Wicked Wine har tillsammans med samarbetspartnern Jorvik Estate bjudit in några brittiska ölpersonligheter, bland andra så kommer Tim Dewey som har titeln Chief Executive hos Timothy Taylors.
 |
| Tim Dewey (foto lånat från SBWF-sida) |
Jag skickade några frågor till honom inför hans besök i Stockholm.
•
Alf Tycker Om Öl; Who is Tim Dewey – an American with a long and impressive
CV, working for some big beverage companies, how did you end up in independent
family brewery in Keighley, Yorkshire?
Tim Dewey Timothy Taylors; First of all,
how did I end up in the UK? I studied here in 1978/79 and met my wife,
Jane, on a train on the way to Wales! I got a bit tired of the
politics/bureaucracy of the 'big beverage companies' and started to work for
more entrepreneurial and smaller firms including a start up in soft drinks (The
Juice Brewery) and just before joining Taylor's, Drambuie Liqueur
Company. Just as we were deciding that Drambuie couldn't really carry on
as an independent company, I was approached by a recruitment company about the
role at Timothy Taylor's, and here I am.
•
ATOÖ; What has been going on at Timothy Taylors since you joined
the brewery in 2014?
TDTT; Taylor's brewed
fantastic beers that commanded a premium price and had a great reputation
(deservedly) but the Company had been run the same way for 22 years. So
really my focus has been in putting in a modern, top class sales and marketing
effort to reflect the quality of the beer while modernising other business
practices and developing a positive, open, performance culture. It has
also involved continuing to develop the infrastructure to cope with our growth,
with seven new fermenting vessels and a new distribution warehouse added in
2019.
•
ATOÖ; Brexit happened since you joined, any negative effect on
your operation so far? Export and Import (any foreign ingredients?)
TDTT; It has had
little impact since most of our ingredients are UK grown and we have no real
export business to speak of as cask beer doesn't travel particularly well and
the bottle business is quite commoditised. We are pleased that in Jorvik
we have found importers doing a great job for us in Sweden though and that now
involves slightly more paperwork but it seems to be work satisfactorily.
•
ATOÖ; Sustainability and organic – climate changes is a rising
subject. How do you work to minimize your footprint in mother nature? Do your
brew any organic beers?
TDTT; It is something
we are working on. We hired a company called Carbon Architecture to map
our carbon footprint and we are now working through the potential projects that
will help us reduce our impact. Fair to say the Company has always been
mindful of this. The cask washer we installed some years ago uses 30%
less water and energy than its predecessor. But we want to go
further/faster which is why we need a structured programme, which is what we
are pulling together now. On organic, it is challenging to get the whole
supply chain on board and in a way that ensures quality is not
sacrificed. For example, for our traditional hop varieties in a beer such
as Landlord (Fuggles, Goldings, Styrian Goldings) my understanding is that it
is currently very challenging to grow these hops organically and still get the
depth of flavour required.
•
ATOÖ; Production size – do you produce as much, or more, beer as
you did 5 years ago? Cask, Keg, Bottles/Cans? Timothy Taylors had a short
period during the pandemic, when you didn't produce any Cask Ales – did that
have any major impact on your customers relations?
TDTT; We are currently
producing more beer than we did 5 years ago. It is primarily cask ale
with about 12% of our production bottles. We have recently launched a keg
ale, Hopical Storm, which is doing well but it is early days and currently at
relatively low volume levels. We are also going to be making Hopical
Storm available in cans in the coming months. If anything the pandemic enhanced
our customer relations as we gained kudos by being quick to offer credit for
cask ale that outlets had ordered but couldn't sell because they were locked
down. In addition, on re-start, we produced to a consistent, high-quality
where others struggled to do this, and through our wholly owned distribution
fleet got the product out efficiently to our customers, letting know one
down. That has been paid dividends for the business.
•
ATOÖ; I'm a member of a Real Ale Yorkshire-group on Facebook,
there seems to some negative feelings, among some members, toward Timothy
Taylors? Not sure why though, might be they think you're "to
big"....
TDTT; There can be
some of that; also I've been outspoken on the matter of Small Brewer's Relief
and its need for reform given how generous it is in the UK, and that hasn't
gone down well at all (lots of vitriol during the worst part of the debate),
but I stand by my point of view (and unlike some breweries who feel similarly,
I haven't been afraid to put my head above the parapet to represent the
issue). You can hear a podcast on my views here: https://hopforward.beer/sbr-timothy-taylors/
•
ATOÖ; How much do you export? Sweden?
TDTT; Very modest
amounts but we've always been about quality over quantity and what we love is
the fact that it is largely cask and how well it has been received by the
outlets stocking and the consumer.
•
ATOÖ; Pubs in the UK (all around the world) have had a hard time
during the pandemic, but you recently opened your own venue in Keighley –
Taylors on the Green!
TDTT; Yes, to be fair,
it was an existing pub we owned called The Lord Rodney, which we closed for
refurbishment and opened as Taylor's on the Green. One of the
idiosyncrasies of the brewery is we don't have a bar tap on site...just
wouldn't be practical, but we wanted an outlet nearby that was tightly aligned
to the brewery and where we could bring customers and other guests. That
was behind the rationale to open Taylor's on the Green (we have three other
pubs in Keighley run by business partners: The Royal Oak, The Boltmakers and
The Albert).
•
ATOÖ; Timothy Taylors Champions Club-program has reached Sweden,
a few Swedish pubs proudly serves your cask ales. It feels like there is a
growing market for Cask Ales in Sweden – not only your cask – much thanks to
Jeremy at Jorvik Estate.
TDTT; I agree.
The only way cask works as an export product is to have someone who is
passionate about it and can find an efficient way for the product to reach the
market. Jeremy and Yorvik Estates have been exemplary on both counts.
•
ATOÖ; Any collaborations planned – post-pandemic (almost)? I'd
love to see a cask-collaboration with some of our Swedish cask-brewers.
TDTT; We've the
production pressures the brewery has been under post-Covid, and the need for a
significant amount of remedial maintenance, we are running at capacity and
we've had to put all sorts of complexities, including collaborations, to one
side to just focus on the basics. I'm really not sure when things will
become more flexible, but it may take a year; certainly 6 months.
Many thanks to Tim for your replies, and I am looking forward to meeting you in person next week.
.jpg)
.jpg)