Here's Hoping That Hobsons Can Cope

As this article states, production of Hobsons Mild is to be massively increased in the wake of its victory in the Champion Beer Of Britain Competition. Of course it stands to reason that demand is going to incresae rapidly; the same has happened year on year for the winner, and fully deserved it is. Hobsons Mild is a beer rarely seen far from its Cleobury Mortimer home and good landlords up and down the country will now be seeking it out for their pubs. Certainly the long queues at GBBF to try the beer are indicative of likely customer demand. Hobsons fortunately increased the size of their brewery earlier this year, so I hope they are capable of coping with demand.



There is a worry that they cannot, because in previous years we have seen brewers contract out some production of their winner. Coniston had to contract out some of the production of Bluebird after winning and Kelham Island contracted some of the production of Pale Rider to Ridleys (whatever happened to them!!), as the pump clip to the left shows. No: I really hope success doesn't spoil things for Hobsons; I hope they can keep all production of mild in house, and that they continue to brew the others in their core range. After all, Hobsons Mild brewed by Hop Back or whoever, just wouldn't be the same beer.