THE CASK PROJECT
Wye Valley bucking the trend in cask
Head brewer Gareth Bateman and head of sales and marketing Abbie Gadd took time out of their busy schedule to talk to The Morning Advertiser’s associate features editor Gary Lloyd.
Bateman explained: “We brew about 86,000 hectolitres a year and, of that, 80% of it is cask and 5% is keg. About 85% of that we direct deliver to free-trade pubs within 60 to 70 miles of the brewery.”
Gadd added: “We’ve got five core range cask beers and we’re very lucky we’ve got two flagship beers in cask (Butty Bach and HPA).
“We have seven pubs that are managed and run as businesses in their own right but they do serve Wye Valley beers.
“We deliver beer to about 1,200 pubs approximately every week on our own transport. On top of that, we supply to pubcos including Heineken, Admiral and Punch so, obviously, we’re in a lot of their pubs as well.”
On keeping it local, Gadd said Wye Valley likes to deliver most of the beer itself and where it uses wholesalers, the business is “very picky about who we supply just so that we know where that cask is going”.
Always been in growth
Bateman graduated with a degree in biology and got his first job in the microbiology lab in Magor, [Wales], which is now home to Budweiser.
He got a job with Brains then moved to London to work for Young’s where he completed his diploma and had four years before moving up to Bedford to take a role at Wells and Young’s. He has been at Wye Valley Brewery for just over 10 years now.
“I haven’t had a chance to sit down yet,” he said. “It’s really interesting especially because I worked at one brewery that very much on a downward spiral almost and it was more of a cost-saving exercise but it’s really exciting at Wye Valley. It’s somewhere that’s always been in growth and there’s constant investment, constant development and it keeps you on your toes.”
Wye Valley Brewery core cask beers
- Butty Bach 4.5% ABV – smooth premium ale using Maris Otter and Crystal malts together with locally grown Fuggles, Goldings and Bramling Cross hops
- HPA 4% ABV – pale ale using locally grown Target and Celeia hops plus Maris Otter pale malt that gives it a pale straw colour with citrus hop aroma and a balanced bitter finish
- Wye Valley Bitter 3.8% ABV – chestnut-coloured bitter brewed using Maris Otter and Crystal malts with locally grown Target and Goldings hops
- Wholesome Stout 4.6% ABV – this stout has rich coffee notes, intense roasted barley flavours and a dry, bitter finish
- Hopfather 3.9% ABV - Mosaic, Summit, Cascade, Pilot and Azacca hops are used to give this session IPA a hoppy hit, which is vibrant gold in colour
To that end, said: “There’s obviously doom and gloom out there in terms of breweries and closures. And there’s figures you read in the media saying cask is in 20%-plus decline but we haven’t seen that.
“We came back from Covid and were stronger than we were before and you although it’s not a massive growth but we’ve had more than 5% more cask being sold in 2023 versus what was being sold in the previous year. It’s not in as higher growth as say the keg beer but still…
Gadd interjected: “Yeah, but we’re talking about keg and we’re still a relatively new entrant to the market. We are obviously going to see a lot more growth in that and because our volumes and sales of cask are so huge, I wouldn’t expect it to be different.
“Every year, we think we’ve saturated the cask market and we don’t expect to see any more growth. And then lo and behold, we seem to manage it. I’m having conversations with some of the big boys like Heineken, Admiral and Punch recently and they’re all saying we are bucking the trend.
“That’s obviously to do with the quality of our products. They are great beers, they’ve got a great reputation and we consistently are renowned for that.
Bateman added: “We back it up because we’ve got a sales rep recovering each region. We’ve got the marketing support PoS, branded clothing and the vast majority of our beer is direct delivered by our own transport department. People still like seeing that regular drayman week in, week out and it’s also really useful for us because we glean a lot of information from pub licensees this way too.”
Downwards beer duty move
Gadd said the way Wye Valley markets its products is based on the quality and consistency of its beers, which means anyone who knows Wye Valley Brewery is likely to try its beers.
See added the company’s marketing has got better and better, and social media is huge – particularly Instagram and Facebook.With the Spring Budget upcoming, Bateman has a request that would help the brewer and pubs too.
“Any beer duty moves downwards would be beneficial and if the on-trade were to have a bigger reduction for the larger package sizes that would be a massive benefit for us and for pubs as well, because it means we could sell the beer slightly cheaper, maintain our margin and they can sell the beer to the consumers at slightly lower rates,” he explained.
The future looks bright for the Stoke Lacy-based business. Bateman said: “There’s always plans for expansion. We spent £3.5m last year on extending our bottling hall and installed new equipment. We’ve got fully automated packaging lines.
“This year, we’re going to be putting a new effluent treatment plant in – it’s less glamorous but necessary to grow. We’ve got lots of plans for new office blocks, welfare facilities, new brewhouse, visitor centre and taproom.”
Gadd summarised: “We’ve looked to the next 10 years and there’s lots of growth ambitions there.”
