Redefining Social Spaces Through Alcohol-Free Craft Beer with Roger Warner from Only With Love

What if you could redefine your social life while prioritizing your well-being? Join us as we chat with Roger Warner, the visionary co-founder of Only With Love, a unique well-being brewery in East Sussex. Roger, alongside his partner Steve, is pioneering a movement focused on low and no-alcohol beverages, with their popular Juicy AF pale ales leading the charge. This episode delves into their inspiring mission to rejuvenate over 200 community venues across the UK within the next decade. Roger shares their personal journey towards health-conscious brewing practices, offering an insightful look into the future of alcohol-free craft beer.

Craft beer enthusiasts, meet innovation head-on as we explore the evolving landscape of alcohol-free brews. Discover how smaller craft breweries, with their limited resources, are driving remarkable advancements in quality and taste. We discuss the challenges and triumphs of maintaining a social life while choosing sobriety, supported by high-quality, alcohol-free options. With a focus on their own brewing experiences and a commitment to diversity, we reveal the secrets behind their flagship beers and upcoming varieties that are captivating taste buds without the buzz.

Join us in celebrating the growing acceptance of alcohol-free beer within the traditional beer community, particularly in the UK. We recount an engaging conversation with Martin Dixon, a passionate advocate for the alcohol-free industry, and examine the supportive craft beer scene in Sussex. Learn about their vision for ‘brew cafes’—spaces that blend European charm with community activities—and their collaborative projects with local councils to revitalize underused areas. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone curious about the future of alcohol-free beverages and the community-driven values at the heart of Only With Love.

For more information on Only With Love head to https://www.onlywithlove.co/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Sober Boozers Club podcast, a place where we can talk openly and honestly about addiction, sobriety and, strangely enough, beer. I'm Ben, I'm an alcoholic and for the last two years, I've been sampling some of the finest alcohol-free beers the world has to offer. Each week, I'll be joined by a different guest to discuss their own lived experiences on all things related to the world of low and no alcohol beverages. So pour yourself a tipple, relax and let me welcome you to the Sober Boozers Club.

Speaker 1: 0:32

In today's episode, I talked to Roger Warner, who's one of the founders of Only With Love. The well-being brewery Only With Love were founded in 2020 in East Sussex and they provide a range of excellent alcohol-free beers, kombuchas, sodas and everything in between. As well as that, they're on a mission to revive over 200 community venues across the UK over the next 10 years. This is a brewery with really excellent core values, so it was really exciting to have a chat with roger, which I'm gonna do right about now. Roger, thank you very much for coming to chat with me today. Um, how are you doing?

Speaker 2: 1:10

good ben.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Yeah, um, lovely, lovely to meet you and lovely to uh, uh, lovely to have the chance to chat yeah, this is it's weird, but this is the first time that we've we've spoken, because it feels like you know. When you drink people's beer, you feel like you know them on it on an intimate level sometimes, so, um, so, being able to actually talk to you is really nice yeah, same here.

Speaker 2: 1:32

And then there's the uh, you know, the pleasures of instagram, which gets us all a little bit closer.

Speaker 1: 1:36

So, yeah, that whole community likewise yeah, you feel like you know everyone personally, don't you? When you like the amount of friends that I say I've got now since doing the the whole, like boozer's club instagram page, it's, it's ridiculous yeah, yeah, it's great, yeah, so thanks there, thanks, thanks for having us on always happy to talk about beer. Um, and especially you guys interest me because you're a well-being brewery and I was wondering if you could tell me what exactly that is gosh.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Uh, it's john the long version of the show. I'll give you the short version, maybe mid-length. Um, steve and I started the brewery in um just before lockdown and we've known each other for a long time. Um, we met through football. We're big football fans nice in a good way, yeah, good good football way. Um and um, we've done a bunch of stuff together. Uh, for our local club, lewis we're based down in lewis. Lewis football club is an amazing club. First club to pay its men and women, uh, the same wage. Um fan owned does a lot of great things anyway. Um, we ended up on the board there together and I'd known steve for a while and this is steve's, I think, third brewery, oh, wow, um, and this is becoming the long version.

