Your Micropub

For all the beer we’ve drank, until fairly recently we had never worked behind a bar or pulled any pints. Our lack of cellar experience is the number one gap in our business plan and something we’ve started to address through hands-on training.

During this last summer for instance we volunteered at a local beer festival on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year. There were queues out the door of the venue and around the block. Like the other volunteers there we poured hundreds of pints that afternoon, probably one every minute. Despite this baptism by fire we were glad for the experience, happy to meet other CAMRA members and pleased to see such a young crowd almost equally split between men and women all keen to try even the most obscure beers. It also convinced us we’d rather be serving 30 customers of an evening, not 300!

We can also recommend the cellar management short course accredited by the British Institute of Innkeeping Awarding Body (BIIAB). Their Award in Beer & Cellar Quality is hosted by various breweries around the country, including Thwaites and Holts here in the North West. I however wanted to do it sooner rather than later, so I travelled down to Fuller’s in London.

A full-colour 80-page coursebook was provided in advance entitled Profit Through Quality which allowed me to familiarise myself with terminology like fobbing, soft spiles and stillaging.  I met a dozen or so other attendees on the day who were all experienced bar staff, but even they admitted to learning something during the course. Certainly for someone like me, who at the time had never worked behind the bar or tapped a cask, it was well worth it.

The course covered topics like cellar hygiene, temperature control, glass washing and cask handling. There was also a tour of Fuller’s historic Griffin brewery on the banks of the River Thames in Chiswick, followed by plenty of ale to sample as we were put through our paces in trying to pour the perfect pint.

Quite a lot of time was spent discussing the importance of the super-cold refrigeration for keg lager and the risks involved in handling gas cylinders to maintain its carbonation. From the micropub point of view of ‘keep it small and keep it simple’, it demonstrated to me that too much time, effort and money is spent in most pubs in getting beer from the cellar to the glass.

For pubs with a cellar either downstairs or in a separate room where casks are kept, plastic tubing called lines are required to bring the beer to the bar. These lines should be cleaned every week with chemicals to flush out any blockages or yeast that can taint the beer. Before cleaning the lines they need emptied of any beer inside, which is poured down the drain. It was recommended that when opening for the evening to pull off the beer that has been sitting in the lines overnight. That also goes straight down the drain.

With so much beer wasted and on hearing how easily it can become tainted in the process, it convinced me that micropubs are right to serve customers straight from the cask. Ideally, we want people to walk into our micropub, see casks lined up against the wall and watch as we serve pints right from the tap. We want it to be set up like a beer festival, albeit one with proper refrigeration (because the one drawback to the festival over the summer is that the beer was warm).

Options for keeping cask ale cool will be discussed in a future post. If you have ideas for other topics, be sure to leave a comment below. Cheers!

Many micropubs open in a converted high street shop. With most high street shopping done by women, what can micropubs do to make them feel welcome?

Dr Gloria Moss of Buckinghamshire New University says women are responsible for 83 per cent of all shopping purchases. She remarks that of the 28 suggestions to rescue the high street put forward recently by Mary Portas: “Not one of these refers to one of the most obvious facts about town shopping: the bulk of it is done by women.”

Dr Moss says that too few shops take women into account when designing their frontages and arranging their interiors. For instance, women prefer to see inside a premises before entering. Most women also like to be seen by passers-by while sat having a drink or bite to eat. This is why popular drinking dens like All Bar None always have large windows along the pavement.

No amount of plate-glass windows will convince women to stay if there’s nothing that especially appeals to them inside. According to research by the Institute of Alcohol Studies, women’s favourite tipple is wine, followed by spirits, then ale (forget the stereotype about women being happy with the occasional sweet sherry: fortified wine is their least favourite tipple). More women though are coming to realise that ale with its lower alcohol content and natural ingredients can be the healthier option to wine and spirits.

We know from personal experience of working at beer festivals that women tend to seek out ales that are fruity or hoppy. ‘Something golden’ or ‘a summer ale’ were the most frequent requests from the many women who made up roughly half of all attendees at a recent beer festival where we were pulling pints.

Britain is now home to now more than 1100 breweries, the most in 70 years, and at the forefront of this boom are female brewers (or ‘brewsters’)  such as Sara Barton of Brewster’s Brewing in Grantham and Tara Mallinson of Mallinsons Brewing in Huddersfield.

And for an organisation perhaps best known for its beardy weirdies and beer anoraks, nearly a quarter of the members of the Campaign for Real Ale are women.

It makes no sense to miss out on half of your potential trade by not catering in some way for women.

Between 2008 to 2012, between four to five thousand pubs in Britain called last orders and closed their doors for good. So why do we think now is the best time to open a new venture in these uncertain economic times?

Analysts at Deloitte pointed out in their report “Taste of the Nation 2012” that there has been a ‘counter-intuitive’ increase in overall food and drink outings despite the uncertain state of the economy, rising inflation and reduced spending power. The report concludes: “Despite these concerns numerous consumers are not willing to compromise on going out…they are looking to cheer themselves up with good value occasions.” In other words, a night out remains one of life’s little luxuries, even more so when times are hard.

