Category: Uncategorised

The Hard Reality is we need more Sales!

The short version:

2022 – Screamed growth, and after a slow start we made our best turnover to date.

2023 – Production costs increased and our bank balance was drained.

2024 – 3 months of really mediocre sales = Pathetic cash flow. It’s 1 good sales week a month at the moment and that isn’t enough to secure our future!

If you like what we brew and want to keep drinking our beers we need to be selling about double what we are now to have a future:

Drinkers – please ask your local pubs to try us.

Landlords – please get in touch and try our beer, especially if you never have, that would be greatly appreciated.

If we don’t get enough sales soon then we will have no other choice but to wind up the brewery very soon as our lease comes to term in December. This would be a very sad end almost 9 years of making good beer.

This also means no prospect of opening the Low Street Pub, which is costing us money each month, we will be getting the building Valued with a view to Sale / Rent or if a Miracle happens turn it into a Pub if brewery sales pick up fast!

The long version aka TL:DR

The business has never paid its owners (Adrian & Emma) anything like a reasonable wage though we always try to pay our staff as much as we can afford. We literally are brewing beer for the love of it, for me it’s always been about the love of flavour in beer.

We like to do things the right way so our procedure is nailed down, with no corners cut, and no shortcuts, we always try hard to make good beer and aim for continual improvements.

Initial signs of the beer market changing were back in 2019 as we noticed a slow change in buying habits leading to beers on some bars coming from some of the bigger players which is Cheaper Supply to balance their increasing costs.

2022 – Canning kept us going after the initial Covid restrictions but the start of 2022 showed a massive drop in Can sales so the decision was made not to waste money on Cans with its clique-like sales and saturated market.

2023 – We started the year with high hopes. Energy prices increased and the knock-on effects made prices rise across the board in all industries and for all consumers. This year sucked away all our cash reserve in the bank account. It’s mad that we got to the same turnover but the bank balance took a massive hit.

2024 – January, February & March have been broadly terrible, maybe not as terrible as expected but still not putting money in the bank, we also had to complete having an Auger installed after moving out of our First floor so our landlord could rent it to another tenant, we got a bit of help from family for about half the costs.

Other than the ever-increasing energy prices and consumers having less spare cash, the main thing killing small breweries with 10bbl Brewkit or less are the bigger breweries, the jump from 10bbl to 20bbl has a massive effect on efficiency and we see large parts of the pub trade buying beer from the bigger brewers as they can afford to sell at £55 a 9-Gallon-Firkin, versus small brewers beer which would need to sell for almost double in some cases… Kinda a no-brainer for the pub trade!

When we first started it was relatively easy to make sales into Cities, though as our 9 years of trading have passed Cities are now covered by bigger brewers and wholesalers meaning unless you have an ‘in’ with one of those bigger brewers or can sell dirt cheap into Wholesale small brewers simply don’t get a chance.

To be honest, if I had a bar in a city I wouldn’t want to get staff in to work multiple times a day before opening time to accept deliveries or wait for empty collections from multiple brewers, this is part of the reason why bigger brewers and wholesalers control the beer market within cities.

The other thing is the number of tied lines / tied accounts that bigger brewers and wholesalers make, they offer line and pump installs too which small brewers can’t afford.

As an example, I’ve recently seen a wholesaler advertising 4x firkins for £55 each, remember the wholesaler is still making their margin and you assume the brewer is making a few quid a cask too.

Another thing I was recently shown was a line install deal from one of the multinationals via a wholesaler where they give you a line install and get a £1000 reward, get 4 lines installed get a £4000 reward. I’m not sure how any small brewer can dream of getting beer on a bar with this sort of stuff happening.

Please support your small brewers and free-of-tie pubs cos they seriously need it!

Polishing up my CV to go looking for a new job is unappealing! Send help!

I’ve hardly mentioned the building we bought with Bounceback Loan and help from Family, building trades were terrible, and now mortgage rates have gone up so Wishbone Tap may never exist. Wishbone Tap was/is the logical means to protect the brewery and sell more beer directly to consumers and also try to make something good for Keighley.

I’ve always said that if a quarter of the pubs and bars out there that have never tried our beer bought our beer then we’d have a lovely little business.

They said, “Do a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” Unless you already have millions in the bank this is probably bollocks!

Our next Brewery Bar Day Saturday 27th Jan 12 til 7pm

We will have the usual 6 handpulls and 4 keg taps and some new-to-us food from:

Eyes on the Fries, think dirty loaded fries (Mucky Chips!)

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Its the usual deal, we have sloped / level access though our toilet facilities might not be suitable for those less able, this is a family and dog-friendly day, please keep kids and pets under control, Cheers 🙂

We will have the lovely folks from Niko’s Comfort Kitchen here cooking up some tasty food on Saturday 25th November 12 til 7pm

It would be lovely to see you all for a few beers and a bite to eat, family and dog-friendly. We’ll have a range of Cask & keg beers on as usual including a couple of brand new beers.