Speaker 2: 2:56

The short version is we are both of a certain age. We met when, uh, and started talking about the business at a time when we were a bit of a crossroads with what we were doing before and we felt like actually there isn't a brewery doing the kind of things that we want and need and like we're getting on a little bit. We've got young families, we need energy and headspace. We've probably drunk far too much in the past and headspace. Um, we've probably drunk far too much in the past and, um, yeah, we, we wanted to create something that that did the types of beers which which we were, you know, looking for and uh, and into, um, and not just beers, it's a you know, broader product range, and steve's a lover of all things fermented, so that stretches certain breaches, and we've got hop, sodas and and so on. Um, so that's it. So well-being is like a personal thing and a bit of a personal mission for the both of us. And so we're not like, we're not like your average, I would say average. We're not like your normal craft brewery, right? Um, we don't really we don't really occupy a space where we're brewing high abv, um, you know double ipas and one or eight, ten percent or so. We've only ever been interested in brewing stuff which is through to around about the five percent mark. So the volume of our beer beers is they're all like super sessionable. It's sessionable or accessible. Uh, like fun time, uh, fun time beers.

Speaker 2: 4:21

And from the get-go we knew that we wanted to develop um, alcohol free as like a core, core part of that, like probably the most interesting thing that we were setting out to do. Um, and we'd been brewing and selling for a year or so before steve had perfected the way of doing it. And the alcohol free is just, it's a. It's purely an adjunct of the best beers that we do and we're doing at a time, so that was a bit of a. I might get into it. The voyage of actually brewing alcohol-free stemmed from the mid-range session beers that we're doing and, lo and behold, steve's very talented. We got something super right and this is fairly early on in our journey. And here we are We've got a GCF, gcif range of pale ales. It's the biggest selling product that we have, hands down, and we're just delighted because that's the future.

Speaker 1: 5:18

Well, they're amazing beers as well, I think. Like it's the juicy AFs. It's like you see one and you know what you're going to get and you know it's going to be good. And there's not many breweries that you can say that for. Like you know, you have your, your staples. It's like, oh, I'm looking forward to trying this one. I wonder how it's going to be. But with the juicy range, it's like okay, this is going to be really good, it's going to be really consistent and I think we've really got that going for you thanks, it's.

Speaker 2: 5:46

I mean it's. It's not. Yeah, to be honest, it's not always been easy and it's, particularly at the start, not always consistent. I think anyone who's brewing this stuff would tell you the same.

Speaker 2: 5:56

It's a bit of a voyage of discovery but, we've honed that, uh, so, um, uh, but our groove is pale, ale, um, you know, we, we, I don't think you see us doing a lager. There's plenty of great lager out there, you know, lucky saint mash gang do terrific lagers. Uh, stout, um guinness and so on. But if you think, if you think about your staples, um, it's those three, it's a pale ale, a lager and a stout. If you think of, yeah, for sure, um, you know, like mass market, yeah, what's going to be in your fridge at any given moment.

Speaker 1: 6:32

You're going to want a stout, you're going to want a juicy pale and you're going to want a lager. It's a standard, isn't?

Speaker 2: 6:37

it exactly. It's exactly the same with our trade customers. So, um, so we saw we sort of refined it over time and we have in the past done, um, you know, again, variations of some of the fun of like beer, beers that we've done, like a cream soda, pale ale and chocolate, chocolate pastry stout and so on, but we just got into the group, okay, well, that's, that's a staple. We want to, we want to be a staple and we want to be known for that. Um, and by just focusing it down, then we can, we can improve on a, you know, do less is more kind of thing, right, um, so, uh, yeah, the quality and the learnings and and uh, and the product is, uh, I hope you'd agree, it's just gotten better over time.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Yeah, yeah for sure, because I kind of doing what I do in terms of beer sampling I suppose you'd call it or you know, drinking beer and filming it and putting it on Instagram, for lack of a better phrase. I get to drink a lot of beer, but I only get to drink it once in a blue moon. Lot of beer, but I only get to drink it once in a blue moon. So it was you guys. I came across quite quite quickly, um, into my sober journey, um, along with you know, you mash gangly, low ties, etc. Etc. And I drank it and it was very, very good. I thought, oh, okay, this is nice.

Speaker 1: 8:00

And then I drank a load more different beers and I was kind of naive. I'd see Juicy AF and I was like, oh no, I've had that one before. And then I realized that that was the range and I was like, oh shit, man, I've been an idiot here. So I went back and I was like, all right, ok, I'm going to drink another one. And it had been maybe six, eight months, and even in that period it was like, wow, like this was really good for first time around.

