If I Owned A Brewery Part 5 - The Pumpclips And Bottle Labels

I first thought up this series of posts whilst sat in a pub looking at the pumpclips all over the wall situated about ten feet away. Even with my good eyesight some of the clips were hard to read and if I could make out the beer's name I couldn't neccesarily make out anything else. Even stood just inches away from the bar there have been occasions when reading the beer name has proved problematic. It shocks me why a brewer would make it hard for potential punters to order their beer correctly.

In my opinion a pumpclip needs three things: the beer name, the brewery name and the ABV. The brewery logo may also be included if it's not too intrusive. Anything else is just superfluous. And all three of the required things should be clear enough and large enough to be read. I think that interesting shaped pumpclips are OK and that that can set a particular brewery's beers apart from others. A good example of a clear pumpclip with the necessary information is those from Milestone, whilst those from Leeds are clear and definitely distinctive.

The same principles apply for bottle labels. They should be kept plain and simple. The joy of a bottle is the opportunity to use the back label to really go to town. Standing in an off licence struggling to work out what is what is too much of a pain for a grouchy old drinker like me.

So to paraphrase, like my beer naming policy my labelling is going to be simple and traditional also. I just wish more brewers were like me.

If I Owned A Brewery Part 4 - The Occasional Beers

So we've ascertained from comments left that some people agree that beers don't need to have leftfield or interesting names to sell and that where a name gives an obvious indication of what the customer might expect it will lead to a more informed choice.

The naming policy for my permenant and seasonal beers may be a tad boring, but the beers won't be. They will use the best ingredients and a sufficient quantity of each to impart good flavour. My beers won't simply be one mess of Fuggles and Goldings after another. It's fair to say they won't be particularly extreme though. These are going to be high production beers that will appeal to your ordinary beer drinkers as well as your aficionados. The occasional and one off beers though are likely to be more extreme and appeal to a more niche market.

I am a member of that niche market myself. I've regularly blogged about interesting foreign beers that are being imported and have sang the praises of the more daring progressive brewers like BrewDog and Thornbridge. It's with these beers that I'm going to have some fun

I'm not going to complicate matters too much though. Again you're going to have a fair idea what you're going to get by the way the beer is named. So my single hopped IPA brewed with Simcoe is going to have a name to reflect itself, and its' going to be really hoppy, the same goes for my other IPAs. I'll brew proper fruit beers with proper fruit, no juice but the real thing, and I'll experiment with ingredients like coffee, spices and barrel aging, but not too many of anything at a time.

The beers will be produced when the time is right to source the right ingredients. It's not quite seasonality but there will be a method to the madness of why each beer is produced at a certain time. These beers will be bottled as will as produced cask conditioned; my other stuff may not see a bottle. And quality control here is of the utost importance as sadly all too many British BCAs are substandard. I won't allow mine to be

Hopefully the consistency and quality of the regular stuff will see interest in these beers, and export deals will be on the table. It all seems too simple to be true, and of course it is all my fabrication, but it's a workable model I'd have thought.

Next time I'll do pump clips and bottle label designs.

If I Owned A Brewery Part 3 - The Seasonal Beers

I've been picked up, possibly fairly, for the boring naming policy of my imaginary beers. They won't taste boring though.

As well as the permanent beers I will have seasonal beers. These seasonals though will be representative of the season or a celebration of an annual occurrence. They won't just be any old new recipe with a name to match the time of year. The same seasonals will be brewed year in year out, and drinkers will look forward to each year's output.

It's far rarer in UK than in USA for regular and relevant seasonals to be produced, and it actually tends to be the older, perhaps more traditional brewers who do it. Harveys do it probably better than others although Shepherd Neame seasonals are anticipated highly in Kent although perhaps not so much further afield. I also look forward to finding Youngs Winter Warmer each year.

As is my want the beers will all be named so as to inform the punter what to expect, so the following beers will form part of my portfolio:

Light Mild for March (the alternative mild month)
Chocolate Stout brewed with massive amounts of Chocolate Malt for Easter
Strong Mild brewed for May (the current mild month)
Summer Lager a real and authentic lager, brewed throughout the Summer
Green Hop using the first pickings.
Bonfire Smoke a smoked style beer for the period around November 5th.
Winter Warmer a true strong warmer for those sipping nights around the fire.
Christmas Ale strong and spicy.

That's probably enough to cover the whole year. There's no need to brew beers for Valentine's Day or Halloween or St Georges Day or any other nonsense just to get another beer under your belt. These will be proper quality meaningful seasonals.

Having said that though there will be other beers brewed as and when the time is right. More on that next time.

If I Owned A Brewery Part 2 - The Permanent Beers

Beer is a serious drink and as such deserves to treat its drinkers like serious people. My brewery therefore will produce a number of permanent beers in various styles, and will have serious understandable names.

All too often we order beers not having a clue what we are going to receive. We can of course ask the bar staff but sadly they are not always fully in command of the knowledge to tell us whether the beer will be a golden ale or a dark mild. ABV doesn't tell us as much as it used to. That pint of Old Gutblaster could be anything.

Sure, sometimes it's nice to be surprised, but that can occasionally be problematic.

My dark mild will therefore be called Dark Mild, my porter Porter and my barley wine Barley Wine. No jokey names thank you very much. It may be boring but breweries back in the day didn't feel the need for odd nomenclatures.

You'll know what you'll be getting with my beers. Tomorrow I'll do the seasonals.

If I Owned A Brewery Part 1 - The Name

My brewery's name would be based on one of two criteria. It would either be named after me or it would be named after its location.

It seems a modern phenomenon to give a brewery a 'joke' name or something totally irrelevant to anything in particular. If you look at the oldest breweries still in existance, they are all named after their founders.

So we have Shepherd Neame; Harveys; Palmers and Elgoods who are the only existing independent breweries from pre 1800.

The oldest brewery still in existence named after its origin is Old Swan from 1835, but that's probably cheating slightly as it's actually a brew pub, although Felinfoel wasn't far behind.The oldest brewery still around not nammed after its fouders or loaction seems to be Caledonian from 1865. Even then there is a link with Caledonia being an old name for Scotland

So being the traditionalist I am I'll be going either with Edwards' Brewery which has been done before or Wootton Brewery.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the beers.