Pre Budget Blog

The Coalition Government has been making plenty of warm noises about the need to support SME's and has gone so far as to say the the UK's Economic recovery is dependant on these SME's.

So here at WJ King, we should be the exact sort of business that they are trying to help. Ian & I took a risk (and lots of personal debt) to buy the business 2 years ago when it employed 6 people. Through lots of hard work, some great brews and, as always, a bit of luck we have doubled the size of the business, rented a new storage depot, installed 2 new (british made) fermenting vessels and we now employ 13 people.

All of this is great news, except we feel that we have done this in spite of government policy, rather than because of it. Current and proposed taxation policy is making it very difficult to continue to invest in growing our business.

We are wise enough to understand that the beer trade will always need to contribute more than its fair share of taxation for both economic and health &/or social reasons. However, we now believe that taxation has been pushed so far that it is now counter productive in both these areas.

Firstly, in terms of the economic impact, I won't rehash the much documented argument that the steep incline in beer tax is now costing so many jobs, in the pub tree in particular, that it generates less tax rather than more for the exchequer each time duty increases. The old economic theory of infinitely elastic demand for beer has been shown to have reached its limit.

There is now a very strong body of evidence showing that the decline in our pub trade in particular is costing so many jobs that the exchequer is worse off every time it increases taxes further - the pips are truly squeaking. See http://tinyurl.com/7ba7jxs for more details.

Secondly, from our perspective as a real ale producer selling into local pubs, we believe that the continuing increases in beer duty is counter productive in trying to reduce the impact of alcohol abuse on society.

I think most interested parties would agree that relatively low alcohol beer, drunk in moderation is not going to do too much damage, but there remains a very significant problem in society of alcohol abuse which must be tackled. We don't disagree.

However, if the chancellor proceeds with his plan with the duty escalator on beer - which will see beer duty rise by 42% in just 5 years - he will be increasing the cost of drinking 4% locally produced ale in the only controlled and monitored alcohol premises -i.e the local pub.

He will be driving more and more people to buy cheap drinks from supermarkets and drink them in a completely unsupervised location.

I have just completed an anlysis of our trading from January. For every £1.00 we collected from our customers, we paid straight back out in direct taxation - 46P

This covers VAT (17p), Beer Duty(17p), PAYE/NI(8p), Rates (2p) and fuel duty(2p).

46% gone before we pay the British farmers who grow our barley and hops, before we pay our growing band of employees or ourselves, before we pay our local landlord, before we pay the electric or gas company or any of the 30 other UK suppliers that we support.

As you might expect, this does not leave a whole lot to reinvest in the business. It gives very little incentive for us to expand. It does very little to raise taxes, and it does very little to improve the problem areas of alcohol abuse.

If the chancellor does implement another above inflation increase in beer duty on 21st March he won't be doing anyone any favours, least of all himself.

Our new "baby" is safely delivered

With sales growing at more than 40% over last year, and despite increasing to 6 days a week brewing, it was becoming apparent that we were very quickly running out of capacity.

Rationing beer didn't sound like a great idea so we decided we needed a major expansion.

We ordered a new fermenting vessel based on the simple logic of what was the biggest capacity we could fit into our 'compact' brewhouse. After much measuring, debating and head scratching we placed an order for a new 25 Barrel vessel (that's about 7,000 pints).

The first indication that we had a challenge on our hands was when we saw the crane arrive to lift the vessel into place. "The Beast" looked like it was about to lift the entire building up rather than try to fit a new tank inside!

With some incredible skill from tank builder Vincent Johnson and the engineering team from EMS Eastnor they managed to squeeze the vessel in with less that an inch to spare.

Our new fermenting vessel, (which we have very imaginatievly called Number 10) in now in place and fully operational. Our hard working crew have changed their hours so we are now producing just under 25,000 pints per week.

Now that this is up and running, our next question is where to put Number 11.