Speaker 1: 8:28

But I don't know if it was just that I drank so many beers in between and I've kind of forgotten about it, um, but it was like, okay, this is, this is amazing, and now it's a. It's a staple if I go to a bottle shop and I see it, or if it's if it's in a bar, I'm gonna have at least one of them throughout my my evening, because it's a really solid pale ale and sometimes it's nice to have your kind of like you were talking about earlier, your stouts or your sours or all of these bizarre concoctions, but you just want a really consistent pale and that's what it is, which is a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2: 9:04

Yeah, right, yeah, pale, and that's what it is, which is a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, and um, when you have a good one, it's it's for the ages, right? Yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah. So you know, that's that's, that's our groove, that's where we're there, that's that's where we're heading. So, because there weren't a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Um, there weren't a lot of people doing it when you started either. It seems like a lot of breweries kind of for doing non-alcoholic kind of emerged during lockdown. I suppose people had time to play and experiment and try something I think that those two things have got to be connected right.

Speaker 2: 9:36

Right, you know, if you think of us as as drinkers and we're all on different paths with that, whether it's, like you know, complete sobriety or occasional drinking Lockdown must have been a huge catalyst for that. I think we all took stock and thought about what we're doing and what we're consuming, because we had a chance to press pause and can actually consider it. But, yeah, I don't know. You look at all of the data that's out there. We know it from our reality in terms of what's selling and what's going on. The alcohol-free space is exploding. I guess two and a half three years ago there wasn't a great deal of choice Prior to that and beyond. I'm 52 now, but you have anchor points of Barbican, or or more you have, or whatever. Like quality is like. You know there's a, so most people's perception of what alcohol-free beer it's like it's probably something to avoid, um, but now, um, you know, happily, you see some awesome people doing some awesome stuff, some great breweries, some amazing start-ups doing it for the first time and it's not a big fight anymore.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Um, for me to to kind of push it like I say push it as if I'm bloody shifting drugs, but to to kind of talk to friends about it and say here's an alcohol-free beer, it's on tap, or you know there's, oh, there's these alcohol-free beers in the fridge, get that one, get that one, these, good, instead of it just being okay, here's a, here's a heineken. Yeah, you can actually have a conversation now and and recommend good beers and people go, it's all. A lot of my friends will still go oh, this is all right actually. Oh, this is really good. Actually it's like, yeah, it's just a beer man whereas a few years ago, it would have been, you know, dire.

Speaker 1: 11:24

I mean I'm so lucky I got sober when I did, because if I'd have had to get sober, I mean I probably should have got sober three years before, but I don't think I'd have been able to do it because the beers that were out there like three years before lockdown. I mean, maybe there were some amazing ones, but I think as a whole, in terms of accessibility, I'd have been in real trouble because I couldn't.

Speaker 2: 11:44

Yeah, but I think as a whole, in terms of accessibility, I'd have been in real trouble. Yeah, I don't think they were available.

Speaker 1: 11:49

You had to travel and find it yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Germany. Yeah, exactly, steve's just been out in Germany a couple of weekends ago. He just came back just raving and it's a staple there. Right, it's just established. But it's the actually bit. It's like, oh, that tastes good, actually, because perception is just. My expectation is this is going to taste terrible, it's going to be nothing like beer and like, please, let me drink it. But that's just moved on so much and it's great because the market's there so we all follow it. But I just think the interesting thing is it's just been waiting to. It's not like we're doing anything. It's not like we invented a new product you know us and others. Right, it's not like, um, uh, we, we innovated, I think, completely new. It's just that the product got better and, lo and behold, everybody was just screaming for, like, good, alcohol free beer.

Speaker 1: 12:40

It's strange, isn't it, when you put something.

Speaker 2: 12:42

You've got a market and it's like give me more, which is like brilliant, you know.

Speaker 1: 12:45

Yeah, when people actually are allowed to have time to put into it, then it's strange how quickly it becomes very good because you know in the space of like. I mean, how many years is it since lockdown? Two, three years, three years? All of a sudden there's so many beers. I mean we were talking about Martin Dixon before we started this episode. I mean he's done like over a thousand beers and it's like what? All these beers are just out there and they're really bloody good most of them.

Speaker 2: 13:24

And the cool stuff is it's coming from the small startup or smaller craft breweries, because we're the guys who can play and experiment. We've got the latitude to do that. Others, bigger, more monolithic, it's a different matter for them. So you can try, experiment, fail fast, get it wrong, learn. It's the hardest thing we do. Anyone who brews this stuff will agree it's the hardest. It's the hardest thing to brew. There's nowhere to hide um in in doing it. So, um, yeah, like making mistakes and um, learning as you go, it's like an essential part of it. You can't go from one to ten like overnight. Um, it's, it's kind of tricky. And and also for for us, for the smaller guys, it's with the facilities. And you know we don't have access to a lot of the um equipment technology which you know a guinness or um or heineken would have. So we've got to do it different ways. So, uh, but that's great, you know, from a brewer's perspective it's kind of like a dream. It's like it's. You know, our guys are equally, uh, you know, like massively enthused, but also it's tricky. It's like some. You know what to go wrong.

