Wells & Co - BHS Visit, 2 October 2024
BHS Visit to Wells & Co, Brewpoint Brewery, Bedford - 2 October 2024
Report by Phil Wilson
Our last organised visit of 2024 took us to Wells & Co's Brewpoint on the outskirts of Bedford. Our host and guide was Nick Wells, Head of Estates. Nick and two other members of the Wells family have leading roles in the day-to-day running of the brewery today.
Our tour started with a potted history of the family business from its foundation by Charles Wells at the Horne Lane site in 1876, then the Eagle Brewery in Havelock Street (built 1976) through to its latest incarnation at Brewpoint which opened in 2020.
Nick outlined the difficult strategic and financial decisions that the family have had to make in recent years, including the short-lived partnership with Youngs and the eventual sale of the Eagle Brewery and brands to Marstons for £55m. The creation of Brewpoint, at a cost of £17m, marked a move away from national sales to a scaling down to more locally focused production and the launch of a completely new range of beers. Despite the impact of Covid on trade in 2020 the company was now making good sales and business is steadily improving.
Wells has an estate of 120 leased or tenanted public houses, mainly in the Bedfordshire area. In addition, they have an established presence in France comprising 19 "English" pubs managed by the John Bull Pub company. Located in cities such as Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg and most recently Bordeaux, the ‘French trade' accounts for approximately 55% of Brewpoint's output. Beers are shipped by lorry each month with any surplus fed into the French free trade market.
Around two-thirds of Brewpoint output is keg, the remainder being cask. All beers are filtered, not pasteurised. The brewery has a BrauKon five-vessel configuration, with 30,000 hectolitre annual capacity, capable of brewing nine times in 24 hours! In addition, they have invested in a 150L capacity ‘nano' brewery to trial new products.
We walked through the brewery which is an impressive compact setup with first floor walkways that allow visitors to look down on brewing activities below. The move to the new site required a new on-site 30m deep borehole which extracts water from the same aquifer as was the case from Wells' original borehole sunk in 1904.
There is an impressive historical display on the first floor featuring various artifacts from Wells' long association with Bedford.
We concluded our very enjoyable and informative tour with sampling of their popular beers, including Anchorman IPA, Foghorn Hazy, Half a World Away Amber and their lager - Supernova, followed by a presentation to Nick of one-year's complimentary corporate membership.
Phil Wilson