A Voyage into the Non-Alcoholic Craft Beer Horizon With Below Brew Co

Sail with us into the spirited waters of low and no alcohol beer, as I, Ben, alongside Rob of Below Brew Co, chart the course from the brand's initial conception to its sea-inspired rebranding. Discover how a trademark hiccup led to a quest for international recognition, sparking creativity and a thirst for new horizons in the burgeoning realm of non-alcoholic brews. We'll regale you with tales from Below Brew Co's journey, detailing the swift rise from side project to a full-fledged business with its own dedicated team, all the while maintaining a firm grasp on their nautical roots and passion for quality.

Embark on a craft beer odyssey that's rich in flavor yet light on alcohol. I'll take you through the excitement of brewing 18 unique concoctions in their first year, emphasizing the importance of a core range that's as inviting as a friendly port in a storm. Our conversation sails into the spirit of camaraderie within the craft community, celebrating the inclusion of alcohol-free options at festivals and hinting at future ventures that could intertwine the destinies of like-minded brewers. Prepare to be swept away by the collaborative current that's shaping the future of craft beer.

Finally, we anchor down to discuss the flourishing market for alcohol-free beer, where non-traditional venues are steering towards these bubbly alternatives, and pubs are beginning to pour a plethora of non-alcoholic draughts. Uncover the changing tides of beer consumption and the potential for alcohol-free taprooms, as we ponder the broader economic and political influences that are redefining the brewing landscape. Whether you're a designated driver or just sober-curious, join Rob and me for a refreshing journey through the evolution of an industry that’s breaking the mold, one sip at a time.

To learn more about Below Brew Co and to purchase some of their fantastic beers head over to https://belowbrewco.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Sober Boozer's Club podcast, a place where we can talk openly and honestly about addiction, sobriety and, strangely enough, beer. I'm Ben, I'm an alcoholic and for the last two years I've been sampling some of the finest alcohol-free beers the world has to offer. Each week, I'll be joined by a different guest to discuss their own lived experiences on all things related to the world of low and no alcohol beverages. So pour yourself a tipple, relax and let me welcome you to the Sober Boozers Club. In today's episode, I'm joined by Rob Jones, who is the co-owner of Below Bruco.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Now, you might not have heard of Below Bruco before, but you've almost definitely heard of Low Tide if you've ever had an alcohol-free beer, and they're the same company, it's just a different name, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. We're going to talk a little bit about what made them want to start the business and all things related to the world of alcohol-free beer. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I certainly did and we'll go over to it right about now. So, Rob, hello. Thank you very much for coming to join me on a. Well, it's a relatively sunny afternoon for me I don't know if it is for you.

Speaker 2: 1:12

It is definitely not In Bath. It is miserable and raining, oh no.

Speaker 1: 1:16

At least you've got a nice array of buildings to look at and lots of hills.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Well, you would say that. But the part, the place where I live in bath, the street is lovely. It's a lovely little area, got a little canal. At the end of the street there's a bakery, uh, electric bear brewery's. Just around the corner we've got a beautiful little bougie pub at the end of the street as well. But directly behind me is, uh, love honey. So my old office, which is now occupied by, uh, my youngest. It overlooks the, um, the warehouse, so it's not exactly the not a deal, all of sites, but have you ever considered a collab?

Speaker 2: 2:00

I don't even know I what, what it would be it to why, but I mean it's something. Yeah, that's true. You probably could. I don't know, I've never thought of that.

Speaker 1: 2:11

That's one for the future. 10% is all I ask.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Yeah, that's fine. That's fine, we can sort that out. Mate, I've heard you want the swing, so that's all good.

Speaker 1: 2:20

I've already got two.

Speaker 2: 2:42

You've recently gone through a bit of a transformation. We knew there was things kind of knocking around, but we just wanted to crack on. It was sort of like a little fun side project. Uh, that was sort of just something that we were doing in our spare time and something that we enjoyed, um, and then it sort of progressed quite seriously, quite quickly, yeah. And then, coming into this year, we we've been sort of talking about it for about a year previously and coming into this year, we were just saying that we, we managed to lock in some investment, which is great, and we were kind of taking things to the next level. We, you know, we're getting in a salesperson and really starting to push things and we're like, you know, are we gonna sort of hang around and wait for potentially someone to be? Like? We have this trademark? Um, can you cease?

Speaker 2: 3:39

and desist right, basically. And then there was also we've also wanted to sort of expand into other countries and there's a low tide in uh brewing company in I think it's maine it's south carolina, I think but don't quote me on that because I'm often wrong about most things but I think it's south carolina yeah so.

