Brewhive – some thoughts

Like other beer bloggers, I’m occasionally approached by brewers and distributors offering freebies of various kinds. (Needless to say, I’m approached rather more often by brewers, distributors and various other people not offering freebies, but most of those approaches can be ignored.) I treat this stuff as fuel for the blog: my main criterion for accepting a freebie is whether I think it’ll make something good to write about. Just the other day I turned down the offer of a three-course meal from a restaurant whose PR clearly had me listed under “food and drink”; I asked if there was a beer angle of any sort, it turned out that there wasn’t, and that was that.

So I was intrigued when I received an email, just under a month ago, from… well, I’ll take the liberty of quoting the email.

My name is [redacted], beer lover and Summer intern for a new start-up beer company Brewhive.

As part of my research into the industry I’ve been looking through your blog and have really enjoyed it. You really seem to know what you’re talking about and have introduced me to the whole concept of ‘real ale’ which previous to this job I wasn’t aware of.

Here at Brewhive we’re trying to enter the world of craft beer through the online market. We’ve developed a small line of 3 core beers that we hope gives our drinkers a rounded example of the beers out there for them: a pilsner made with the German magnum hop, an English endeavour IPA and an English chocolate malt porter.

I would be really keen to send you a sample of our beers so that you could try them and provide us with some honest feedback either personally or on your blog. Please let me know if this would be interest to you.

I was a bit surprised that this ‘beer lover’ hadn’t come across the concept of ‘real ale’ before reading my blog, but let it pass. (It’s a touch of personalisation, if nothing else – and ‘real ale’ is indeed one of the main topics I bang on about here.) I was intrigued by the idea of an online retailer entering the market with a dedicated range of beers – an online brewer, in effect – and the beer sounded as if it might be interesting.

So I did a bit of basic research online. The first thing that struck me about Brewhive was that they were taking social media seriously: the first page of search results brings back Brewhive material on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, as well as Facebook, Untappd and the company’s own Web site. I imagine a lot of this is down to the summer intern (job advert). The company site – here – is fairly basic but well-designed and clean-looking. It’s mainly given over to describing their products and selling them online, as you might imagine, but it also includes a blog written by Anna Roper. She describes herself as “the resident beer expert here at Brewhive” and promises to keep us updated on her journey to becoming an accredited Beer Sommelier.

As for the beers, there are three, bearing the slightly Repo Man-like names of ‘Pale Brew’, ‘Dark Brew’ and ‘Blonde Brew’; there’s also a cider (‘Cider Brew’). Tasting notes and serving recommendations are craft-y verging on pretentious. As well as ABVs and IBUs we’re given recommended serving temperatures, of 8 deg C, 11 and 14 for the Blonde, Pale and Dark beers respectively (and 10 for the cider). The IPA is described as ‘the ideal session ale’ and recommended to pair with ‘a young goats cheese’ or ‘chicken roast with lemon’; on the Dark Brew page we read, ‘A chocolate porter pairs naturally with rich desserts and game but for something a little different, why not serve with seared scallops?’

On the ordering page there’s a rather nifty ready-reckoner that enables you to price up a selection of beers (and cider), to be delivered in multiples of six bottles from the company’s warehouse in Edinburgh. The first time I saw this page it offered something that really got my attention – free delivery for orders of twelve bottles or more. Pricing up an online order and then mentally adding a fraction of the delivery charge to the price of each bottle has always been something that annoys me about online ordering; a retailer who was willing to absorb the delivery costs on larger orders would have a real edge, I thought. Apparently Brewhive didn’t think so – or, more probably, they decided that their business model wouldn’t support it – as this is no longer being offered. The beer is priced at between £1.85 and £2.20 per bottle, for 330 ml bottles – not expensive per bottle, but not dirt cheap per litre by any means (it’s the equivalent of a price range of £2.75 – £3.30 for a 500 ml bottle). And the beer isn’t particularly strong; the cider is 5%, but all the beers are either 4% or 4.1%.

By now I was starting to be puzzled. IPAs and porters at 4% are unusual; 4% IPAs and porters in 330 ml bottles are very unusual, and those that are out there are generally pitching pretty hard for the ‘craft’ label. Again, launching with an IPA and a porter seemed fair enough, but an IPA, a porter and a ‘German lager’ – and a cider? And those weird, corporate brandings, as if this was the only beer (or cider) anyone could want – the presumptuousness is very ‘craft’, admittedly, but not the narrowness of the range implied by the closed list of styles. (The famous Scottish brewery with a similar name does lots of ‘pale brews’.)

I let Brewhive’s intern know I’d be interested in reviewing the beers (and the cider) but that I also had some questions about the company. Then I did some googling. One of the first things I found was this, from the “liquid e-commerce” site:

Launched July 2015

Brewhive is an emerging brand within the growing craft beer category. Designed for home consumption this fast growing e-commerce brand plans to have the largest range of craft beers in the UK.

Our initial focus is on the harder to brew lager and IPA category, offering lighter beers for everyday consumption.

Focusing on provenance of ingredients is important to us, we have spent a huge amount of time researching the most interesting and flavoursome ingredients to add to our range.

The largest range of craft beers in the UK – provided by a fast growing e-commerce brand? Curiouser and curiouser.

Then there was this blog post from January, from somebody called Kevin Dorren. Quote:

The Brewhive Brand – Passionate about Hops

We are working hard on the Brewhive brand and user experience.

Brewhive is unique due to it’s focus on the hop. Most beers don’t make a big deal about the hop, but we plan to!
…
We are going to spend more on the customer experience than most online brands and hold much more stock to ensure availability is great. Three major things you need to focus on in e-commerce are:

• Having the product in stock (sounds easy – lots of failures in this!)
• Fast convenient delivery (next day, timed is ideal)
• Fantastic customer support (solve issues with delivery, product quality etc asap)

To make this work, you need to cut your margin when offering a better quality delivery, hold more stock and have dedicated customer services resource. All of these cost money in terms of working capital but will improve word of mouth and customer satisfaction.

A passionate brand – and a unique focus on the hop. Hmm. I was starting to get the impression of people who knew a hell of a lot about retailing food and drink, and were thinking quite deeply about how to make a success of this particular venture, but who didn’t actually have any background in beer or brewing.

I sent some questions off to the intern.

Just a few quick questions about the Brewhive operation:

1. Who is/are the brewer(s)? What is their background (other breweries/Heriot Watt/home brewing etc)?

2. Where does the brewing happen? Does Brewhive have its own brewkit, or are they going down the ‘gypsy’ route (brewing on other brewers’ kit), or contracting the brewing out? What’s the brew length for each of the main styles? Where is the cider made?

3. The choice of styles is interesting – it seems quite conservative when compared with the more exotic and innovative styles that a lot of startup breweries are coming out with. How were these three beer styles (and one cider) arrived at? Will Brewhive be expanding this range or offering short-run specials?

4. Why ‘craft’? What does ‘craft’ mean to you – and if someone asked you to justify calling Brewhive a craft operation, how would you go about it?

5. The pitch to the online retail space is very strong; from a customer’s point of view, you seem to have a lot of the bugs ironed out (lack of availability, high delivery charges etc). Will Brewhive always be an online retailer of bottled beer? Can we expect to see the Brewhive logo appearing in shops or on bar taps?

I’ll look forward to hearing from you. I think this could make an interesting post for my blog – combined with my thoughts on the beer, of course.

Next: my thoughts on the beer, of course.