Brewery Focus: Sam Laub – Gorgeous Brewery
Time for the second instalment of our Brewery Focus series! It seems like an age ago, when I last grabbed a beer with Sam Laub, Co-founder of Gorgeous Brewery down at Brew LDN, back in February. A lot has changed since then, which was why I just had to catch up with her, to find out how things have been for the brewery based out back of The Bull pub in Highgate.
How much have things changed since before lockdown?
“It’s been really interesting, things have changed massively. I think work culture’s been one of the biggest changes. We’re a small, tight-knit team, so we’re usually together all the time and the change has been a bit of a hit for everybody. Also, I know that all small breweries are in the same type of position; we’re not selling kegs and cask at the moment and volumes are down but fortunately for us, bottle sales have gone up. We were in a very fortunate position that we had brewed like crazy at the beginning of the year and had a very healthy stock level. It’s been a massive, positive change for us, getting bottles out to people directly has meant that we’ve had a lot more contact with consumers, more than ever before. The feedback from people has been great, we never expected customers to be emailing saying ‘this one was awesome.’ Those little bits of feedback are so uplifting."
What’s been your biggest challenge?
“I think it’s the uncertainty because we never really know what the government’s going to say. It’s so hard to plan ahead because even though there’s loose bits of information, there’s nothing that’s hardcore-definitive. I think another big challenge that we faced was to ensure the survival of the brewery, we took the difficult decision to furlough our staff. That was incredibly challenging; challenging deciding to do it, challenging for everyone who had to be furloughed but it was just necessary. I guess also that shift, selling directly to customers was pretty hard too, when we first started it seemed to be quite challenging but like I said it’s just turned out to be one of the most rewarding bits of the last few months, especially when you see how excited people get when you bring them beer. It’s like this lovely little treat in their day and we feel great seeing that! The next big challenge for us is plotting the path back and it’s actually the exciting part because we’ll be brewing very soon. It will be good when we are all back together, two metres apart rather than miles!”
What have you learnt?
“I don’t think I realised before how loyal our customers are and how they want to support local businesses. It’s been nice getting emails from people locally wanting to support us and get the beer. I knew that we had a following and that people liked us but just to see how loyal everyone’s been and the support that they’ve given us has just been lovely. I guess the other breweries will be in the same situation, they’ve all been quite resilient and I’m hoping a lot of us will bounce back and hopefully get back to where we were, if not better!”
Can you share any of your future plans for after lockdown?
“We’re just taking it as it comes, I mean the next few weeks we’re definitely planning to brew again because we’ll soon be running out of bottles so that time is definitely upon us soon. Hopefully trade sales will resume again soon because that will make all the difference to businesses and being able to un-furlough everybody. Being a brew pub, we’re hoping that people will come out in a safe way to support their local boozers and local breweries. It will really help us get off the ground as we’re planning to open our beer garden behind The Bull and get people safely drinking again. We’re not coming up with any grandiose plans, we just want to come up with everything safely and correctly. Hopefully this time next year things will be looking entirely different.”
What will be the first pub that you hit up after lockdown and what will you be drinking?
"I mean, no surprise at all that it will be The Bull in Highgate, which is our own place, all of our beers are on tap there so I’ll be all over that! I think my first beer will be a Grasshopper CBD pale ale, maybe followed closely by Gunpowder IPA and then I’ll meander down towards Kentish Town and maybe hit The Pineapple and the Lady Hamilton there."Sounds like an epic crawl Sam, can’t wait to grab a beer with you guys in The Bull next time we’re down! :)