Speaker 2: 4:01

So we must have, like between my business partner and I we must have spitballed maybe like 50 or 60 different names kind of thinking. You know, do we try and keep low in it, do we go kind of go like low rise or low time and stuff like that? And in the end we, when we first started, we always wanted to have kind of a bit of a sea theme with low tide and sort of the waves. And our first beer we released was a sort of an ironic dipper um that had, like this lady swimming with some manta rays we call it dipper towing and pretty much straight after that we're like we're not going to do puns of sea themes for every single one. It seems a bit much um.

Speaker 2: 4:41

So we thought about, we thought about below brucco, it's kind of sort of keeps a lot, it's like below 0.5, you know, below the waves kind of thing. So that's kind of where we did, where we sort of landed on. We got a trademark for it and we thought you know, let's just, let's change quickly than wait a few years and then yeah, yeah, it's like pre-empting, it isn't it?

Speaker 1: 5:03

and I think it's, it's a good time to be doing something like that and kind of to refresh everything. At the same time as you know, obviously you said potentially legal difficulties going forward, but I feel like the industry is in such a good place right now, but to get on it and be like, okay, this is fresh, this is new, this is exciting, because I've been there before with with bands where we've been kind of going along for a few years and it's been, it's been going quite well and then it, it doesn't feel stale, but you feel like, okay, something new would be nice now. So what? What can we do? So kind of maybe a bit serendipitous that it's happened at this time for you yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely it's.

Speaker 2: 5:46

It's been fun, um to sort of get into it and design and sort of evolve the logo. I I'm sorry if you can hear my children, they've just come back from school, preschool, okay I've got a house full today oh, there you go.

Speaker 1: 6:01

So we'll, we'll see. We'll bring doorbells and things. It's always the joy of doing it in the afternoon on a weekday, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 6:08

yeah, absolutely. Um. So, yeah, it was good and we said it was a good time to refresh our website as well. Um, my, so my, my business partner is actually a cousin, um, and his brother is an excellent photographer, sort of is a videographer for his work, so he's sort of helping us produce, you know, fresher, newer content as well, which is good. So we're adding that into the website and bits. So, yeah, it's been fun.

Speaker 1: 6:44

It's fun, isn't it, when you get to do the kind of the creative things again and kind of refresh everything and really figure out what you want to put out to the world. I bet that's one of the fun parts of owning a business like this.

Speaker 2: 6:57

Yeah, exactly, and that's kind of, I guess, alluding to what I said before. We hit record in that I'm an interior architect by trade so I quite like the uh, the design sort of element of of things. I can really sort of get into it. So it's great to sort of get my teeth into that and and sort of work on on the whole brand and seeing how it will sort of go on to glasses and t-shirts and hats and cans and all sorts of that's the kind of thing I think if if I owned a business like that, I think I'd get very carried away very quickly oh, it's very easy to get carried away, and certainly my business partner, uh, would attest to that and he he's very good at um well, I wouldn't say winding me in, but certainly, um, he's very good at.

Speaker 2: 7:45

Well, I wouldn't say winding me in, but certainly managing my excitement for things. He's very good at that. I think if he wasn't part of the business I would have probably put it under long ago just by wanting to do all the merchandise.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Now Billo Bruco, of course, as we've discussed, is in its infancy, really as a new company. Low Tide, of course, was going for quite a bit longer.

Speaker 2: 8:10

Three years. Yeah, yeah, three years. It was three years in January but maybe people won't realise that as much because I'd say we probably have been around. We were probably one of the longest running guys without like a real substantial investment, and it certainly in part it was. Obviously our beers were sort of really popular, but it was also in part to my business partner's finance savvy skills.

Speaker 2: 8:52

He's been instrumental in sort of making sure that we make the right business decisions with the money that we had and we didn't really pay ourselves until pretty much this year, pay ourselves until pretty much this year. It was just kind of any any pretty much most of the stuff that we, we, we put straight back into the business and so we, we, we didn't have a team, it was always just him and I sorry you know he was the sort of more the finance side and sort of helping with the direction of the business, Whereas I was doing the beers and and the sales. So we've never really had a, a team or or a huge amount of money behind us to to push um, it's just kind of just been working hard at it whilst balancing other jobs and stuff which I guess, is why um what was it that made you kind of want to set it up as a business like?

Speaker 1: 9:45

did you see that there was a gap in the market in terms? Of alcohol-free beer. Was it something that you were kind of dabbling in um? What was it?