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We’ll have the excellent Palomino Pizza here on Saturday 28th October 12 til 7, yep thats this Saturday! Cheers

All the usual details:

Wishbone Brewery Limited
2A Worth Bridge Industrial Estate
Chesham Street
Keighley
West Yorkshire
BD21 4LG

Landline: 01535600412
Mobile: 07867419445
info@wishbonebrewery.co.uk

Dogs welcome but please keep them out of the brewing area and under control like your kids 

We have flat / sloped access though being primarily a brewery our toilet facilities may not suit the less able among us.

Its 3 weeks until our next Brewery Bar Day on Saturday 30th September
Open from 12 til 7pm-ish

We will have the usual 6x handpulled beers and 4x keg beers. Look out of social media nearer the time for what beers we’ll be putting on.

Food will be from End of the Line, Ilkley and look like this

We have ordered 2x Convenience Hire toilets FFS so you better bloody come! The last bar days have been busy so we hope to see you all again.
And don’t forget to come see us 13th 14th 15th October at the Ingrow Station of the Keighley Worth Valley Railway Music & beer Festival.

This month’s brewery bar day is on Saturday 26th 12 til 7pm ish, and its our 8th Birthday!!!

That’s 8 years of running a business, being self-employed, earning a third of what I should be earning for the love of beer and brewing, we’d love you to come an raise a pint or two with us and celebrate my tiny tiny wage!!!

We will have The Peacock Roadshow (Peacock Bar in Bingley) doing their always excellent food.

We will have the usual 6 Handpulled beers and I reckon I’ll put the 6-Tap Keg bar on with a full spread of Wishbone delights, new things and old (Barrel Aged) things so 8 Keg taps in total.

8 years!!!

*These folks didn’t stick around, decided to leave about 3pm – had bad feels when they first rocked up lacking tables*

Yeah, yeah, we made you a wait a while for another Brewery bar day cos of outside events and staff holidays.
But we’re back on Saturday 10th June, so get it in your Diary / Calendar / written on your arm or Tattooed on your forehead! No prizes for stupid tattoos! We’ll just roll our eyes!

We’ll have Eat Art Kitchen here on food duty and doesn’t it look flippin’ tasty!

FLATBREADS – £8.00

All Served with Rocket Salad, Sweetcorn Salsa, Pickled Red Cabbage, Tomato Chutney, Crispy Onions, Pickled Chilli, Sour Cream & Spicy Sauce

BBQ Pulled Pork
Cajun Spiced Chicken Thigh
Pulled BBQ Jackfruit (v)(ve)

The usual 6 hand pulled beers and at least 4 keg beers, there may be a bit of a barrel-aged theme going on including our 3-year old Brett blend barrel aged British pale for some funky refreshing Saison-like notes and some lovely barrel funk.

The usual deal, families welcome keep those kids under control, Dog-friendly but keep them out of our brewing area please, ask us if you need a water bowl for your furry friends.

Cheers 🙂

I think Drew from the Fox & Goose in Hebden Bridge first started talking to us about a Low ABV beer way back at the end of lockdown in 2020, we were initially talking 0.5% beers but sensibly we need to approach that ABV with a bit more knowledge behind us.

So this year we had a good old chinwag with Drew & Andrew from the Fox and came up with a recipe that showcases some of the newer varieties of British hops along with a bit of American Citra to round off everything.

We came up with ‘Riding the Fox’ 2.8% with a simple Barley & Wheat malt base, a hot mash at 76c and an Original Gravity of 1039 which is enough to brew at least a 4.2% beer if we’d Mashed in in a more regular temperatures. We use Jester, Olicana & Godiva hops which are all British grown and a bit of American Citra. Again the level of hopping is more that of a 4%+ beer.

The beer will be delivered this week to the Fox & Goose and should be on the bar for the weekend Sat 22nd / Sun 23rd, the beer is well-bodied with plenty of flavour, let us know what you think of it.

It will go on general sale w/c Monday 24th and be available in Firkin, Pin & Keykeg.

Its Dry Hopped, Unfined and Vegan.

*Just spotted I forgot to add the usual ‘Gluten’ word to the list of Allergens on the Pumpclip, it should read ‘Allergens: Gluten Barley Wheat’* All Invoices and Cask labels come out with Allergens: Gluten Barley Wheat for the benefit of Publicans if anyone asks.

Cheers

I tell ya, there’s no time for updating the website lately, not to mention its blooming boring doing it!

So here are a few of the recently brewed and released beers, you can shoot us an email on info@wishbonebrewery.co.uk TXT or WhatsApp us to order 07867419445 to order or do it the old-fashioned way and give us a call on 01535600412

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Look out for our sales emails as we have a special offer running on Blonde 3.6% which we hope helps a little in these expensive times. If you want to receive our sales emails you can sign up here Cheers