BIG INTERVIEW: The busiest year ever for Wye Valley Brewery

And despite Covid being a horror situation, it was an ullage issue that really put the business into the doldrums in the early 2010s but the Herefordshire-based business has come back strongly.

Amor says: “Trade last year was the busiest ever for us so you could say that’s been a highlight, particularly in the context of it being a very tough pubs and brewing market – the statistics aren’t very good on beer volumes across the whole country but we seem to be bucking the trend and the proudest bit is the fact we’re still continuing to grow.

“Other highlights would be we’re very proud, like lots of brewers are, to be award-winning brewers but the quality of our beer is really the best it’s ever been and that’s through investing in equipment but more so in skilled and talented people.

“We’ve also been recognised for our sustainability credentials and we’ve purchased the freehold of the Barrels pub where the brewery started and going way back to when it was a Whitbread brewery pub and my dad leased it from Whitbread.

“Then the Beer Orders came in 1990 and I think we had Laurel Pub company as our landlord, then Enterprise Inns, then EI Group and, latterly, Stonegate.

“We’re a national living wage employer, which happened three years ago and that’s been a highlight as well.”

He explains Covid was probably was a low point because “the split between on and off-trade beer sales now is about 55% off-trade and 45% on-trade but we are 85% on-trade, so Covid was a disaster for us and for all fellow brewers and pub operators. We just didn’t know what was going on so it was a very stressful time”.

He adds it was a watershed moment because the pub trade has “definitely changed” since then.

On what Amor describes as the worst moment before Covid was the business’s beer quality crisis.

“It was 2013 and we had an ullage problem (residue at the bottom of a cask or keg container) so not only are we very much an on-trade business, we’re very cask orientated too – of our total output, 80% is cask-conditioned beer. Our annual production is 55,000 brewers’ barrels,” he says.

“The ullage issue went on for about six weeks. We were all at our wits’ end and it was probably the most stressful period of my career. We got through it and the key thing was we were straight with our customers. We didn’t try to bluff our way through it by telling them anything that wasn’t true and they respected that. We came out a bit stronger and better.”

He explains the issue was the yeast culture, which was independently stored in a yeast bank and every so often a brewer will call in a fresh culture of yeast and repropagate it.

Amor reveals: “We had a low level of spoilage organisms coming in that way. It was the worst sort of problem to have because it affected everything, all products, all the time.

“It came in as contaminated yeast and it felt like we all had post-traumatic stress after that because we just didn’t know where it was coming from. We thought it was something we were doing internally and we were literally pulling the brewery to pieces.

“In the same way a pub cleans its beer lines, we thought it was something like that but it has come in externally.”

Fantastic place

The way Amor came into the business was because Wye Valley Brewery is a family business but he describes it as “random”.

He states: “The brewery was started by my dad 40 years ago so we’re having our 40th anniversary as a business this year.

“How I came into it was a bit random, really. I did a degree in maths and then worked in a factory for a year, paying off my student loans. I then decided I wanted to join the family business and did an apprenticeship in brewing.

“I was very lucky to have done that at Young’s Brewery in Wandsworth, south London, when it was still going. That was in 1996 and it was an absolutely fantastic place for a young brewer to have learned his trade.

“I came back to Hereford to work at Wye Valley Brewery, which was then in a little box room at the back of a pub called the Barrels, which was the home for the brewery from 1986 up to 2002.

“I was doing a bit of everything then: brewing, delivering, etc. There were only six of us working in the brewery and it eventually outgrew its premises so we moved the brewery to a little village in Herefordshire called Stoke Lacy, that’s when I took over running the brewery.”

Amor has a wife and three grown up children, aged 27, 24 and 18 and a dog, who is “a very important member of the family”.

“We were relatively young when we started the family and the business was a lot smaller then,” he begins. “When a business is very small, it becomes all-consuming and that’s when you work seven days a week and very long hours so it was tough in the early years. It’s a bit easier now because there’s 78 of us that work just on the brewery – and we haven’t talked about the pub side!

“I’ve got to thank my wife for putting up with me for quite a few years. In the early years, because I was a bit one-track minded, but I feel like I’m a different person now.

“I’ve got more experience and a bit more wisdom. The old cheesy expression if you knew then what you know now, you would have done things differently but if I hadn’t done that it that way, maybe the brewery wouldn’t have got to where it is.”

Responsibility is never far away when you’re a business leader and Amor says he has a responsibility for 78 people along with trying to keep those team members and stakeholders happy. He says: “That’s our staff and our customers because we are predominantly supply into independent free trade. Less than 4% of our beer is actually goes into our own pub estate.

“You have to keep all your customers happy and it’s also trying to balance the books, keeping the staff culture happy and making sure we’ve got enough money to pay the bills and to make the investments, which we need for the continued growth of the business.

“Becoming MD sort of happened by accident, really. When the brewery moved from the back of a pub out to where we are today, my dad said ‘right, you’re running the brewery and I’m staying here to run the pub’.

“He absolutely loves the pub side of the business. He was a former Guinness brewer but he was also licensee of the Barrels pub in Hereford and he lived there for 28 years.