Speaker 2: 9:53

that kind of lit that fire under your belly to go right, let's make a business and let's let's do it so we, um, we, but at that time when we were just about to set up something, we were both working in, uh, london, um, and we would meet up at green park station, um, part of green park park, um, and just have lunch and sort of chat about things. We were just wanted to do something for ourselves and we sort of hit on alcohol-free beer in general and we wanted to sort of try and be. We wanted to set up like a beer subscription website and just, but you could also buy all the beers a bit like beer 52 I guess, although they're a bit of a short subject at them at this moment in time in terms of what happened with ebria, but, um, yeah, so we set up something called crafty af and that was, um, an alcohol-free beer base. Basically, we like, we really like craft beer, but obviously we wanted to sort of apply some, some moderation. Um, you know, I've got, I've got three kids and stuff. You can't be going out on the bender every every weekend. You know you've got to sort of try and chill it out a bit. Um, so we set up that, uh, we imported beers from around the world, really a lot of stuff from poland, as you can imagine, they've got some great stuff, but stuff from australia, um, austria as well, um, and what we quickly realized at that time because we're talking like I think it was like 2018 or 19.

Speaker 2: 11:37

I can't remember we realized that what we wanted actually wasn't there and that was really just a craft brewery. You know, 440 mil cans, beautiful can, artwork, interesting beer styles. I mean, i'm'm not like, I'm not saying that there weren't stuff around, but it didn't feel like there was the, the craft beer scene for alcohol free beer. At the time that we set up, there was, there was nirvana and big drop and lucky saint. We're just sort of getting going then, which all are all great, they've all paved the way for us, but we wanted to be like more craft orientated. You know, that's basically why we set up. We were like, okay, let's work on this and let's start releasing beers. So we've done like obviously we haven't done the amount of releases that Match Gang have done, but we've done. You know, I think we've released about 18 beers. I mean, certainly in our first year. We released like. I think we released like 13 in our first year.

Speaker 1: 12:46

That's pretty good going Like it's more than a beer a month. Yes, because I mean Match you're just ridiculous. If your notebook comes out, it's, I can't keep up with it.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Um no it's, it's, it's, it's a lot, but they're doing some fantastic stuff for um, the alcohol free scene in general, so it's, uh, it's, it's.

Speaker 1: 13:07

It's certainly a good thing that you can't keep up, because there was a point where you didn't really have anything to choose from yeah, I think I just I got sober at the perfect time, because if I'd have gone maybe two years earlier than I did, I'd have been in in a whole world of trouble with bex blue and heineken and the like yeah, yeah, exactly, it's, it's a whole, it's a whole new world now, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2: 13:34

I think. Just just just going back to to my business part, making sure that you know we were on the straight and narrows that was, that was mainly me being excited getting so many beers released. And then we've kind of we've then re, we've then re-looked at the business model. We're like, okay, let's, let's set out a core range, yeah, that we're, that we're sort of dedicated to really concentrating on making those great, you know, having a really good variety, um, that sort of cater to a lot of people's tastes. You know we've got a honeycomb chocolate pastry style. But we've also got harpy pills. Now, you know we've got a west coast pale, we've got a juicy pale, that sort of thing. We've even got a bel pills. Now you know we've got a west coast pale, we've got a juicy pale, that sort of thing. We've even got a belgian brown ale for those sort of more, um, rich taste buds out there yeah, I think that's the thing.

Speaker 1: 14:23

Isn't it like having a really solid core range and then having little special releases every now? And again that feel really special um yeah, exactly, exactly, some of the co-labs as well.

Speaker 2: 14:35

I think co-labs are such a great thing because the amount of new breweries that I've discovered through co-labs are just it's great one of the reasons we wanted to, um, one of the reasons we wanted to be set up was because we wanted to be perceived as a craft brewery first and then an alcohol-free brewery second. You know, and in my opinion it doesn't matter whether you're alcohol-free or not, you're still a craft brewery and we've been starting to get invited to craft beer festivals. So we got invited to Beaks last year, we've got one in Liverpool this year and one in Nottingham. We went to one in Finland as well.

Speaker 2: 15:19

Kind of what I'm getting at here is that at these festivals you start to see the same people kind of going to these festivals and there is a real, real camaraderie within that. You know it's, it's, it's a very, very, um, family or my orientated almost scene, you know, and I would even go to say is I don't actually think it is as much yet in the alcohol free as it is in the full strength brewing scene, and that's mainly because I think that a lot of the breweries have alcohol-free breweries, have been set up by people, I guess, like myself, that haven't necessarily come from the beer scene. They're more kind of graphic designers or interior architects or, you know, from finance, backgrounds and whatever. Um, because I can't really name many collabs of alcohol-free breweries and alcohol-free breweries.

Speaker 1: 16:24

I can't think of one right now oh, you've put me on the spot now. Um, I'm literally just trying to go through vm because I know you did one with Attic, but they're not alcohol free.

Speaker 2: 16:33

No, they're not. Mash Gang have done so many collabs, but I don't think they've done one with another alcohol free brewery, hint hint Mash Gang. That's a very good point.