Speaker 2: 14:42

So, as I was saying, so we've just sort of honed what we're doing and you know, now we have a brand and a product which we're very proud of. We're winning awards and we're able to sort of like, do um, uh, like companions to to that. There's a core beer that we do, the mango classic, which is the first beer that we did um. So now we have um. We just build on that. So we've got an apa which we're putting out again today, nice West Coast IPA, an Aussie Pale, we've got a Sour IPA coming up, all variants of Pale Ale. But you know, once you've landed well, then you know you can branch out and have a collection of specials that go around the core range.

Speaker 1: 15:42

It's an exciting time really when you listen to what you've just listed and you go position, not just with all the work you do within the community, but being one of the first to kind of get out there and push it. Because, I'll be honest, I was surprised to find out that you did a full elk beer, and that's not in a bad way. You know, as a, I'm not kind of the sober police um, where I want you all to myself. The way that you have put yourself across. You know, as we said earlier, well-being brewery, it's all you know about. Well, only with love is the name. You know, it's all very focused on on well-being and you'd go, oh god, okay, these guys do a full elk as well.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Okay, and I found it actually quite endearing because, you know, sobriety as I've talked about with multiple guests on this, sobriety is different to different people. Like me, sobriety is a state of living, because it has to be, because otherwise I'm not a very pleasant person to be around. But to other people sobriety can just be an extended period of not drinking alcohol. But people don't want to be hermits and you know, stay indoors, they want to go out and do things yeah alcohol-free beer is.

Speaker 1: 16:52

You know? We discussed germany earlier and it's part of the culture um, it can be that way in this country as well yeah, it's like it's super important.

Speaker 2: 17:03

It's super important that there's a mix as well. Um, you know, we're like you said, we're all on a path of some sort, um, and if, if, being sober, but you know whether it's forever or for you know a month or january or whatever it is, um, it's there's, it's a. It's not a great thing if that's the exclusion of a social life, right, and you know where's that social life. So, um, I I see this actually from a drinker perspective, you know, consumer perspective, it's like you have open arms. From a trade perspective, it's taking longer, it takes longer. So you know they're creating the venues, the environments where people get together. It's where we, you know, it's where we meet and talk, talk. I think they've got some work to do to um, uh, to just have better listings where there's more choice, um, so that, uh, and it's more accessible, it's more visible and so on, so it doesn't feel like, uh, you know, purgatory for, for, you know for being uh, yeah, yeah, for sure it's summed up to me.

Speaker 1: 18:08

There's a pub by me that has a dedicated alcohol free tap, I discovered recently, and they change it every kind of few months, um, and I felt the need to message them and say I think this is really amazing, but you're doing this. And then I sat and thought and I was like, okay, it is amazing, but they're doing it and I really appreciate that they're doing it. It's really cool, but why should that be so celebrated? This should just be the norm.

Speaker 2: 18:31

I don't know it's not, it's not right, and so there's like there's a, there's a way to go there. It is that's true and I do. I do feel for, um, uh, the guys who are running the, the venues at public games, and because they're coming out of a tricky time, right we're not over the shocks of covid.

Speaker 2: 18:51

No, and um, it's getting harder. You know cost of living from a consumer perspective, also the cost of running the business. You know there's so much in that, so it's, it's a tough time still, um, to make margin and and and have, you know, the business running as effectively as possible. And they're looking at a choice. If you're thinking about taps, if you've got eight taps, then yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Am I killing one? Or am I taking one tap off to put an alcohol for it? That's a big step for anyone to take. What's the payback on that? So there's risk involved for them. But happily that's changing. Um, you know, we know through our experience where it's stocked on draft and the you know the line's sort of fixed. Then, um, then they're getting through it pretty quickly and then it's only gonna get yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:42

It amazes me how many of my friends will send me pictures of pints that they've had on on draft. It's like it's how I discover most of the the beers in the area that are available on tap, because, you know, I don't, I don't go to as many pubs as I used to. I say as many pubs. I used to go to pubs every single day, so it'd be pretty impossible. You know, it's, it's shocking how many pictures I get sent through from let's call it standard drinkers saying oh look, I've just said this, it's good. Yeah, oh, okay, cool. So you know, people do buy these drinks yeah, yeah, it's good.

