For a man in my position spending 45 minutes with Miles Templeman just isn't enough.
After all, this is someone who was the figurehead behind the enormous and impressive growth of two key beer brands in the 1990s: Boddingtons and, in particular, Stella Artois.
As head of the Whitbread Beer Company from 1988 to 2001 he invented the modern beer brand; using the techniques he had learned at companies such as Beechams and Levis in the 1970s and 1980s and applying them to beer. The effect left rival beer brands trailing in its wake.
Since then he has been managing director of the Bulmers cider company. He was only at the helm for four months before it was sold by the Bulmers family to Scottish & Newcastle in 2003 (not an insignificant move given the subsequent boom in cider); and he is now the director-general of the Institute of Directors.
In 2005, Templeman was appointed chairman of Shepherd Neame (after three years as non-exec on the board) meaning that even though his Whitbread days are firmly behind him, pubs remain high on his agenda. So what does he make of the pub industry seven years after he left Whitbread? Is it in the kind of trouble that some of our industry leaders would have us believe?
And what does he make of the state of the beer market, especially the brand that he helped establish as one of the biggest hitters in the trade: Stella Artois?
Do you think the pub trade lags behind other businesses?
I saw back then [in the late 1980s] how far behind the pub trade was from other markets - mainly in its overall approach to customers. But on the positive side, I saw the strong emphasis on personal relationships with customers. The licensee needs to understand the impact he or she and their staff can have on a customer.
What precisely does the pub need to improve on?
There is a lack of analysis of customers, and that is a problem. You should always try to lead and not follow. The key is you have to gather up research data and then go beyond what it tells you.
You need to be able to anticipate what the customer wants. It is a good marketing doctrine - you need to recognise a need from customers that is hidden. It is up to you to reveal it and then deliver on it.
Staff is a crucial area that I think still needs attention. One's experience of a pub is determined by your staff and how they interact is crucial. Is enough effort put into your staff to make them your frontline troops?
Could pubs learn anything regarding staff service from other businesses you have been involved with such as YO! Sushi?
In fact YO! was not so good at that. The whole gimmick was the conveyor belt so you actually removed a lot of that staff contact but what remained often wasn't as good as it could have been.
So what advice would you give?
Maximise the bits you can control and then give staff freedom on the bits you can't. Liberalise the staff a bit. That is what I did at Threshers. Standardised service, with too many controls, makes things far too rigid.
Licensees need to think about their proposition and how they are different from down the road and bring that into everything they do.
People are aware of the point of difference strategy but they only carry it out to square one. You have to go beyond that. You are doing food? Well what food? And why?
And that is why my role at Shepherd Neame is enjoyable as I see the team there endeavouring to do that.
But, most importantly of all, you cannot remove the personality of the staff and licensee from all of this. Staff need to adopt the same atmosphere as the landlord. It is very hard - particularly as there are so many transient staff. But try and enrich their experience of working in the pub. You will find they stay longer as a result.
How do you see the future panning out then, with such gloom and doom around for the pub business?
Times are tough, especially for the big pubcos. But for small operators like Sheps I would say prospects are good. The ability of pubs to adapt and evolve is getting greater. But the guaranteed customer does not exist any more. People have to come to you and then walk away satisfied.
So do you have a key approach to business?
It really is twofold. It is about thinking about the customer and thinking about the people who work for you. And you have to get both right.
A view on Stella Artois
If there is one shining success story in Miles' CV at Whitbread it is the story of Stella Artois. Under his stewardship Stella became almost the perfect brand with dynamic sales and a premium image that was the envy of its competitors.
And yet times are now tougher for Stella Artois - despite continuing high sales volumes, it is dogged by image problems and negative media coverage.
In the beginning…
"With Stella Artois, I remember when I first read the consumer research it was the best I had ever read, on any brand. It was small but perfectly formed. We simply took that out to the market.
The timing was, of course, very good and other premium lagers out there had not done a good job."
Image problems
"It's tough. When you get bigger and broader you become more ubiquitous - and inevitably less special. I don't think InBev was initially attentive enough on the question of how to keep it special and it has since chased volume. Once you get too big it is very hard for any brand to keep that caché. In drinks, only Guinness has managed to do that."
Solutions?
"In 2000 I remember we discussed what we might do with it. Perhaps launching a new brand or variant - in the same way the relaunch of the 501 reinvigorated Levi's in the 1980s.
"But it never happened and I think the brand variants now are not clear-cut enough. But it is not a criticism - it is a very hard thing to pull off. And they have had the issue of the take-home trade really wanting to promote it. The trend of volume sales moving from on-trade to off-trade was always coming."