Speaker 1: 16:45

Well, I know that Sam from we Can Be Friends wants to collab, so maybe one will exist soon.

Speaker 2: 16:54

Yeah you go, yeah, it's yeah, there you go. That's what I was kind of getting at. It's like we actually haven't really sort of intermingled with each other, because it's great for us, like alcohol-free breweries, to to collaborate with high-strength beers or high-strength breweries, because you are getting eyes on people, eyes on your beers that wouldn't maybe necessarily look to your beers yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 17:20

I think that that's a good thing for the, the af industry certainly yeah, yeah, and more often than not, let's be honest and a full strength brewery is probably going to have more followers than us.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Yes, yes, often, yeah, I've noticed and maybe again it's just me kind of interacting with more beer folk, but this January in particular, there seemed to be a lot of people from the let's call it the full fat beer world really taking part in kind of the dry january's um incentive to keep drinking beer but make it alcohol free. I don't know if you noticed a major, definitely upturn this year compared to, let's say, last year, even it's going to keep on going like that.

Speaker 2: 18:06

To be honest, you know, I think the breweries are seeing that there's there's a need to at least accommodate that category. You know it's, it's, it's a chunk of of of business that they're just basically basically missing out on. We so so our collaboration beer that we've just done with electric bear they were actually I think we released our second beer with them when we first started A Pale of Two Cities. It was great and it really took us ages to kind of get the stars aligned to do it together again. So we did that and the reason we did that is because it's sort of been made on the intent that that is going to be landing into their core range. So they will have a core range alcohol free, which is their own really air or our own really air in their core range.

Speaker 2: 19:04

You've, only you've, and it's it's a good thing for them to do that, because you've only got to look at like like Bristol as an example, and in Bristol I can think of three breweries in Bristol that have a full time alcohol free in their range. And Bristol's only a hop and a skip away from Bath and you've got like Wiper and True. They've got two. You've obviously got Bristol Beer Factory's Clearhead, which is their best selling beer, and then you've got one at at good chem good chemistry as well, um, so I do think more and more breweries are cottoning on to the fact that it might be a good idea to uh yeah, I'm kind of at the point now where, if I, if I find a new brewery, I don't kind of go on thinking, oh, I wonder if I'll have anything alcohol free if.

Speaker 1: 19:52

If anything brewery, I don't kind of go on thinking, oh, I wonder if they'll have anything alcohol-free If anything. Now, if they don't, it's kind of shocking which is nice that it's got to that point. How do you think that affects the industry as a whole? Do you think that all new products are good for everybody, or do you think that there's a point where competition becomes not an issue but maybe a worry?

Speaker 2: 20:16

it's a bit of a chicken and eggs sort of thing, really, isn't it? It's like, it's great, it's great, it's great to have more eyes on, on, on the on the scene as a as a whole. You know it's going to get people interested. Someone might go to track and try their new sonoma, alcohol free, and then they'll be like, ooh, actually alcohol-free beer tastes pretty good. Now what other ones are there? And then they might research it. They might find Bilobruco, ashgang, bucky, saint, whatever, and sort of. They might start a journey.

Speaker 2: 20:48

But then obviously then you look at it a different way and it's obviously taking a piece, a piece of the alcohol free pie. So yeah, but there's, there's. So there's so many places that we can sell to, especially with alcohol free. You don't need a, you don't need a premises license, so you could literally just sell to anywhere, like hairdressers, if you really wanted. So it's, it's fine that like, and it's great that there's eyes on the scene, but at the same time it doesn't really hugely take much away from your selling capabilities because of how many there are around I think that's the thing, isn't?

Speaker 1: 21:26

it like there's there really is no kind of limit to how far this explosion can can spread of alcohol-free beers. I was talking to um andy from alcohol-free drinks company about all the places that you know he will distribute alcohol free beer in keg form to, like rugby clubs, places that I would never have assumed would be doing an alcohol-free option well, twickenham has a whole section now that's alcohol-free, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 21:55

and they tried at one of the one of the recent matches and there was a bit of a hoo-ha because they didn't actually tell the people that.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Uh yes, I do remember seeing that actually um.

Speaker 2: 22:05

Now you've mentioned that they didn't tell anybody um I can understand why someone might be a bit pissed off if that happened to be fair fair. But at the same time let's not detract away from the fact that it's great that they started it and they tried to do it, you know.

Speaker 1: 22:20

Yeah, definitely, because I didn't even I never really thought about just how many people it was for, like as an alcoholic. It's kind of like oh yeah, this is for me, but actually it goes so much further, doesn't it like people that are driving to events, people that are just not wanting to drink that day?