Speaker 2: 20:15

People are drinking them for lots of different reasons too. It's not just, you know, there might be the spaces. You know I'm gonna have a pint of whatever, and then I'm gonna have a pint of af, and then, yeah, you know it's um, but anyway yeah it's that that's changing for the good.

Speaker 2: 20:30

But I think that you know, trade side of things, the venue side of things, uh, they've got, they've got stuff to catch up on, but at the same time it's difficult. It's really difficult for them because they're having to make commercial choices as they go and there's always risk involved with that, and they're not out of the woods yet in terms of everything that we've just been through. Um, so, uh, yeah, but it's going in the right direction and that's that's great yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 20:52

Is that? Is that where you think the kind of future should um head towards? Drafting in most pubs? Is that something that you're kind of working to, or is that um?

Speaker 2: 21:02

yeah, we'd. You know we'd love to see a future where there's a you're going back to the staples. It's like, uh, an AF Lager, an AF Pale Ale and an AF Stout and Dry, yeah, yeah. And of course it's a different case to the fridge, where either in the bottle shop or behind the bar, where you've got more space and you're buying smaller amounts of stock and so on, you can just have more on show. But you know a future like that. I guess we're there with Lager, pretty much right. Yeah, guinness, fantastic. That's now often the case a line of AF Lager, a line of Guinness. We'd love to see the next line on, but that's over the course of time. There's probably quite a lot that needs to happen in order to get there Right now. It's just a question for someone Do I take something off to put that one on?

Speaker 1: 21:58

Yeah, it's a good point. It's a good point that you raised.

Speaker 2: 22:00

How many do I need? How many taps do I have available? It's all that kind of thing, right. But yeah, I think we'll get there. Meantime the fridges we're talking about pubs and bars, meantime the fridges are getting stacked with like good af products.

Speaker 1: 22:15

So that's brilliant yeah, yeah, that's that's been. The thing that I've noticed, maybe in the last six months, is that you'll peer down into that, that dusty fridge behind people's feet, and you go okay, and it's like, oh no, these are cans. I recognize it recognize.

Speaker 1: 22:27

It's not just your generic blue labels and green bottles. And you go is that Heineken or is it Stella? Which one You're actually seeing artwork that you associate with? And you go okay, I know what that is, I want that and it makes my night. When you see a decent option, it's like, oh, thank goodness I love this place and it could be the worst pub in the world, but if they do just one decent option, it's like okay. I'm coming back here.

Speaker 2: 22:57

Yeah, that's a good thing, right, and for the guys that are doing it now, that's a draw. They'll be getting customers. You know, you look at it as a whole, the stats are like hideous. So you know, if you, if you look, if you think of like the number of people proportionally, who who wants to drink alcohol free, versus the amount of options that are on a, on a, on a menu or you know a beer lineup, yeah, they're totally out of whack. There's, you know, some like 10 to 20 alcohol free if you're lucky.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Um, there's, there's more, there's more of us than than that who want to drink good alcohol yeah, I say to these people all the time you need to talk about this, you need to push this, because even on my page I've had multiple people message me. When they find out I'm in a pub that does alcohol-free, they go. Oh, I live five minutes away from there, I'm going to go. And then I had people tagging me in posts in said pub the day after it's up. That's one post from someone who's got like in the real world.

Speaker 1: 23:53

I've got a fairly mediocre following on instagram, you know and that's just one post saying this place does this on tap and people go oh okay, I'll go there. Yeah, you know, that's how. That's how a movement starts, isn't it really?

Speaker 2: 24:07

yeah, it's great, and so everything that you're doing there is just fantastic. Like you know, the the world needs you I don't know about that sincerely it. Does you know? There's um, we, we. It means you know the right people saying the right things and trying the right products and um, yeah, just just just getting out there and shouting about it.

Speaker 1: 24:29

It was the thing I think the whole community is is amazing for that.

Speaker 1: 24:33

Like we mentioned, martin dixon earlier um alcohol free world and he came onto the podcast and it's one of my favorite episodes because it was just talking to him about alcohol free beer as a fellow consumer. And you know he's far more educated than I am on the matter, um, but it was fascinating and the passion that he has for it. And you know he's far more educated than I am on the matter, um, but it was fascinating and the passion that he has for it. And you know you've got so many other pages out there just talking about alcohol-free beer and you'd think it was such a niche subject but it's really not. It goes so much further and now you know full out people are getting involved now and like, let's say, real beer drinkers or full fat beer drinkers are weighing in on the on the alcohol free world and not being negative about it and actually talking to me about, about beer as if we were equals. It's like what I can have a grown-up conversation about grown-up drinks with someone. Again, it's wild.

