Blog Tracker
05-05-2024, 09:10
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/05/the-danger-of-being-a-quite-good-brewery/)
Buxton calling in administrators got us thinking about breweries that are merely quite good – and how that’s a tricky space to occupy.
Buxton used to be top tier. Their beer was in all the beer geek pubs. People raved about them and recommended them.
But that doesn’t seem to have been the case for a few years, at least from what we’ve seen and heard.
It’s not that people are going round saying, “They’re terrible!” If asked, in fact, they’d probably say: “Oh, yeah, Buxton – they’re all right.”
But “all right” isn’t ideal in a hyper-competitive, crowded market.
Looking at their published accounts, it’s not clear why they’re in particular trouble now. It could be interest rates and loan repayments (https://boakandbailey.substack.com/p/surely-it-wasnt-all-about-interest), or any number of other things.
But a loss of reputation and stature can’t help.
Years ago, when we lived in Goldsithney in Cornwall, we had a couple of dinners at a nearby country pub with incredible food.
It’s hard to say why it was so great. Perfectly judged seasoning, perhaps? Or a better command of the Maillard reaction?
Either way, we’d sit there making “wow” and “mmmmm” noises the whole time.
Then, one day, the food lost its sparkle. What had seemed rich began to feel greasy. What was savoury became merely salty. The triple-cooked beef dripping chips no longer shattered like glass.
We later learned that there had been a change of chef.
The food was fine, but not transcendent. So, we stopped going, and stopped recommending it to people.
If it had been awful, we might have complained, or felt moved to leave feedback somehow. But as it was, what would that feedback have been? “Make it more special”? “Give it a certain we-don’t-know-what”?
Bad feedback, unpleasant as it might be to hear, is at least possible to act upon. But what do you do in the face of silent shrugs?
This is what we think sometimes happens with breweries like Buxton.
They’re not bad enough to have anything specific to fix, but not good enough to generate word-of-mouth enthusiasm.
People don’t mind drinking their beer, but they don’t seek it out, or detour to drink it.
They might have one pint but won’t stick on it for a session, or stay in a pub to have one more pint than they ought to.
And they won’t order it by the box from the brewery shop.
What can middling-to-good breweries do about this? (If they have the clarity of vision to identify themselves as such.)
We might suggest tasting panels in which drinkers are given their beers blind, alongside acknowledged classics.
If someone tastes their lager against Augustiner Helles, how does it stand up? How does their IPA compare to Thornbridge Jaipur? Or their mild to Holden’s?
If your beer is only “quite good”, how do you give it that extra zing?
Marketing and branding will only get you so far.
For beer, the wow factor probably lives in those small gains achieved through technical excellence. The equivalent of fresh ingredients, confident seasoning, and hot pans.
The danger of being a quite good brewery (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/05/the-danger-of-being-a-quite-good-brewery/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/05/the-danger-of-being-a-quite-good-brewery/)
Buxton calling in administrators got us thinking about breweries that are merely quite good – and how that’s a tricky space to occupy.
Buxton used to be top tier. Their beer was in all the beer geek pubs. People raved about them and recommended them.
But that doesn’t seem to have been the case for a few years, at least from what we’ve seen and heard.
It’s not that people are going round saying, “They’re terrible!” If asked, in fact, they’d probably say: “Oh, yeah, Buxton – they’re all right.”
But “all right” isn’t ideal in a hyper-competitive, crowded market.
Looking at their published accounts, it’s not clear why they’re in particular trouble now. It could be interest rates and loan repayments (https://boakandbailey.substack.com/p/surely-it-wasnt-all-about-interest), or any number of other things.
But a loss of reputation and stature can’t help.
Years ago, when we lived in Goldsithney in Cornwall, we had a couple of dinners at a nearby country pub with incredible food.
It’s hard to say why it was so great. Perfectly judged seasoning, perhaps? Or a better command of the Maillard reaction?
Either way, we’d sit there making “wow” and “mmmmm” noises the whole time.
Then, one day, the food lost its sparkle. What had seemed rich began to feel greasy. What was savoury became merely salty. The triple-cooked beef dripping chips no longer shattered like glass.
We later learned that there had been a change of chef.
The food was fine, but not transcendent. So, we stopped going, and stopped recommending it to people.
If it had been awful, we might have complained, or felt moved to leave feedback somehow. But as it was, what would that feedback have been? “Make it more special”? “Give it a certain we-don’t-know-what”?
Bad feedback, unpleasant as it might be to hear, is at least possible to act upon. But what do you do in the face of silent shrugs?
This is what we think sometimes happens with breweries like Buxton.
They’re not bad enough to have anything specific to fix, but not good enough to generate word-of-mouth enthusiasm.
People don’t mind drinking their beer, but they don’t seek it out, or detour to drink it.
They might have one pint but won’t stick on it for a session, or stay in a pub to have one more pint than they ought to.
And they won’t order it by the box from the brewery shop.
What can middling-to-good breweries do about this? (If they have the clarity of vision to identify themselves as such.)
We might suggest tasting panels in which drinkers are given their beers blind, alongside acknowledged classics.
If someone tastes their lager against Augustiner Helles, how does it stand up? How does their IPA compare to Thornbridge Jaipur? Or their mild to Holden’s?
If your beer is only “quite good”, how do you give it that extra zing?
Marketing and branding will only get you so far.
For beer, the wow factor probably lives in those small gains achieved through technical excellence. The equivalent of fresh ingredients, confident seasoning, and hot pans.
The danger of being a quite good brewery (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/05/the-danger-of-being-a-quite-good-brewery/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/05/the-danger-of-being-a-quite-good-brewery/)