Greene King – in mid-January

The brewery invited all local CAMRA branches to send delegates to visit the brewery for an evening tour and to present questions for a discussion about the breweries recent activities. The tour party was coordinated by Andy Shaw and proved to be of great interest to all involved and surprised several participants not just because of the scale of their 6 day a week operation in their “art deco” brewery (opened in 1938) but also of how traditional much of the equipment looked (although various process automation initiatives have reduced staffing levels to just 2 or 3 people per shift). The 2 large new mash tuns (installed just 2 years ago) are of a fairly conventional copper design but reputedly can hold up to 13 tons of malt per brew. Currently they are part of a brewing process that is creating about 500k barrels of beer per year (about 80% of total capacity). Our brewery guide, Craig Bennett (brewer) was also very keen to emphasize that they use mainly local ingredients with all malt coming from Suffolk or Norfolk and which is malted just 2 miles away from the brewery. They also check quality at each stage of the brewing process with many employees now trained as tasters (some of malt, and water samples before brewing), most as tasters of beer samples from every batch after brewing. This was further emphasized later in a new sampling rooms, close to the old fermentation room, where a firkin (sample) from every brew sent out to trade in last 7 days is now kept for tasting purposes. They can (and do) destroy batches of beer if it is not up to their set standards of quality Craig also assured us.

Photos by Nigel Smith [click to view larger]

Later, during a meeting with some of the company managers - Frances Brace (publicity), Richard Archer (brands) and Clive Ansell (pubs) - we were given a fairly comprehensive set of presentations upon how they see the current industry and how GK is planning to operate their future business based upon it. Some key points made included: - Whilst the cask ale market nationally was down about 8% last year GK production was only down about 3% but trading will remain tough, especially for “wet led” outlets (about 3% of their weakest current East Anglian outlets may be disposed of). A number of cost increases have severely affected brewing costs- including malt (up 50% in 2 years), hops (up 20% in 2 years), electricity (up 100% in one year), Beer Tax (up 9.1% last year and increasing 2% above inflation for next 4 years). For several years they have only brewed draught ales and packaged beers and currently have 9 regular brands (IPA is just over 50% of production) - they will also be producing a wide range of seasonal real ales throughout 2009 (see below). Also although only a small brand, XX Mild sales were up 30% last year, mainly due to promotions during Mild Month and they are keen to continue production of this marginal product. Numerous energy and cost efficiencies have already been introduced by the company and more will be needed to ensure prices remain keen during the current economic down turn. Also on pricing they stated unequivocally that they were as surprised as anyone else about Wetherspoons’ recent selling of IPA at 99p/pt. and could not legally influence any “loss leader promotions” such as that (by other commercial retailers) even if they wanted too. As far as future expansion of the company is concerned they stated that whilst they were not actively seeking further expansion at the moment they could not rule out more take-overs or buying more blocks of pubs should the opportunities (they think are right for GK) present themselves. They do remain fully committed to supporting Cask Marque (an independent assessor of beer quality in pubs) and also intend to widely support their Cask Ale week in April (over 800 GK outlets may be involved).

Forthcoming GK seasonal ales include – Abstinence Ale (3) a light hoppy beer for January, Flankers Tackle (4.3%) a golden, light hopped beer (using 4 hop varieties) in February, Hare Raiser (4.1%) a fruity beer with a crisp finish in March and Alepril Fool (4.3%) a darker, refreshing and fruity bitter in April.