Broughton Ales has made great progress since the brewery was snapped up in 2015
WHEN three drinks industry veterans snapped up Scottish brewer Broughton Ales in 2015, the craft beer boom was well-established with no shortage of players big and small getting beers on shelves.
Since the purchase, the new owners – former Diageo executive David McGowan, along with John Hunt and Steve McCarney of Heineken – have been hard at work modernising the brewery’s output and expanding its reach.
With listings now secured in a number of independents and supermarkets, as well as successful runs in the discounters, the acquisition appears to have been a success.
There is still plenty of room for growth however, and director David McGowan reckons the brewery’s proposition is a great fit for Scottish independent retailers today.
“I know this sounds a bit pretentious, but when this brewery was set up in 1979 it was the original brew punk,” said McGowan.
“At a time when there was mass market consolidation and everybody was taking over everybody else, the founders had the vision to set up their own operation.”
Those founders with vision, it turns out, have some pretty recognisable names: the brewery was originally opened by David Younger, of the Younger brewing family fame; and James Collins, whose family may best be known for its dictionary business.
And while plenty has changed in the brewing industry since the days of Younger and Collins, not much has been altered when it comes to brewing at Broughton Ales, where artisanal practices are still employed today.
As McGowan tells it, if you’re looking for washboard abs and bulging biceps, you could do a lot worse than taking a brewing job at Broughton Ales.
Traditional processes continue to be at the heart of the brewery’s production, from ingredient prep through to washing the fermentation tanks.
Doubtless there are plenty of brewers out there claiming craft credentials, but there can’t be too many that mill their own malt using a genuine Porteus machine – a mill so good the firm that made it has long since gone out of business as they never break down.
The brewery’s location too, is enviable, if provenance is your thing. Located just over five miles from Biggar in the Scottish borders and surrounded by rolling hills, you would struggle to select a more picturesque site for a brewery.
But it’s not all about the story, the liquid has got to count and in that regard, McGowan was pleased to take on a brewery with pedigree in 2015.
“One of the things that really appealed to me when we bought the brewery was the range of awards that it has won. There’s awards from the brewing industry, there’s ones from the Society of Independent Brewers, there’s ones from Germany, from supermarkets, the on-trade and off-trade.”
Liquid quality then wasn’t a major concern for McGowan, but the Broughton Ales director admits that when he first took the brewery on, the packaging didn’t quite fit the modern market.
“You can see in the old label design, particularly in something like our Blonde Lager, that it needed a bit of work done.
“We’ve since made the beers more contemporary and more relevant.”
Working with Stirling based design agency Pocket Rocket Creative, the Broughton team updated packaging for the brewery’s existing range, as well as rolling out smart looking new additions like Hopopotamus IPA.
A well hopped pale ale, on trend with contemporary demand, Hopopotamus IPA has been a big success for Broughton according to McGowan.
“That’s doing very well for us. We’ve got that into Co-ops, it’s in Scotmid, it’s in Morrisons, we’ve got it in some independents,” he said.
Hopopotamus is one of three core beers performing particularly well for Broughton in the off-trade, with the brewer’s 6.2 IPA – another on-trend offering – also thriving in Scottish shops.
Broughton Ales big hitter Old Jock, which features more traditional packaging and is targeted at a slightly older demographic, is a well-established beer that has been enjoying rapid growth in recent years according to McGowan.
Since taking the brewery on, the director said Old Jock has gone from 300 distribution points to about 700, with sales up 30% in the last year.
The journey is far from over for McGowan and the Broughton team, but the drinks industry veteran reckons real progress has been made since 2015.
“I think when we took over the brewery it had slipped behind the market slightly and we now feel as if we’re on par with the market.
“We’re now thinking, where can we find the more unique special premium products that tie in with the whole ethos of Scotland’s food and drink?”
McGowan thinks that Scottish provenance is something independent retailers can tap into, adding that any retailers who feel lost in the world of craft beer need only pick up the phone and call.
“I think I can speak for just about every small brewer in Scotland on this,” he said.
“If you phone up and say ‘have you got five minutes to tell me a bit about your beer? What should I stock? What story should I tell the consumer?’, we’re all delighted to help and you’ll actually speak to a person, rather than an automated answering service.”
