Protz: Things are looking up in Wadworthshire
Mr Doom and Mr Gloom are not welcome visitors to Wadworth brewery in Devizes.
All other visitors, however, get the glad-hand treatment.
In December, the family-owned brewery opened a visitor centre that cost £600,000.
In total, with new offices above the centre, Wadworth has invested £1m in a project it hopes will attract visitors and tourists, including boaters on the neighbouring Kennet & Avon Canal. A new copper house is next in line.
Inspired by similar work at Adnams in Suffolk, the coppers will be energy-efficient.
The area will be designed so that visitors will be able to view the brewing process as well as inhaling the nose-tingling delights of boiling hops.
All this investment shows a great commitment to brewing and to cask beer. The brewery, founded in 1885 by Henry Wadworth, is controlled today by the Bartholomew family, one of whom married a Wadworth.
The Bartholomews inherited the brewery when the Wadworths ran out of male heirs.
Today the large red-brown brick buildings that dominate the small Wiltshire market town produce around 2,000 barrels a week, most of it in the form of the premium bitter, 6X.
The company owns 260 pubs in Wiltshire and the surrounding counties and trade is split 60:40 between national free trade and tied.
In common with most brewers, Wadworth had a torrid time in 2007. As sales director Fred West says, first there were the floods, and they were followed by the smoking ban.
In total, 16 pubs were closed as a result of flooding and had to be renovated at considerable cost.
As West says, people have not been encouraged to go to pubs: "First they were flooded, now they can't smoke. They sit at home with slabs of supermarket lager in the garage. Consumer confidence in pubs is low - we have to tempt them back."
Bucking the trend
In spite of the problems of the summer and the autumn, Wadworth has bucked the trend and returned good trading figures for the last quarter of the year. Profits for 2007 will be equal to the previous year's.
But the company is not sitting back and hoping, like Mr Micawber, for something to turn up. It is investing substantial amounts in its pubs, which increasingly will offer good food as well as good beer.
And 2008 will see a major new promotion for the brewery and its beers using the slogan "Wadworthshire".
Wadworthsire
As you enter the new visitor centre - brightly lit and packed with fascinating memorabilia of the company and details of how cask beer is made - a mat at the door says "Welcome to Wadworthshire".
Fred West and his sales team were throwing ideas around and, he says, it suddenly clicked.
Wiltshire is a shire county and the brewery still uses shire horses to deliver to local pubs.
A brilliant new slogan was born and it didn't cost an arm and a leg.
The slogan will build on the strength of the brewery's tied pubs, many of them thatched and timbered in a rural area. "We are determined to make pubs and cask beer relevant," West says.
"Modern drinkers are concerned about food miles, organic ingredients and carbon footprints - and cask beer ticks all the right boxes. Cask is the one thing we do that the supermarkets can't get their hands on."
The campaign to promote cask beer - which includes Horizon, a new golden ale that uses American hops - will not involve heavy-handed branding. The name of the brewery appears discreetly in its pubs. "Our hosts and their staff are the real heroes," Fred says. "Customers want individual pubs - not to visit a chain."
Encouraging start
The free trade, where 6X is a major brand, is not being ignored. The premium bitter is listed with all the major pub companies and sales in Punch Taverns are especially buoyant.
It's encouraging to start a new year with good news. Wadworth is optimistic for the future of its pubs and its cask beer.
"All we need is a good summer and then the doom-mongers will go away," Fred West says. Cue that old Beatles' track Here Comes the Sun.
For more Protz visit www.beer-pages.com.