Speaker 2: 22:39

it's everything. It's everything. You know. You know ladies that are pregnant, it's it's. You know people that are drinking it after running a marathon. We sponsored a marathon in bath and had our beers at the end. It's like essentially an isotonic drink. Um, you know, as you said, driving, you know, just recovering alcoholics, maybe just cause they just don't really fancy like having a beer. You know, I know people like my, my mom doesn't really drink she's, but she's never really wanted to. You know, but there's, there's good to have options that aren't Coke.

Speaker 1: 23:10

You know, yes, yeah, orange juice or J2O.

Speaker 2: 23:16

I love J2O.

Speaker 1: 23:17

I like a J2O, but I drink it so quickly.

Speaker 2: 23:20

Yeah, you do. You chug it back, don't you?

Speaker 1: 23:22

Yeah, I don't know why, For me it's J2O and pineapple juice. I think I can consume those two things quicker than anything else in the world weird that's really weird now not, not in the past yeah, yeah, historically that's probably not accurate.

Speaker 2: 23:40

That would be whiskey and cheap pints yeah, yeah, but now you're into it big time. But we we've started doing um kegs, um nice I mean we don't do too many on a run, we do like 20. But there are certain places. There's a place in Bristol that takes a fair few. They take like eight kegs of ours and they shift it pretty quickly. There's the people out there that want it.

Speaker 1: 24:10

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I've said historically, I'm pretty sure some pubs by me I keep in business and that's just because they do lucky saint on draft um and if they did something. I mean I like lucky saint. I think lucky saint is great, but as I've progressed through my kind of journey into the world of alcohol-free beer, I I'd like more than just Lucky Saint on draft.

Speaker 2: 24:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because Lucky.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Saint. It's nice, but it's got to the point where, for me, it feels like, like I don't know how to say it without it sounding detrimental to the product, but it feels like an alcoholic's drink, like I'll have a Lucky Saint because I'm a boozer, whereas you know, if I could have other beers, like one of one of yours on a keg, I'll have one of those, please.

Speaker 2: 25:01

it's like oh this is a nice, this is a special pint, this is a fancy pint yeah, well, that way, you kind of getting on to something that I think is probably going to become very, very prevalent in like the next five years.

Speaker 2: 25:13

And we're at the point now where pubs and bars and restaurants are getting into getting a um, alcohol-free option on tap right, and it's a bit like when you go to some establishments and they have like one vegan option or whatever it's like. They'll soon realize that actually they probably should have a variety and you might see, end up seeing very soon that there might be 50% of it on draft is alcohol-free, 50% of it is um full fat, as we just agreed upon to say. Um, that's kind of. I think that's the. That's the next stage that we're going to see. It feels like things are progressing a lot quicker. Um, and you're right, it'd be nice to have a variety. You might want to have a macro pint of alcohol free, but you also might want some a little more bougie, and that's kind of the next step, you know, having a macro pint on offer, so like a stellar, but then also going in and be able to have maybe one of ours or like a verdun, you know kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 26:16

It's nice that we're seeing more kind of independent breweries getting kegs two places before Heineken, like I've seen Heineken on draft but only in, like the little mini kegs at the back of the bar that always taste like blades yes, I think they are, but I mean blades. They're just fucking awful like I can't finish a pint of that oh really.

Speaker 1: 26:45

I think what Heineken I get quite cross about Heineken. I think what they are doing is so detrimental to the whole movement of alcohol-free beer. And this is me coming at it from an alcoholic's perspective now, because for me I've said multiple times alcohol-free beer saved my life and it did. For some people they don't touch it and that's fine, but for me, if it didn't exist and it wasn't good, I would have tried to continue moderating and that would have been very dangerous. So if there's anybody like that out there that isn't as stubborn as me and their first drink that they try is Heineken and it's just not up to scratch in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 27:30

I think it's awful, it's going to put them off and you know that that's quite dangerous and I just think that with how much the industry has grown, the technology has progressed and there's recipes out there that are really fucking good.

Speaker 1: 27:47

To not revisit what they do I think is abhorrent, and that's just yeah that's me on a high horse, but I just think that when there's such a big company, you know when they first came about, great, you know they spent years researching it and what they put out, when they first put something out, was probably better than 90 percent of what was available of course yeah, whereas now as it is, maybe they haven't, maybe we're just talking shit and they're going to moan about us maybe if I've actually made it worse. And that's what's gone on. They've tried to make it better I think.

