Cloudwater & Friends in Tesco: Turning Rebellion into money or progress in history?
It’s the kind of thing that excites beer twitter but wont be featuring in the news. That doesn’t mean there aren’t wider points of interest.
I’m referring to Cloudwater’s announcement that they plan to go on sale in hundreds of larger branches of Tesco from next week:
https://cloudwaterbrew.co/blog/beer-with-big-ideas
Its not of course about the beer, that will be good.
Nor is it entirely new. A Cloudwater-Brewdog New England IPA has been in Tesco for a good while now and evidently is re-brewed from time to time by Brewdog.
Today however Cloudwater has announced a significant brewing outsource to Brewdog. It will no longer brew its core range at Manchester but four beers will be brewed at Brewdog and these will go into larger Tesco branches.
Alongside this it has announced a four pack of collab beers made with a LGBTQ brewer, two black and one Indian origin owned brewery. These will also be brewed at Brewdog and go into Tesco- although initially not so many. The profits will go entirely to the four collab breweries.
Cloudwater, known for pursuing the point of keeping beer cool, are also pushing Tesco to expand their cold shelf operation for beers.
It is I suppose broadly welcome. I recall talking to Logan Plant in the early days of Beavertown (when such casual chats were possible) and hearing him explain that his big idea was to improve the quality of beer that you could get not just in specialist bars and shops but across a much wider range of outlets. He has gone some way to achieving that, although clearly at a considerable price.
In that sense it will be good that Cloudwater beers will be more widely available and presumably based on the usual Tesco model at a competitive price. More people will try them.
Its not so good for Indy retailers and smaller brewers struggling to compete.
On the collab four pack its good of course that a Queer Brewing beer will be on the shelves in Tesco along with beers from several of the far too few black and Indian owned breweries in the UK. It will not lead to liberation or equality (how could it) but as the slogan of one supermarket chain has it ‘every little helps’
There are of course downsides and they are not insignificant. Tesco is a huge business and its business is making profit. Obviously we wont know the terms of the arrangements between Cloudwater, Brewdog and Tesco but ultimately if the beers don’t sell well enough or someone else comes along with a better offer, they will not be on the shelves any longer.
Being on the shelves of Tesco is another matter. Anyone who buys cans of beer from there (as I do on occasion) will presumably check the BBE date on the can before buying. If you don’t I’d suggest you do because Tesco don’t (fortunately they don’t take the same approach to food!)
Some wider points still.
The arrangement Cloudwater have with Brewdog to contract brew would often be seen in business as the precursor to a further coming together of the two in some way. We shall see.
Its also worth pointing out that for all its numerous downsides Tesco is a fully unionised company. Craft beer please take note. Playing in the big league brings necessary obligations too.
In conclusion, it’s all a bit of a compromise with earlier grand visions. Then again as a long time national trade union officer I’m hardly unfamiliar with that….
Nice post Keith. Always torn on this type of thing. I love Cloudwater’s beers, but they’ve been out of my price range in the past year or so. Perhaps now I can afford a few again. And I never knew that about Tesco’s staff being fully unionised, really changed my perspective on them. And that Cloudwater are pushing underrepresented brewers in this seems like a big plus for me.