Can you get Brighton Best in Paris

On Wednesday Morning, 27th July, Nigel our Chief Exec will be leaving Brighton for a 160 mile cycle to Paris to raise much needed funds for the


Argus Appeal, the fantastic Sussex Charity that helps those most in need, closest to home.

To make sure he can be returned to his rightful owner in the event of getting lost, we have kitted him out in the latest WJ King team colours.

The cycling jerseys are available in medium or large from the brewery shop in Horsham and will be uploaded on the web shop in the next few days.


If anyone would like to sponsor Nigel please do so here;

www.justgiving.com/Nigel-Lambeb2p

Location:Brighton & Paris

Our Visit to Charlie's Bar, Copenhagen

Throughout our first year as owners of WJ King, we have focussed not just on creating great beers, but also in having brilliant customer service - something our publicans have surprisingly told us they feel that many of their suppliers do not provide them with.

It seemed only appropriate therefore that we should go and visit our most remote customer to celebrate our first Birthday. So early on our birthday morning, 14 June, Ian and I headed off to Gatwick for the early morning Easyjet to Copenhagen.

We were greeted at the airport by Iain Russell who led us through the super efficient and incredibly clean Copenhagen underground system. Arriving in the Town Hall Square we walked the final few minutes throughout the shopping district to the legendary Charlie's Bar.




Charlie's Bar, and its sister pub, The Wharf in Aalbourg were set up by Iain when he realised how hard it was to get a good pint of ale in his adoptive country.

The Cellar is the smallest I have ever seen, at just 3 ft high, and only has room for lager. The ales are stored in an ingenious cupboard built into a corridor and access by an electric hoist - all designed and built by our good friend, Brewery Engineer, Nick Ricketts.


The bar has 6 hand pulls and imports hundred of casks of real ale from the UK each year.

A very discerning buyer, Iain only stocks the best beer available, and we are delighted to join his fantastic supplier base.



For our visit, Iain and his team had tapped 6 different WJ King beers and from the reaction on the day by the many messages and tweets we received, the beers have clearly gone down very well with the many regulars to Charlie's Bar.

We had a fantastic visit - although the Herring and Schnapps at lunchtime, did make the afternoon tasting a little less precise than it might otherwise have been!

We are looking forward to hosting Iain and his team for a return visit when they are in the UK for the GBBF in August.

Location:Copenhagen

A Very Happy Birthday to us

In the blink of an eye, we have come charging along to the first anniversary of Nigel & Ian buying WJ King. In just 52 weeks we have brewed 20 different beers of which 5 were brand new recipes from Ian, a further 8 of our traditional recipes have undergone a bit of an 'Ian' style make over and our traditional beers such as Horsham Best and Red River continue to find new fans from far and wide.

In all, we have produced a little under 700,000 pints and won many new customers and an increasingly strong following from Hammersmith to Hove and from Pevensey to Portsmouth.

We have had to expand across all parts of the business in order to keep up with demand; 3 new vehicles, 450 new firkins, 18 new Kinderkins, and extension to the cold store, a new shop at the Brewery in Horsham, and most importantly 7 new staff to add to the 2 stars we inherited who make it such a great place to work.

To celebrate our Birthday, we have a number of events which define the values we have as a business. Firstly, we are having a party! All of our staff and their families are invited to a party with Head Brewer, Ian, handing over production duties to wife and daughter, Kate and Robyn.

Next up, comes our customers. Our favourite part of the job is getting out meeting our customers and we have spent many great hours meeting publicans and their customers over the past year. On Tuesday, Ian & Nigel are travelling to Charlies Bar in Copenhagen to sample our first ever export order, in the company of the proprietor, Iain Russell.

Our final highlight of the week will be the team of engineers, electricians, plumbers and welders who will be on site on Thursday - but more on that later.

Finally we would like to thank the very many lads and lassies who have enjoyed our beer over the past year. Thanks for all the great comments and feedback we get, which makes all the long hours worthwhile.