Speaker 2: 28:18

I think it's. It's interesting you said, because it kind of sort of switched something in my brain too um, and it's all to do with what's come before with alcohol free in terms of bex, blue peroni, um, heineken, and that's price point. Um, there is this, um thought process in when, in alcohol free, which doesn't quite compute, is alcohol, it's alcohol free, therefore it should be cheaper, um, and or because it is, we don't pay the the tax on it. Well, yeah, we might not pay the tax on it, but I absolutely guarantee you we pay more. Well, the same, if not more, in different techniques to make sure that the beer is shelf stable. We do everything else the same. Um, you know, it's brewed exactly the same with, obviously not exactly the same because there's no alcohol, but, um, yeah, and then that, with the amount of pushback we we sometimes receive is like oh, we, we pay less than this for full strength beers. Well, why, why do we? Why would we pay that? And I think that's something to do with what's come before with with heineken and becks.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Because people expect it to be, they can expect to buy it for like atp or 90p in the sense of whatever yeah, I've had conversations like that with people from the sober community that refuse to buy kind of craft alcohol-free because of the price of it and it's like, look, that's fine, but it's a treat. It's a treat Like to have a nice beer.

Speaker 2: 30:00

It's nice, you know, like you pay more for craft alcohol beer than you do for a can of fosters, and so you should, because it was a world of difference yeah, yeah, I mean I guess you then sort of then leaning on to a bit like if you don't want to pay a good price point for something, then you're only you wanted to pay as cheap as possible to get as drunk as possible. Basically, that's kind of really it. I I'll be honest, I I still, I still drink full fat beers and I'd much prefer to have a very, very decent craft beer than going to the local spa and getting a four pack of fosters for four quid. Yeah, you know, yeah, I was something really nice then it was the same until like two pints deep.

Speaker 1: 30:46

Well, three pints deep. Let's be fair to myself. I liked. You know I loved beer. I really loved beer. My issue was I also loved alcohol. So I'd have three pints of a fancy stuff and then it would be like right Red stripe, let's get on it, cause you could get so many cans of red stripe for like 10p, yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:08

And then it was just the night, became whatever. It became um, which was often problematic, so going into sobriety it was like how can I never drink beer again? Because I, it became part of my identity. You know, like, yeah, I love beer, I like talking about beer, beer is kind of what I'm into. Um, and it was kind of, yeah, the two didn't go very well together, which was a shame, but it's important to remember that you know, not everybody but drinks full fat beer is an alcoholic, when people that make alcohol free beer still drink full fat beer, because you've got to know what it tastes like man.

Speaker 2: 31:44

This is what I say as well. It's like how are we supposed to? It might sound like I'm trying to make an excuse, but how are we supposed to make a decent beer if we don't really know what it's supposed to be tasting?

Speaker 1: 31:59

like. Yeah, because your taste buds do change. I mean this is a story that might get me cancelled by the sober community, and I'll never become an Alcohol Change UK ambassador.

Speaker 2: 32:11

Anyone will let you know, mate Sorry.

Speaker 1: 32:14

But I was at a wedding a while back with my girlfriend and it was alcohol-free Corona and full-fat Corona and I was like, okay, but it's fine, I can deal with that. That it's not my wedding, I can't, I can't make a scene, um, and just out of curiosity I said to my girlfriend like give me, give me your bottle, I just want to see like. So I had a little little swig, spat it out and it just tasted of chemicals, like it was like you, like when you're 12 years old and your dad lets you have a bottle of Grosch.

Speaker 1: 32:51

Well, maybe not 12, 14 years old. Let's say, your dad gives you like a bottle of Grosch and you're like, oh, I'll never like this. It was literally like that. It was horrific. I was just curious, because I'd been wondering if my palate had changed, and that was because of Budweiser, because I used to hate Budweiser. Larry's must have been a very sweet beer, that is but the thing is, recently I've had a couple and I've just been like this is delicious alcohol free or the full fat one alcohol free and I've really enjoyed them and it really shocked me.

Speaker 2: 33:32

I don't think I knew they did an alcohol free one it's been about.

Speaker 1: 33:37

I think there were a couple of them. There were two different versions that they did, and one was silver writing and one was red. I might have this completely wrong, but whichever one was in the supermarkets was terrible. Um, but recently I've really enjoyed it and I've. I think it's just that my palates changed.

Speaker 2: 33:58

Yeah, I'm just. I'm just Googling it because I want to see whether I'm just being silly, whether I've not seen it before. I mean Bud L oh no, I did know that. Yeah, I'm being very stupid, yeah no, it's, it was.

Speaker 1: 34:13

It was just. It shocked me, but it was good, which is which. It's also how you know that I'm not just chatting nonsense about hating heineken, because if I'll defend budweiser, then there's no depth, so I won't sink to well, I imagine budweiser.

Speaker 2: 34:27

They probably well, they probably have a never-ending pot of money, so I would imagine they would have bought a reverse osmosis machine instead. So I guess for those listening that don't know what that is, it's basically just something that takes the alcohol out. So they would just brew a normal Budweiser and smash it through that, and that's what actually Wiper and True do. They've actually bought their own reverse osmosis machine so they do that for their uh kaleidoscope alcohol free and their tomorrow lager. Yes, so that might be why it tastes so good. That's like that's like the, the primo sort of way to sort of get all of those beautiful tastes kind of coming through from. You know, just just taking the alcohol out.

