Protz: Bateman's bucks the trend and sets plenty of new ones

A great survivor and innovator, Lincolnshire brewer Bateman's continues to go from strength to strength

Successful breweries pop up in the most unlikely places. Wainfleet in Lincolnshire is the last stop-but-one on the train line from Nottingham that falls into the sea at Skegness.

Signs at Wainfleet station tell you that this small town is "the home of Batemans Brewery", while a large board a few yards down the road welcomes you to the brewery and visitor centre.

Bateman's — unlike the railway company, I prefer the possessive apostrophe — dates from 1874. It's family- owned and was founded to quench the prodigious thirsts of local farm workers and holidaymakers up the road in Skegness.

But farm work is now heavily mechanised and famously bracing Skegness is no longer such an attraction in this age of bargain-basement flights to warmer climes. The odds were stacked against Bateman's.

Things got even worse in the 1980s when a devastating split in the family ranks threatened the company with extinction. Chairman George Bateman worked night and day, seven days a week, to raise the money to buy out the relatives who wanted to cash in their stake in the brewery and retire to the sun.

George succeeded in his endeavour, but the company was saddled with massive debts. It was saved by selling its free-trade business to Carlsberg.

Both George and his wife, Pat, a fellow director who was at his side during the long struggle for survival, have died in recent years.

Control has passed to their children, Stuart and Jaclyn. Would they be able to keep the company going in these harsh and difficult times of giant pubcos, supermarket discounts, smoking bans and Chancellor Darling's wicked hike in excise duties?

Managing director Stuart Bateman, who exudes good humour and an unquenchable passion for beer in general and his brewery in particular, has a simple answer to the question. "We had our best year ever last year," he says proudly. "Volumes were up, turnover was up, profit was up. Even the visitor centre, with 10,000 visitors, made a profit."

The only major problem facing Stuart and head brewer Martin Cullimore is lack of fermenters. Bateman's brews 30,000 barrels a year, but could stretch to 40,000 if additional fermenting vessels can be squeezed in.

The original Victorian brewhouse is now used only for occasional short-run and seasonal brews. A spanking new brewhouse, called the Theatre of Beer, opened a few years ago. With such modern innovations as an external boiler and a copper whirlpool, which allow great flexibility, output has been dramatically increased and could go on rising if fermenting capacity is expanded.

Bateman's currently supplies a number of supermarkets — Aldi, Booths, Co-op, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco — and bottled beer accounts for 10% of production. But the company is also a cask-ale brewery and all its key brands, including XB, the legendary XXXB and Valiant, a newish golden beer, are in growth. "Sales of our cask ales were up 10% last year," Stuart says. "They're already up 2% this year — and that's in a market that's down 8%."

Bateman's owns 64 pubs and Stuart is keen to point out that "twenty-one of them are in significant growth in spite of all the problems in the trade."

The company is not only investing in its existing pubs, but is also building the estate. In June it will open the Waggon & Horses in York, a closed, former karaoke pub that will be run by Bateman's current Publicans of the Year, Paul and Amanda Marshall. Meanwhile, a recent addition to the estate, the Palmerston Arms in Peterborough, is doing a roaring trade by going against the grain: it sells 15 cask ales and doesn't do food.

The company's trading area stretches as far as Hull, Matlock in Derbyshire, St Neots in Cambridgeshire, Norwich and soon, York.

Five years ago, the company bought back its free trade from Carlsberg and that side of the business is booming, with deliveries handled by Waverley TBS and others. Marketing director Jaclyn Bateman says the brewery is selling more cask beer in London via Punch and M&B. In common with the supermarkets, the big pubcos demand deep discounts, but, she says, "we drive a hard bargain".

Bateman's is a great survivor. The charming brewery is creeper-clad, its centrepiece an old windmill. The visitor centre is welcoming and includes a small museum that is both informative and funny about the history of brewing. It adds up to a remarkable success story that bucks the trend in the modern brewing industry.

Who knows, one day "Batemans" may even get its apostrophe back.