Brew pub runs like Clockwork
Deliberate marketing strategy allows a diverse choice of drinks
It would be a churlish customer who complained about the lack of choice at the Clockwork Beer Company. The brew pub serves nine different beers of its own, it typically stocks 65 Belgian ales, 30 German wheat beers and 30 fruit wines, not to mention a selection of around 60 malt whiskies.
The perversely wide range is a deliberate marketing strategy on the part of Robin and Gay Graham, who opened the business in 1997 as Glasgow's first brew pub of modern times.
According to Robin, "stocking one or two versions of a product doesn't work. To develop a market properly you have to have at least 20 or 30 so people can wander around and find their own tastes.
"Having a big range is impressive, attracts customers and encourages them to give something a try."
Clockwork has what he believes is one of the biggest Belgian beer menus in the UK. It includes five brands on draught and a variety of fruit beers, among them blackcurrant, peach, banana, pineapple, strawberry, apricot, plum and passion fruit. The more familiar cherry and raspberry styles are on tap and there also honey and chocolate brews.
The fruit wines come from two suppliers in Scotland, Cairn O'Mohr and Moniak Castle, and from Lindisfarne in Northumberland.
Clockwork also makes its own fruit beers, a draught wheat beer and, rarely for a brew pub, a lager. It has also recently reintroduced a seasonal harvest ale made using the only hops currently grown in Scotland.
Clyde Valley Hops is named after the special strain cultivated by scientists to resist Scotland's damp summers and early frosts. It is also being used in a new beer by Heather Brewery.
"Scotland is at the straggle end of things when it comes to real ale," admitted Robin. "But people are definitely beginning to get a taste for it, and it's being helped by all the generic publicity we are getting at the moment.
"Wetherspoon pubs have also had an impact. There are five in Glasgow and they sell a lot of cask ale, so there must be a market for it."