Speaker 1: 35:17

That might be mine that explains why sometimes and this isn't a slight on why brunt, true, but sometimes it's got that kind of cidery taste to it that's very similar to budweiser. So in most podcasts, this would be the point where we stop and talk about our sponsors. I'm not going to do that because I don't have any sponsors, because nobody likes me. Instead, what I'm going to talk to you about is a thing called acetaldehyde. Now, this is a liquid or a gas that's found in some beers, and Budweiser put it into their beers deliberately to give you a kind of crisp flavour, but it can sometimes be confused with a kind of appley or cidery taste. Yes, I did have to Google that after the episode because I forgot the name of it, but we'll get back to it now, shall we?

Speaker 2: 36:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, once you remember, let me know.

Speaker 1: 36:04

I'm going to have to Google that myself in a minute. What do you think will happen in the next kind of five years with the industry? Um, obviously we've discussed alcohol free on draft. Do you think that's the way things need to go?

Speaker 2: 36:18

yeah, definitely, definitely. You know, I'd like there's, there's options, but there's not enough options. Um, I think, and, as I said, I think the way it's going to go is you're just going to see more and more options on draft, is it not just one? You're going to see many. You're going to definitely see more craft breweries that are alcohol free popping up.

Speaker 2: 36:40

I mean, I was surprised. It was really I kind of felt for a while it was just ourselves and MASH gang that were like alcohol-free craft breweries kind of going until very recently, when we can be friends popped up. Um, I was just really surprised that there hadn't been more that was started. There obviously were ones that have started, but again it was kind of they were quite polished and not they kind of came into the scene already, quite kind of looking like quite macro um from the start.

Speaker 2: 37:16

Um, I mean, with the exception of like you've got other ones like function with zoe, who's kind of going along, these sort of mushroom, adaptogenic sort of stuff, um, you'll see a lot more of those and I'd like to think, as we just chatted about, we'll probably see a lot more of those and I'd like to think, as we just chatted about, we'll probably see a lot more alcohol-free collabs. I'd love if there was more of a willingness to go to an industrial estate for an alcohol-free taproom, although I don't know whether that will be five years, it might be a little bit longer.

Speaker 1: 37:51

I hope not. That's the world I want to live in.

Speaker 2: 37:54

I know Nirvana have their own tap room. Lowa have just opened another one. They've just opened one in a shipping container somewhere in London. They love a shipping container in London, don't they? Yeah, they really do, yeah. So they've says that I suppose they're a bit crafty. They're doing it in like 330ml hand sizes. Yeah, that's kind of where I see it going and just, I guess people will be more and more accepting of higher price points and well, I guess everyone should just get used to it, because, whether we wanted to or not, we voted Brexit and that is one of the reasons why things are getting so expensive.

Speaker 1: 38:39

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 38:40

It's a shock, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 38:42

It's almost as if you were warned from the start.

Speaker 2: 38:45

Yeah, well, yeah, sober Boozer does politics, does Brexit, yeah, badly, yeah. But I mean, yeah, I think there'll be more acceptance of price points. Yeah, and we're just definitely going to see more breweries opening up. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll see more, even just this year. You know so. I'm obviously as you know because you've interviewed him, but Sam from we Can Be Friends obviously had a full fat brewery at One Mile End, which were amazing. I didn't even realise they'd shut down.

Speaker 1: 39:19

Actually, to be fair, no, I had no idea that that had happened and then I didn't know it was the same person.

Speaker 2: 39:27

We're seeing that a lot at the moment, aren't we? There's a huge strain on on brews in general, which we're quite lucky that we went along a similar business model to mash game, where we contract brewers so we have no physical premises. Um, we can literally just concentrate on developing the beers and the customer base and there's no sort of worry about overheads. We know exactly this much is going to cost for our beers and that's it, and we can work from there. So in a way, we're quite lucky in the fact that we can shrink and expand.

Speaker 1: 40:10

Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2: 40:12

Without it being catastrophic to our business. Um so, but yeah, I mean, obviously we've seen so many breweries go under, almost go under. Like I was surprised that north brewing were went in administration, I think in the neighborhood, and they were bought out same with purity.

Speaker 1: 40:30

I was surprised about that as well yeah, obviously, being a kind of a local lad, the purity buyout was was shocking. It was like what, what, what's happened here? Yeah, because it seemed to come from nowhere. I mean my, I'm not very um up to date with purity because I don't like their alcohol free offering and it really upset me because I used to love purity yeah but you're right, the hospitality industry as a whole, I think, has taken a real battering yeah, big old kick in mate, yeah which is outrageous, because during lockdown, it was like the one thing that people were really craving and really couldn't wait to go back to and they just didn't have any money to do it.