Speaker 2: 25:30

Yeah right, good community and then you can get past, like the alcohol freeness of it, and talk about the.

Speaker 1: 25:36

You know the actual yeah, just it's just when it comes down to it, it's just this is a nice liquid. What I like to drink. Do you like to drink this nice liquid? Yeah, yeah, I do like to drink this nice liquid. Okay, cool, like it can be so simple, can't it? Yeah?

Speaker 2: 25:52

yeah, yeah, you know. So it's all, yeah, it's all good, it's good times. There's lots of, lots of great things going on and we're moving there fast.

Speaker 1: 26:00

So how did you find, when you, speaking of, you know, the whole full out negativity, etc. When you started doing alcohol free, um, whatever. Was there any backlash or other people saying like this isn't going to land, or were you quite lucky that it was? You know, a tight-knit team and you kind of surrounded yourselves with people that believed in the process?

Speaker 2: 26:21

I think we're in a good part of the world. You know you all across the I mean we we have amazing craft beer. They're seen in the uk is just incredible. And then you have these pockets where, um, there's lots of different breweries and lots of good stuff going on. We're in a great spot. We're in sussex and, um, you know, literally a stone's throw away, uh, in and around the lewis area, um, where, where we um hail from, uh, just some incredible breweries, and I think part of the reason for that is we've got an amazing scene of independent uh pubs as well pubs, bars, restaurants, um, who are incredibly supportive of local uh supply. So, um, so we've generally found that it lands like we felt they landed locally like really, really well, um, and also for us, um, we we're, um, we're not unique but, um, we certainly are in in terms of uh, who we are, what we do, the type of stuff we produce in amongst that um melee of uh folks locally to us. So, yeah, um, we had a good, yeah, we had a really good welcoming um.

Speaker 2: 27:28

Beyond that, from my, like, commercial perspective, having conversations about buying this stuff, is it it? It takes it. It's not the same now. Back then it was, and we only, as you say, we only talked about two, three years ago or so. It's like well, you know why should I buy this at the same cost as a pale ale, and you know, surely, one pound, you know?

Speaker 1: 27:51

um, so that that, but that's that's, that's, that's a different thought, that's, um, that's like a value, you know, and price and so on yeah, yeah, there's an educational level to that as well, because once people understand how it's made and the process that goes into it and you know all of that business, it's like it's the same thing, it's just not got ethanol yeah, exactly so you know, at the end of the day are we paying for?

Speaker 2: 28:13

you know, does that make? Are we paying for alcohol? I don't know. Well, you are in duty, but you know. But anyway, yeah, from a from a drink perspective, like what's the value of a percent worth of alcohol? I don't know. But yeah, but we're through that. We're through that now.

Speaker 2: 28:28

I think folks now and I'm talking from a buyer's side, trade side, of course they see the value They've got the market, and it's because those two things happen hand in hand and so we don't have conversations about why ours is more expensive than kex blues anymore. Um, we, we, we.

Speaker 1: 28:46

You know we used to um and then if that makes my blood boil like it's just yeah, that's abhorrent. Um. I found out recently about a certain and we won't name them, but a certain um brand that basically give their beer away to major supermarkets and it's like okay, so you're the reason why we can't have good beer in in big supermarkets and it's just like it's all it's, it's, it's tough, it's tough for every craft brewery, every every you know uh, but but then again, um, it's a, it's a premium product, like the provenance is like massively important.

Speaker 2: 29:26

People want, people want that right.

Speaker 1: 29:28

Everybody who enjoys beer wants that, for sure it's a treat and it's it's an adventure to go and get. I love going to my bottle shop to get, to get bottles like I love it, and especially now that I'll kind of I get a lot sent through to me and have to, like I say I have to it to. It's as if it's a, as if I don't have an option. But every month if a new beer comes out, it's like, okay, I'm going to order that, that, that, that, that, that I'll order it from this website. It will arrive the next day. Then I'll film them over the course of a week. It's a, it's a process. So now when I actually go to my bottle shop, it's like, oh, I love this, this is really nice, and I go and I spend over an hour in there just talking about beer and like, and then I'll get the same six beers that I like.

Speaker 1: 30:11

I love that.

Speaker 2: 30:12

I don't get to have very often because I'm you know that's the magic of the bottle shop, isn't it a magic of the retailer? Yeah, aladdin's cave of stuff that you never knew you wanted, yeah, and I love it so much more now than I ever used to.

