Aromas Over Tongham and is a 9% barley wine. Along with TEA, it has won many awards. The core portfolio is joined by four seasonal beers and one-off brews.

Hogs Back sells beer in London, Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire and supplies JDW, some Greene King outlets, Enterprise and Punch. The pubcos are sharp on price, says Tony, but are important in helping spread the brewery's name. The beers are available as guests in some Young's pubs in London while Hogs Back enjoys cult status on draught in the Green Man pub in Harrods. When the revamped Savoy Hotel in London re-opens, guests will find Hogs Back bottles in their fridges.

All seems well as you stand in the German-built brewhouse, but the founders have some tub-thumping to do. It concerns progressive beer duty (PBD), introduced by the last Labour government. PBD means craft brewers pay less duty, on a sliding scale, than bigger regionals and nationals.

"We knew PBD would lead to a price war," Martin says. "Pubs pay on price and some small brewers have started up in garages to undercut the likes of Hogs Back."

He pays £45,000 a month in duty, an eye-watering amount of money, while smaller brewers pay a fraction of that. The Hogs Back team thinks there's a strong case for a review of PBD, with a scale that benefits all brewers but doesn't penalise successful companies caught in the middle.

The politics of brewing! We soothe ourselves with a glass of TEA and toast a company that has put beer on the map on the South Downs.