The beer landscape has, unsurprisingly, changed beyond recognition in the 15 years since Nick Dolan founded Real Ale, a bottle shop in South West London. Breweries have come and gone and, to an extent, so have certain beer styles. But what has remained constant is Dolan’s desire to promote excellent beer from the UK and beyond. He’s just doing it on a bigger scale now. We sat down with Nick and Real Ale’s MD Zeph King to discuss where things go next.

In 2005, you would have got some pretty confused looks if you asked after the latest Imperial Pastry Sour. There would have been no Instagram to capture the ‘Iceman pour’ of your beverage and no Untappd to rate said beer on.
 
But things change.

Instead, bottle-conditioned real ale was the order of the day when Nick Dolan opened his first shop in Twickenham 15 years ago.

“You can imagine, the idea of craft beer didn’t really exist back then. If I knew how things would change I would have simply called the shop ‘Craft’ and get a head start on everyone!” he smiles.

A dual British and Canadian citizen, Dolan had moved back to the UK to help his friend’s dad set up a bottle shop on a farm he owned. That went swimmingly and gave him the inspiration to do something similar in Twickenham, South West London. The area where he had grown up.

Real Ale would open in 2005 stocking beers from eight outfits such as Hepworth, Vale and Fox Brewery.

He says: “We’d stock your beer if it was up to the high standards we demanded. I’d make the calls and drive around the country to pick up the beer, fill up the van and come back to stock up the shop.

“But there wasn’t a lot of it about so things were much simpler then. Now though with more than 2000 breweries out there, it’s all changed. For me, that figure is too high. There’s not enough demand out there to keep all of these breweries going at the right speed and the trajectory they want.”

Zeph King joined Real Ale 10 years ago. He recalls sitting in a huge warehouse, which would hold the stock that would make up the CAMRA beer club, something the business fulfilled and organised.

“We would find ourselves ringing around these breweries we found online to enquire about their bottle-conditioned beers. I think about that, and then I look at the shelves and fridges we have now,” he explains. “The change is unrecognisable.”

Changing landscape

The business itself has changed, growing from a team of five a decade ago to closer to 30. But it’s the type of beers Real Ale is selling, and how they’re distributed, that also enthuses King.

“I look back to the early days of The Kernel, when Evin (O’Riordan, founder) would personally deliver those beers, and when BrewDog first moved into selling their beers in 330ml cans. I feel that was a huge selling point in converting people to this amazing thing called craft beer,” he says.

For Dolan, who went to college in Portland, Oregon, in the 1990s, the UK was very much behind the curve in terms of hop-forward beer production for some time. But no longer.

“You could just see that we were behind the states by 10 years or so. Even though beer is our national drink, we were lagging when we should have been a long way ahead,” he believes. “That’s changed, though, and we’ve definitely caught right up. I actually think we can now go toe to toe with the US when it comes to many beer styles.”

Which is just as well because Dolan is clear on one thing. And that’s the modern consumer is more discerning.

“We’ve expanded to sell wine and spirits across our three stores but for the first four or five years, we exclusively sold beer. It was probably a brave move to do that as nobody else was really doing anything similar,” he recalls. “But we had an ethos of wanting to educate the consumer and provide them with information regarding who produced the beer, what’s unique about the beer they’re drinking and why we believe in it. That’s not changed.”

He adds: “What has changed is that back in 2005, everything was sold on the quality message. A brewer would boast about using the best barley and the best hops. Now that’s a kind of a given. You should always be using the best ingredients possible. People are now demanding an experience.

“I remember back in the day we’d host tastings and the store would be packed with people happy to try the beer. Fast-forward and the consumer now wants to know where the beer is from, how fresh it is, and why it’s unique. They’ll sit here and discuss the beer for hours on end.”

For King, if you can inform and educate on issues such as provenance, while providing a quality product, then you’ve got a good chance of achieving customer loyalty in a crowded marketplace.