Speaker 1: 41:13

That's the thing, isn't it? They were allowed. That's the thing.

Speaker 2: 41:17

Luckily, we all took a mortgage break for 10 months and doubled up our mortgages.

Speaker 1: 41:21

Yeah, thanks, thanks, rishi. Thank you, rishi.

Speaker 2: 41:25

I was actually in that little pot of people that didn't get any furlough payough yeah yes, no, I go straight through um yeah I am. I'd left just left my job, um, and was just starting doing some freelance bits, and I literally had a contract ready with someone to be signed on monday to work, start full time with them, and then the Friday, the quarter that's when Boris did his whole.

Speaker 1: 41:54

We need you to shut down, go on.

Speaker 2: 41:58

And then I was like I'm not going to get any further. He saw it, I'm sure he saw it. Just every single word now. No, that's not me. No, that's not me. No, right, okay.

Speaker 1: 42:11

It was absolutely wild't it um like what a time to be alive yeah, very bizarre outrageous um but you know, silver linings.

Speaker 2: 42:20

That was gave us a lot of time, dave and I to um really sort of get into setting up low tide at that time, yeah, and so getting into the nitty-gritty and designing it and designing the beers and such so yeah, I think a lot of kind of creative projects did emerge from lockdown and like different, like passion projects, as we discussed earlier, kind of came out of it and kind of some of them have blossomed into beautiful flowers yeah, exactly, yeah, I love it. I love this flower.

Speaker 1: 42:53

It's blossomed how do you, how do you want the next couple of years to go for below brucco? Obviously within, within reason, because I mean we'd, we'd want it to explode and be a worldwide brand, of course, but within yeah, but we're so, we're so, we you know it's um we at the moment we're really concentrating on on on developing um the uk market.

Speaker 2: 43:17

We're still massively open to exporting to overseas, but it's not something we're really sort of pushing um. You know, we we export at the moment to Canada, finland, austria, switzerland, france, holland, northern Ireland, but we're really concentrating on the UK. We're sort of developing a sales team at the moment Well, I say team it's essentially myself and another guy um and just really sort of really honing in our core range, making the best that possibly can be really getting them great into pints. We're doing lots and lots of research at the moment in um sort of improving body that we're at one that's just come out fantastic, which we're going to be sort of moving forward into all our beers as well. Um, we're also looking at really fancy natural stuff that removes pasteurization from the process as well which is interesting, which is great.

Speaker 2: 44:27

Um, it's, um, it's. I think the five years is going to be a lot of hard work, um, a lot of pushing into as many places as we can, because I guess what we want to do we want to get our beers out there, we want to get our beers to people so they can enjoy them um, really developing our team and developing our customer base and sort of pushing below brucco as much as we can, um, and just yeah just absolutely going for it.

Speaker 1: 44:53

Basically, if we, if we spread into America, then then then great, but it's not, we're not really sort of into doing yet the business model that Mashgang are doing, for instance, with brewing in Australia and America and stuff um, I mean america is certainly a great thing, because I'm pretty certain I could count on one hand how many alcohol free breweries there are there in comparison to their size yeah, it's um, it's such a big country um it doesn't feel like there's a lot, but then I don't know if it's just because there's breweries over there that are just doing american stuff and there's kind of a disconnect between it coming across to the uk and vice versa. But I think in the next few years we'll certainly find out. I really look forward to seeing, um how below bruko continues to grow, because you know, this is a.

Speaker 1: 45:47

This is a continuation of low tide, of course and yeah and it's really exciting, I think, for the whole industry, to be honest.

Speaker 2: 45:56

Yeah, definitely yeah absolutely.

Speaker 1: 45:59

Thank you very much for coming and talking to me. I hope that it gets less grey for you. It's grey for me now, so it has now.

Speaker 2: 46:07

It is now blue sky.

Speaker 1: 46:08

Take my weather, you bastard.

Speaker 2: 46:10

Well, thank you for it, because it looks amazing. Now, blue sky, take them my weather, you bastard.

Speaker 1: 46:13

Well, thank you for it because it looks amazing. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the sober boozers club podcast. My name is ben gibbs. You can find me at sober boozers club. You can find rob and below bruco on their website. That's below brucocom. They've just launched, they've just dropped their new core range and it's all fantastic if you've had a low tide brew in the their new core range and it's all fantastic If you've had a low tide brew in the past. It's really no different, it's just a different name. For now. Thank you again for listening. I will catch you very, very soon.