Bristol Beer Factory is the place where the history and cutting edge of the beer industry meet. The company itself celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, while the building it occupies has been brewing beer since 1836. It is from this building that Bristol Beer Factory has been a pioneer of the last couple of decades’ brewing trends; from Milk Stouts to American-style West Coast IPAs.
“We have been right up there with the first breweries making these beer styles,” says Sam Burrows, Managing Director of Bristol Beer Factory.
As well as brewing, Bristol Beer Factory also serves its beer at the four pubs it operates across Bristol, each with its own identity. Employing a team of 26 people at the brewery and 75 across its pubs, Bristol Beer Factory has forged itself a strong position as an SME. But more than that, the brewer uses its position as a platform to support the community it is a part of.
Brewing for the Community
“The key parts of our business are our purpose and the community-driven aspect of the business,” Burrows. “We have a big program, Brewed to Give, that amounts to a 2% tax on total brewery sales. We invest that back into raising up our local communities. This year we invested £80,000 of our stock, space, equipment, and other resources into helping community projects make as much as possible from their fundraising. Last year we worked with 180 charities and community groups raising £200,000 in unrestricted funds, which is an unbelievable amount of money going directly back into our communities.”
Support is not limited to space and stock. Brewed to Give also offers direct financial support to those where alcohol is not a natural partner, such as homeless or children’s charities. But Bristol Beer Factory is looking to build on Brewed to Give’s capacity to help the community by bringing in its business partners and suppliers to add their support. The firm’s hop supplier is already donating 2% of its contract to the scheme.
Beyond donations, Bristol Beer Factory has also collaborated with mental fitness charity TalkClub to develop the iconic 0.5% Alcohol-Free IPA, Clear Head.
“When you are making beer there’s a mashing in process,” Burrows explains. “As the malted barley is mixed with water in the mash tun, it is typically a temperature of 65 to 68 degrees. Instead, we use a hot mash technique which means we mash in at over 90 degrees. Then we use a maltotriose-negative yeast strain that limits fermentation, so it does not create as much alcohol and then we treat it like any other beer we produce. It is all about the initial brewhouse work and fermentation.”
The TalkClub charity had its first session at Bristol Beer Factory, and the brewery gives 5% of all ClearHead sales directly back to the organisation.
Talking with Burrows, it is clear this work is a core purpose of the company, not simply a marketing exercise.
“These are genuine stories. There is no greenwashing,” Burrows shares. “The people of Bristol, and our customers can see that this is not some PR ploy. This is us doing the right thing as a business to give back to our communities.”
A Time to Invest
Of course, as well as helping with the challenges Bristol’s communities are facing, Bristol Beer Factory has also had its own challenges to overcome, particularly as a brewer whose primary market has always been the hospitality industry. Covid hit the company hard, but with that challenge came an opportunity to build back better.
“When 90% of our customer base shut, we did the opposite of the typical British mentality of cutting when things get tough,” Burrows says. “Instead, we invested in gaining market share, investing in people and equipment while evolving the brand of the whole business.”
Bristol Beer Factory sold its bottling line and invested in a canning line, while expanding its product offering through new products such as Clear Head, and its new lager, Infinity.
“We used that time to complete projects that otherwise would have taken two or three years to do alongside running a business in full swing,” says Burrows. “When we came out of lockdown it was with an updated portfolio, and we have never looked back since. Covid was one of the best things that happened to us as a business.”
These are not the only changes that Bristol Beer Factory has seen. The company has also overhauled the way it brings in talent. In the past, the company has recruited using traditional recruitment ads, but recently they have changed methods to increase the diversity of its staff.
“We really wanted to actively increase our diversity to bring it in line with that of Bristol as a city, and in doing that the challenge is where to recruit,” Burrows says. “We have adopted a guaranteed interview policy for people with protected characteristics and meet our minimum criteria. For applicants with protected characteristics who are not sure if they fit our criteria, we tell them to apply anyway and let us decide. These are simple changes to the language we use, but when people see we are taking it seriously it encourages them to apply.”
It has already yielded results. Since Bristol Beer Factory introduced this new language, Burrows has seen a 900% increase in diverse applications.
But Bristol Beer Factory is not stopping there – Burrows has big plans for the future. First, while the company’s current home has a long and proud brewing history, as the firm grows it needs something bigger.
“It is a challenging place to be in from a logistical point of view,” Burrows says. “We have a lot of residents around us, this area has been developed considerably. So, we are building a new brewery which we have been working on for three years.”
It has been a challenge to find the right location as industrial facilities have been turned over to residencies. But Bristol Beer Factory has found a location in its current South Bristol postcode and is building a facility there that will be completed in September, to start brewing beer in October.
At the same time, as well as monitoring its impact on the local community, Bristol Beer Factory is also assessing its environmental impact.
“We have been making a lot of investments and acquiring new technology including CO2 recovery, vapour heat recovery, with the aim of reducing our carbon impact per litre of beer,” Burrows says.
As with the firm’s social initiatives, Burrows is keen to show that the firm’s work is about material results, not just public relations.
“I use the word greenwashing a lot because it is everywhere,” he explains. “If businesses are assigning themselves to projects and supporting them that is great, but we are raising up communities. The partners we are working with are real and we are transparent about the way we are supporting them.”
Burrows is equally transparent about Bristol Beer Factory’s future goals.
“My aspiration is to be not just the best brewery possible, but the best business possible, and we are on the right road to that,” he says.
