A Piss Up in a Brewery?

I've quite a lot of time for Thwaites - nowadays that is. It wasn't always so, as almost all they ever offered was smooth beer in various forms, but a concious decision several years ago to return to cask has seen the brewery profile multiply by a huge factor and with beers like Wainwrights becoming a runaway success, they had the confidence to build within the main brewery, the Crafty Dan Brewery, producing specialist craft beers in cask, keg and bottle, which I visited and wrote about here. The beers have been good too, with several winning awards and some of their seasonal beers have been spectacularly good - and different.

Underlying all this, for several years the bigger plan has been to vacate the cramped central Blackburn premises which houses the Star Brewery, sell it to Sainsbury's for yet another supermarket and build a new, smaller, state of the art brewery on a greenfield site on the outskirts of Blackburn by the motorway. Seems like a good plan, so what could possibly go wrong? Well everything it seems. The local council has offered several sites but none has been followed up and it now seems for reasons unknown, that the proposed Sainsbury redevelopment will not take place either. It is hard to ascertain why and although the local Lancashire Telegraph has a good go at it here, I'm none the wiser really.

But one thing is clear. Thwaites are to sack most of the brewery workforce, close the main brewery which they describe as "obsolete", keep Crafty Dan going, outsource the brewing to Marstons of all their main brands (some may also be brewed at Burtonwood I am told) until such time as they can find a new brewery site. Yes the same brewery site they have been unsuccessfully seeking for years. Thwaites it seems are more or less up shit creek without a paddle. Their main brands brewed by rivals, their brewery more or less closed, their workforce sacked and the new brewery no nearer than ever. Some cynics from rival breweries in the North West that I have spoken to, believe that Thwaites will never open a new brewery.

 Only one way to prove them wrong I suppose, but time is running out.

The workers didn't take being given the heave ho lying down. The Thwaites sign on the brewery tower was altered to reflect their feelings.

Feedback

It's nice to get feedback about your blog (good and bad) and I don't just mean the comments which are usually specific to a particular topic, or daft stuff elsewhere, but when you hear about it in another way, or someone writes to you "off blog".

I had two such instances this week. Firstly a brewer wrote to me about various comments I've made about his beer. He actually agreed with me and explained what had gone wrong and what he was doing to put it right. Refreshing - and there will be more about that in a separate post. The second was less direct in some ways, but worth mentioning. I wrote a piece about a character in a local pub I frequent. It's here. Yesterday Wayne, the subject of said piece, said to me he had been approached by the Manchester Evening News about the plaque featuring him that I mention in my article. They had got it from my blog and wanted to write about it. Excellent. Wayne is delighted and so am I.

Of course if the MEN wants to credit the source, it'd be even better.

Sending Out the Wrong Signals

The Beautiful Beer Awards scheme was launched in March 2006, to recognise and reward pubs who deliver ‘excellence in beer’. To gain an award, pubs have to pass a thorough inspection of all aspects of beer service from cellar conditions to the beer in the glass. Successful pubs receive a Beautiful Beer plaque to display outside, as a guarantee to drinkers that the beer inside is of excellent quality. The aim of this campaign, owned by the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA), is to encourage more consumers to make beer their drink of choice on more occasions.

All fine and dandy you may well say. What a good thing you might say. So what has happened to this laudable scheme, primed with £600,000 of BBPA money? Well, they have axed both the founding director and the Public Relations Manager (who was the main contact and really ran the show) to concentrate funds on "political issues such as alcohol strategy and taxation." Don't know about you, but I rather like the idea of sorting out beer in pubs and spending a little on that. If they want to campaign on political issues, maybe they should find the funds out of another budget, rather than the beer quality one.

Awards have to have support and credibility to make them work and be seen to have value to the pub and the consumer. That means a proper structure, publicity and staffing. In a time when many pubs are empty, this move would seem to be taking an eye off the ball.


The awards scheme will continue it seems, but to me it has lost a bit of cred.