“The thing that I suppose that surprises me is that how big the business has got. I still have to stop and pinch myself and, I hope it doesn’t sound conceited, but I still feel the same as I did when I was a 24-year-old starting out. I still have my old mates from school. I still go for a pint with them but people that don’t know me assume I’m some sort of different person and see me for my job title – I’m just Vern or Vernon. I’ve spoken to other business owners and the status bit is quite a big deal for them but for me, it’s not. I’d prefer to be more anonymous.”

Open and honest culture

If he could begin all over again, he says he would not start a brewery now.

He explains: “The market is so tough but if I was going to do one thing differently, if we could have bought the freehold of our pub where we started right at the beginning, I would, because we’ve been paying rent for 39 and a half years and probably bought the value of the freehold multiple times over.”

Amor says: “From the age of 13, pubs have always been a part of my life. I’ve never been a licensee myself but I have the absolute utmost admiration for pub licensees because it’s one of the hardest jobs. Anybody that has never worked in a pub or owned a pub has no real concept of the amount of work and effort that goes into it.”

Pride comes from keeping everyone happy for Amor because the work culture at Wye Valley Brewery is so important, he says.

“People talk about work-life balance but so many people spend just as much time in their work environment as they do anywhere outside of work,” Amor says.

“It’s so important to have an open and honest culture at work and I’d like to think we’re very open here. You need to be seen visibly in the business and being a national living wage employer, we also operate a profit sharing scheme at the brewery. We have good terms and conditions, good pensions, good holidays, good sick pay and other things as well.”

If a young person wants to make it as Amor has, he says one has to have a passion for what they do and to enjoy the industry they are in.

He continues: “I’ve always loved pubs. I love brewing – with my background in maths and science – that’s part of brewing.

“Whatever your career is, you can be in it for money or to have fun but if you could choose just one of those, you should be doing it for the fun and the enjoyment – if you can make some money, it’s happy days.

“I’ve met other business owners where they pay really good money but the people there are miserable and they’re almost held captive. They don’t have a good work environment and don’t really enjoy what they’re doing.

“Have a passion for the industry that you’re in and your whole life will be better.”

Following on, Amor ponders whether he does anything in his personal life that improves his leadership skills.

“I don’t know about my leadership skills but staying fit and healthy is important, which is difficult when you work in the pub trade,” he answers.

“When you feel fit, it tends to make you feel more positive and that reflects on how you run your business.

“After 22 years running the business, I still undergo regular training with our senior management team, so that’s not really outside of work but there’s always things to learn and you always learn from visits to pubs and breweries, and you can try to apply that in your business as well.

“Networking is very important also, not only taking tips, you can also form a relationship where you might go to another brewery and then you work on a collaboration beer or something like that – there’s lots to be gained from that. There is a great ethos in the brewing industry where brewers help each other out and work together.”

Loneliness can be partner for a leader and Amor admits that can be the case. He explains: “At times yes – when there’s no one else to talk to but I’m blessed here really. We’re a pretty close team tough and they know we’re stable, long established and open – I don’t have any hidden agendas – so yes it can be lonely because sometimes you have big decisions to make but I have the support of my colleagues, which I’m very grateful for.

“I wouldn’t be here today without them and, by extension, my wife too. We’ve been together for a long time and sometimes she’s the only one that I can talk to and share my woes and frustrations.”

Personal attention

On the subject of advice for smaller pub groups or breweries that want to grow, Amor says a lesson he learned fairly early on was to be very clear about what you want to achieve.

And if you think you want to go into brewing or pubs because it’s fun, that’s great, but you need to have something to work towards and that includes pubs in particular.

“I would say a lot of people get into pubs because they want to work for themselves, which is understandable if you are the entrepreneurial type and I can certainly sympathise with that,” he says.

“I’ve seen it so often where people run one pub amazingly well and the natural thing is to take on another pub but be very clear of how you’re going to do that because I’ve seen it where they end up taking on another site and both sites suffer because there’s no delegation.

“You’ve got to have that in mind and think about who those people will be who are going to be running these other sites for you. You can’t give the personal attention to both sites what you did for one pub. Don’t be a control freak.

“Also, don’t over borrow. We are pretty much debt free now but that’s taken decades and decades to do that but it was very tough. That’s only happened relatively recently in the timeline of Wye Valley Brewery. But if you over leverage yourself early on, you will never be able to grow and make the investment you need.”

A good leader must have certain qualities and he says: “Number one is to understand your customers. You’ve got to know what their lives are like and understand them.

“It doesn’t matter how big a business you are, when you’re your licensee of a pub, you’re the king or queen of your domain and you’ve always got to remember that and treat your customers with respect.

“Then, as a business leader, you’ve got to be approachable. You can’t be aloof. You’ve got to be open and fair.

“And thirdly, you must have a plan. You need to actually write down how big you actually want to get and by when.

“My maxim is never ask anyone to do anything you’re not prepared to do yourself. Once upon a time when there were six of us working at the brewery, I used to do a bit of everything but I can’t do that anymore. People know that I have done it and not because out of necessity now but out of choice, I will still go out delivering, help out in production, I will do a bit of everything from time to time because I think it’s important to be seen to be doing that.

“And it doesn’t matter how big a business you are. It’s important to remember what keeps the business ticking over and be prepared to get onto the shop floor from time to time and do a bit yourself.”