It’s our belief that even with hundreds of pubs closing every year there has never been a better time to open a micropub, and here’s why:-

1. Lots of empty shopfronts on the High Street mean a big choice in premises (just make sure there are plenty of chimney pots and passers-by);

2. Councils are eager to see shops in use again and some are offering interest-free matching loans or even grants to help with refurbishment and signage;

3. Landlords are keen to see their shops providing an income, so most will probably agree to lower their rent or provide a rent-free period on the back of a strong business plan;

4. There is plenty of used (but still usable) bar equipment and furnishing going cheap on eBay and Gumtree or yours for the taking on Freecycle.

As the old saying goes, in crisis is cleverness born. 

With small premises, certain things have to go because there’s no room, while in order to keep things simple it’s important to focus on the beer. While other pubs might provide overnight accommodation and adventure playgrounds or billiards and pub grub, a micropub is all about good beer and good beer alone.

Martyn Hillier’s motto at The Butcher’s Arms (Britain’s first micropub): You can’t please everyone, so don’t bother trying. 

As a business stripped back to the basics, a micropub is probably best defined by what it does NOT have:-

1. No lager. At least not the bland rice water marketed as being from sunny holiday destinations like Australia, Spain and Brazil when in fact it’s brewed in Manchester or Northampton. Some micropubs even ban the use of the word and leave a swear jar by the till.
2. Nothing extra-cold, fizzy or smooth. Anything that requires special fittings or bulky equipment in order to be served goes against the ethos of keeping things small and simple. Besides, any beer that needs to be kept cold or fizzy in order to taste better is more than likely not real ale.
3. No global brands. If you’re taking the trouble to go into business on your own, you’ll appreciate how fellow independents should be supported. Also, microbreweries benefit from reduced beer duty while local producers might offer a discount, resulting in savings which can be passed on to the punters.
4. No alcopops or shots. For the same reason as there won’t be any lager: no-one can compete on price with the likes of Tesco, so a micropub should sell products that the supermarkets don’t offer.
5. No TV, not even one with the sound turned off. Not only does this mean there are no distractions, there’s no Sky Sports bill either.
6. No flashing gizmos like a fruit machine (some micropubs even ban the use of mobile phones).
7. No loud music from a juke box, because having to pay for a music licence to play the radio goes against being small and simple.  Ideally any music should be performed live, if there’s enough room.

What makes a micropub unique is what’s missing, but we hope you won’t miss any of it!

Remember all the headlines a few years ago warning us about the scourges of ’24-hour drinking’ in Britain? One thing about the liberalised licencing laws which escaped most people’s attention was how much easier it had become to open a pub.

Previously a matter for the courts (where established pub companies with their legal teams could stall a new licensee with costly court battles), alcohol licensing became a matter for the council. Fill out a form, pay the fee, answer questions from interested parties, be willing to accept conditions requested by them and you too could open a pub within a few weeks.

Opening a new business is risky, especially in an age of austerity, but Martyn Hillier knew that a no-frills approach would be best for his new pub in Herne, Kent. Soon a tiny shop which was once a florist had become Britain’s first micropub, The Butcher’s Arms. There’s no bar, no dart board, no telly, no mass-produced lager, no piped-in music, no hot meals…in a space the size of most people’s living room there’s no room for anything really, other than beer served straight from the barrel.  Yet nothing is missing: all a great pub needs is good beer and good conversation.

Keeping Martyn Hillier’s original business idea in mind, here are five essential elements of a successful micropub:-

1. Small and simple. This is the key concept that should underpin every business decision. Everything must be kept on a small scale and left uncomplicated in order to keep overheads low and ensure the focus is on providing good beer. Most micropubs will have only a single room, a shared loo and might not even have a bar.
2. Real ale (often served straight from the cask), plus perhaps cider or perry, all from independent producers. It’s important that micropubs sell drinks that can’t be found in the supermarkets. Because customers might not be familiar with what’s on offer, drinkers should be invited to try before they buy.
3. A lack of keg lager. Kegs require a potentially dangerous gas delivery system and expensive extra-cold refrigeration units, all because mass-produced lagers are inherently tasteless. This goes against the key requirements that a micropub be small, simple and sell something not available in supermarkets.
4. Traditional soft drinks. Cloudy lemonade, ginger beer, dandelion & burdock, fruit juice and squash all served at realistic prices (unlike some pubs, where a lemonade can cost almost as much as an alcoholic drink). Some micropubs offer complimentary hot drinks to designated drivers.
5. No hot food. Customers might be offered crisps and pork scratchings at the most, although some micropubs extend the menu ever so slightly to include pork pies, sausage rolls and cheese. Any food should be sourced locally or homemade, but not involve any cooking on the premises.

A note about wine and spirits. There is a debate among micropub owners as to whether wine and spirits should be served. Some insist that the focus should always be on beer and cider, or point out that spirits are too strong.

Personally, we side with those who argue that as long as spirits are made by an independent manufacturer, then the micropub is the perfect environment for showcasing British specialties like single malt whiskies and small batch gin. Sheltered spots in Wales and England also make surprisingly good wine, in particular refreshing whites and sparkling wines. It’s also a good way to attract female customers, whose favourite tipples are wine and spirits.

Next time, what you should never see in a micropub.