Latest Simon Buckley 'Iechyd Da' column from Journal
The latest 'Iechyd Da' column by Llandeilo brewer Simon Buckley, as featured in this week's Carmarthen Journal newspaper.
All too often I have been heard on the airwaves of Wales damning the supermarkets for their cheap beer offers and their constant threats to our much-loved and highly-prized village pubs.
But out there now is a revolution that is giving brewers such as myself a new opportunity.
Asda, part of the mighty Walmart group, have launched a new initiative to take beer from small breweries and to localise the sale of the beers to the brewer’s home ground.
This means that small brewers who pass the quality threshold, and get the beer properly presented have now got the opportunity to sell beer through the main stream multiples.
Margins as ever are tight, but the opportunity to show your beers let alone sell them to such a vast audience is something totally new to the majority of small brewers.
At last an opportunity to showcase what we brewers can do.
In addition, other supermarkets are following, giving shelf space to the specialist niche brewers.
CK’s, Tuffin’s, and the myriad of Spars throughout Wales give the consumer the opportunity to taste great locally-produced Welsh beers.
We at Evan-Evans are now selling beer throughout Wales, and as of March next year our Archers bottle brands go home to the southwest of England and 100 new supermarket stores.
No sooner do I write these words than I hear the purest siren voices, saying, ‘He’s been bought’.
To the simple-minded perhaps, that is the most positive thing they can think.
The truth is that brewing is about volume, and as a result of our supermarket contracts we are opening up new markets that are helping expand our business, bringing us new customers and a much wider distribution.
And there’s more . . .
Each time we brew a new beer for the supermarkets we get to trial a series of new beers for our local cask ale market.
New flavours, new colours, and new styles of beers.
From this we have created a new Winter Porter out at the end of November, a rich dark winter beer to be drunk with either game dishes or simply to be enjoyed by a roaring log fire.
Our new range of Royal beers first brewed by the family in 1912, including the new Prince of Wales Royal Ale, relaunched in cask and bottle.
This is the beer that gave the family the only Royal Warrant held by a brewery in Wales in the last 100 years.
With austerity around the corner, and pubs increasingly looking to food as their main income stream, the supermarkets now have an important role to play in helping us brewers take our consumer back to drinking great beers with food.
There is no future for us brewers on our own.
We must educate people to once again enjoy beer as the natural accompaniment with our great regional food dishes.
Now all you have to do is go and find them!
All too often I have been heard on the airwaves of Wales damning the supermarkets for their cheap beer offers and their constant threats to our much-loved and highly-prized village pubs.
But out there now is a revolution that is giving brewers such as myself a new opportunity.
Asda, part of the mighty Walmart group, have launched a new initiative to take beer from small breweries and to localise the sale of the beers to the brewer’s home ground.
This means that small brewers who pass the quality threshold, and get the beer properly presented have now got the opportunity to sell beer through the main stream multiples.
Margins as ever are tight, but the opportunity to show your beers let alone sell them to such a vast audience is something totally new to the majority of small brewers.
At last an opportunity to showcase what we brewers can do.
In addition, other supermarkets are following, giving shelf space to the specialist niche brewers.
CK’s, Tuffin’s, and the myriad of Spars throughout Wales give the consumer the opportunity to taste great locally-produced Welsh beers.
We at Evan-Evans are now selling beer throughout Wales, and as of March next year our Archers bottle brands go home to the southwest of England and 100 new supermarket stores.
No sooner do I write these words than I hear the purest siren voices, saying, ‘He’s been bought’.
To the simple-minded perhaps, that is the most positive thing they can think.
The truth is that brewing is about volume, and as a result of our supermarket contracts we are opening up new markets that are helping expand our business, bringing us new customers and a much wider distribution.
And there’s more . . .
Each time we brew a new beer for the supermarkets we get to trial a series of new beers for our local cask ale market.
New flavours, new colours, and new styles of beers.
From this we have created a new Winter Porter out at the end of November, a rich dark winter beer to be drunk with either game dishes or simply to be enjoyed by a roaring log fire.
Our new range of Royal beers first brewed by the family in 1912, including the new Prince of Wales Royal Ale, relaunched in cask and bottle.
This is the beer that gave the family the only Royal Warrant held by a brewery in Wales in the last 100 years.
With austerity around the corner, and pubs increasingly looking to food as their main income stream, the supermarkets now have an important role to play in helping us brewers take our consumer back to drinking great beers with food.
There is no future for us brewers on our own.
We must educate people to once again enjoy beer as the natural accompaniment with our great regional food dishes.
Now all you have to do is go and find them!
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