Speaker 1: 30:24

When I was a full fat beer drinker, you know, I took myself as someone that loved being. I was like, oh yeah, this is a really good beer. It's like eight percent like dip or whatever. Um, but actually two pints of that. And then I was just on the red stripe.

Speaker 2: 30:39

Yeah, it was, you have your two pints, I mean you've got that lovely two-point buzz, and then I was just on the red stripe you have your two pints and then you've got that lovely two-pint buzz and then I was just like, yeah, whatever, give me a Carlsberg, I'm fine.

Speaker 1: 30:50

So I love and appreciate beer more now than I ever did as a drinker.

Speaker 2: 30:54

Yeah right, you can taste what's what after the third or fourth.

Speaker 1: 31:00

And also and this is maybe a strange one to say, but I also know, when I've had enough liquid now, like after four pints, I don't care how lovely it is, I'm kind of like, okay, I'm done for the evening, like I'm gonna save these beers for another night now because I'm just that that's.

Speaker 2: 31:17

That's a huge difference, right? So with um, we, uh we drink alcohol-free beer in a totally different mode. Right, yeah, it sounds obvious. Right, because we're not. You know, there's not like the little or bigger kick that you have with the alcohol, but what you know, it's there for different moments, right? Like I drink alcohol-free beer, of course, when I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be drinking the six percent um. So that's like cooking dinner or like get home from work, or you know, lunchtime, if it's hot at the brewery, it's just crack one open.

Speaker 1: 31:47

Oh, there's nothing better we used to.

Speaker 2: 31:49

We used to have fun when we were first selling. We would uh, I'll be. I'll be zipping around in my car, um, delivering boxes of gcaf in the, you know, like freaking 30 degrees or some like I'm parched to say I'm to crack open. So I'm sat there with a 440 can of beer next to a police car at the traffic lights, feeling like you know it's great, but feeling weirdly subversive as well. You know naughty.

Speaker 1: 32:16

It's strange, isn't it the feeling? I can remember the first couple of pints I had on tap, and walking back to my car I kind of felt like I was walking a bit skew-whiff and I was like, oh, this is. And then it was like maybe it wasn't alcohol and I was like, no, of course it was. I saw it. The kind of placebo effects you get is really strange.

Speaker 2: 32:35

Yeah, yeah, right yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:37

But I love that whole. Talking about the whole police thing. I would love to get pulled over. I'd love for nothing more than to get pulled over and to be able to just say I've drank seven pints and just see what happens. You've been drinking tonight, yeah, yeah, seven pints of beer. I mean because I'm not lying, it's still beer, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:00

You'd probably be over the sugar level, but I don't think there's a law for that.

Speaker 1: 33:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:05

They can't stop me on a, on a sugar high. Yeah, that's when. That's when Liberty is lost. God help me If. If I introduce that, I don't think I can give up another thing.

Speaker 2: 33:16

Yeah, there's, there's definitely some psychosomatic, it's definitely. You know, we do festivals and events and we're slinging them all day and it's you know, it's hot summertime.

Speaker 1: 33:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:28

I've had about 12 cans, you know, but I feel great. Yeah, I'm not drunk, I just feel good.

Speaker 1: 33:35

I just think beer is just nice, isn't it? It's just like there's some elite level beers aren't there, and festival beers are great. Just like there's some elite level beers aren't there, and festival beers are great, and if you can get that sensation without the booze, that's just a wonderful time to live, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 33:50

Yeah, that's right yeah totally so.

Speaker 1: 33:53

What do you think the future looks like for you guys? What are your short-term plans and where would you like it to go? Obviously, you've mentioned the core range and being happy with that now, and alluded to some of the beers that you've got in the works. But, um, where do you want to take it?

Speaker 2: 34:09

gosh, we, we're pretty much at capacity where we are now. So uh, that's from a couple of tanks which like quite a lot now, so um, growing, but like growing uh, sensibly. Um, the alcohol free is is the future um and um, the uh, the the our product line is is is geared to well-being, right. So the alcohol free is just just a huge, huge part of that. It's the most important commercially speaking and, as I said, also kind of the funnest and hardest, trickiest and most rewarding to do. So we've got like. The next step is like a version two type thing which will mean moving, probably bigger brewery, expanding where and how we sell. It's been full on the last three, three years or so, but we'd like to see our stuff in supermarkets soon.

