Reasons why Utopian Brewing has opened its first pub

Utopian Brewing has partnered with Country Inn & Brewery in reopening the Tally Ho! in Hatherleigh, marking its first foray into pubs. Jessica Mason finds out what provoked this move.

Utopian Brewing, which has already made its name for its British lagers brewed with local ingredients, has identified how success could lie in expanding into the on-trade.

The historic pub site that Utopian has settled upon, which reopened this week after a significant renovation, has a new cellar and will feature up to 12 keg and four cask lines on the bar.

The plan is for Utopian Brewing’s independent craft lager to feature prominently, with both its flagship premium lager and a Tally Ho Bo Ho bohemian lager on permanent keg lines, along with Wondrous Isles modern pale ale and British pale ale on cask, joined by a rotating lineup of specials.

In addition, there is talk of Tally Ho’s in-house microbrewery soon being brought back into active service with the building at the rear of the pub soon brewing beers under the guidance of Utopian’s head brewer Jeremy Swainson.

Right opportunity

Speaking to db, Utopian Brewing founder and owner Richard Archer said: “We’ve been looking at pub opportunities for a couple of years now but we were keen to find the right opportunity and the Tally Ho! fitted that bill on lots of levels.  The Tally Ho! investment, for us, is much more than just a route to market. We are really excited about bringing the brewery back into operation in due course and we have a great relationship with the freeholders of the site, Ben and Tom, who share very similar ideas to us on what they wanted to Tally Ho! to be.”

Archer admitted: “I am a big fan of the traditional pub as it so often forms the social hub of the local community”.

He explained: “What we all wanted to do though was to take the small market town pub and then, whilst absolutely keeping its essential character, updating the drink and food offers to make them a bit more contemporary, a lot more independent and of a very high standard.”

Wider list

Archer told db that the plan was to “have a wider beer list that better-reflected modern drinking habits and, as much as possible, source our beers and spirits from local producers.”

Archer added: “We love that cask is still really important down here and so we have installed four cask lines and will be mixing that up with some traditional and some more modern styles from younger indie brewers.”

In terms of the new food menu, he hinted that it will be “coming in about a month” and “will be inspired by fresh, local and ethically-sourced ingredients combining our take on some traditional pub staples alongside some more contemporary internationally-inspired dishes”.

According to Archer, what started Utopian Brewing’s search for a pub was “having direct-to-consumer routes to market” which have become “essential” in an ever-challenging sector that has become dominated by big beer companies.

He explained: “It’s getting harder and harder to get permanent line access to freehold estates as the big brewers increasingly tie more and more operators in with restrictive cellar ties. It is making the ‘free house’ tag a bit of a nonsense as I often find it hard to understand how it is even allowed as it must surely count as being, at the very least, confusing to customers to see a big ‘free house’ sign outside and then be faced with what is obviously a big brewery-tied beer list on the inside.”

Archer said: “I think we are overdue another ‘Competitions & Markets Review’ of the on-trade and, personally, I was disappointed that SIBA seems to have dropped the call in favour of the ‘one free line’ campaign as, whilst that sounds great in principle, implementation will be tricky I think.”

Archer added that irrespective of “however that pans out though I don’t see access to market becoming easier any time soon so it is great for us to have finally started our journey into an owned pub estate with the Tally Ho!”.