“There’s a balancing act breweries need to overcome. You need to offer the reliability, confidence and reassurance a solid core range gives you. But you also need something new and exciting to entice new customers and further attract existing ones,” he says. “It’s getting that balance. Smaller breweries need to release more beers to generate interest but at the same time, you need to benefit from the economies of scale ordering in bulk gives you. Producing too many beers and too many styles won’t give you that.”

“And don’t get me started on consistency,” he adds.

Consistency was evidently something of dark art in those early days of Real Ale’s hunt for good beer.

“We sampled a lot of bad beer early on. People would start out brewing without the know-how of QC or brewery hygiene. There simply wasn’t a basic understanding on the micro side. And it showed,” explains Dolan. “Now, we’re visited by breweries wanting us to stock their beers on an almost daily-basis. We welcome it and we’re always excited to try something new, of course.”

He adds: “But if I can give one bit of advice to the salespeople among us and that’s please try the beer you’re promoting. You’ll be surprised how many times they haven’t tried the beer they’re pushing and and you feel bad for putting them on the spot. Especially if they can’t tell you about the beer or even worse, if the beer they’ve offered you has obvious faults and flaws.”

Fresh is Best

As consumers, we’ve all been there at some point. Paying over the odds for an imported IPA that still tastes ok but the frustration of how good that beer could have been fresh dominates your thoughts.

Nowadays, freshness is key. Cold-chain distribution, born-on and drink-by dates are more commonplace in beer parlance. Some of those, granted, more than others.

Dolan observes that beers businesses such as Real Ale sell has evolved over the years owing to the ability to procure a wider range of locally-produced great beer that’s easier to stock days or weeks, rather than months, after it was packaged.

“The appetite for fresh beer, and ability to supply it, has really transformed this industry,” he says. “Years ago we’d do everything in our control to bring over American beers in the best condition possible. But despite that, you’d end up with stock that was a month away from its sell-by and that was very, very frustrating.”

He adds: “Therefore it makes a lot more sense to support local breweries. As long as the quality is there, freshness isn’t going to be an issue. It means we can make a promise to the consumer that they’re getting the best beer, in the best condition, possible.”

“We are blessed in this country. Unlike the US and similar, it’s quite easy to get product around in 24-48 hours. Though while I’m not convinced there’s a fully-chilled fulfilment avenue in the UK at present, things are improving all of the time.”

Retail relationship

Selling beer direct to the consumer is not the only string in the company’s bow, far from it. A major part of Real Ale’s business for the last decade has been its role as official supplier agent to Marks & Spencer.

The company works with the multi-national retailer to source a range of beer from craft and regional brewers nationally.

Real Ale’s technical team works closely with breweries on the beer brands to present to M&S. The team also ensures, through audits, that all breweries are operating to M&S standards for food safety, hygiene and quality.

It has been a fruitful relationship for both parties, and one that stemmed from common sense and initiative.

“The opportunity to own the ‘www.realale.com’ domain was one I couldn’t pass up. I was surprised nobody had it! says Dolan. “Early on it as used to showcase the breweries we worked with and the beers we stocked.”

He adds: “As luck would have it, we were the only people in the country who had a website that featured regional businesses. M&S were looking for someone to work with so I had a meeting with a lovely chap called James Fisher from M&S.

“After our meeting at the Twickenham shop, he told me we’re the ones they’d like to work with and if I’d be interested. ‘Sure, I said’. Without a clue of what I was getting myself into!”

What started with four beers has grown to a major operation. These are in the form of the retailer’s “craft cans” range of beers brewed exclusively for M&S as well as more than 200 branded and own label products.

Many arduous train journeys have been salvaged thanks to this relationship and long may it continue…

Going forward, Dolan is confident on the future of UK beer but fully expects further consolidation, not just in the brewery sector but the retail arm of beer, too. That doesn’t change his approach, though.

“We’re open for business,” he says. “We love talking beer and meeting breweries old and new. That’s what we’re about.”