Speaker 2: 35:07

So we're doing a lot of work around that this year I pray, I pray well, you know, and, and, but you would do that sensibly yeah, yeah, for sure you know, like like walking, not running um, and the other thing that we do is we have, we have, we have a venue. We have one venue now in Lewis and we call our venues brew cafes. So they're not tap rooms, they're not pubs, they're sort of a weird European like feel, mixed to it.

Speaker 1: 35:39

Yeah, I like that. I like that. It's not. It's not a social club, but it's not a brewery. I'm here for it right.

Speaker 2: 35:44

So uh, and and that again, that's where we came from. Steve's uh, northerner from borough, I'm uh here but spend too much time in sort of community things with sports and so on. It's like it's definitely community. So the one in lewis is a joint venture with the council, um, oh nice it's actually in a community center. Oh cool, um and so, and then we we've got just loads of good.

Speaker 2: 36:05

You know amazing things happening there, from um knitting clubs to um indoor bowls, to like amazing mix of ages, like kids, dogs running around anyway, um, more of those, uh, more of those, and. And so we're building like a template that we can work to and we want to get involved with discussions with um uh like local authorities. Um, probably locally. You know, southeast in the first instance is like the next step, but then then further afield, um yeah, and the idea there is that we have like a really mixed offering uh, from from beer to alcohol, free to soda, to kombucha, to other people's products and guest products, all local produce cakes, tea, coffee uh, toasties, you know food trucks and yeah, it's like a you know a big mix of um uh stuff, but it's cafe style. It's more like you know what you'd see on yeah, yeah, you know it's really bizarre.

Speaker 1: 37:05

I mean like sat and done these um podcast episodes. Obviously, I've filmed some of these at like months ago and I'm only just getting around to releasing some of them, um, but every episode kind of has a a link in them where, so, what you've just described. I was talking to Andy Mee from the Alcohol-Free Drinks Company very recently and he kind of described his sober utopia and what he thinks the future of hospitality and bars should look like, and you've basically described it, which is kind of like okay, it's interesting that we're all kind of on a similar, similar level where we can see where we would like things to go. So it's interesting to hear someone that's actually, you know, putting this in place and wants to do it it's really, it's really exciting like we have a social mission as well, like so for that.

Speaker 2: 37:58

That, uh, the brew cafe, the venue that we, that we have in lewis is. Previously it was disused all through COVID. The local council spent a lot of money redeveloping it and it was sat on use. So these are like underloved, underserved sort of places which you know may be a bit out of the way but with the community and historically have had, have been a really important part of that community. They've been busy places but have sort of just I don't know fallen away maybe and they don't have a lot of resources behind it and there's not a lot of money sloshing around at a local council level, so they don't really have the wherewithal to do things with them. So we want to partner with those types of people and say, okay, we've got that expertise, we have an offering, we've got product, we've got other things else thrown into the mix, we've got a model for it, let's do stuff together.

Speaker 2: 38:53

But ultimately that's a bit of a social mission. It's about the social good that we can bring through and again, well-being, alcohol free etc is just like. This is a huge, huge thing for us. We want good, we want goodness to come from it. It's not just a commercial. The idea of us just like slinging cans to supermarkets full stop would be like I want to shoot myself tomorrow. We don't want to be a sausage factory or be a sausage factory.

Speaker 1: 39:22

Well, this is the thing Like when you come across a brand like yourself, you go okay, I like this and I want it to be good. So you know, before I opened the can, I wanted it to be good and I mean it's good that it was, because otherwise that would have been utterly heartbreaking. But you know, there's a lot to be said for a, a brewery wanting to do good for the community, and in a really open way. I think that's excellent.

Speaker 2: 39:51

We're small now, right, and we've got a long way to go, but we're very ambitious, like we would love that to be across the uk. We'd love to have multiple sites across the uk and, um, I, I, I I've done lots of stuff. My past idea I I the the actual venue side of it and, um, the communal, um, bringing people together. Part of it is that that, uh, what, what I do for a living, has more meaning. It has meaning full stop, right. Because of that, it wouldn't necessarily be the case if we were doing amazingly well and just selling cans to supermarkets and say I wouldn't enjoy that. None of us would.

Speaker 2: 40:36

But we know that if we can do that well, and there's loads of other craft breweries doing amazing things alcohol-free or beer, beer, full-fat beer described but they're, they are bringing people together in new ways, which is freaking awesome and it's so exciting. Um and um, they're giving a place and a home for people to do stuff where they didn't exist, really didn't really exist, um, in the past. And where do they come from? Or where are we coming from? Run down, sort of dusty pubs with sticky carpets, and that's not a family environment, you know. It's not an environment where you can get a good spread of product, alcohol-free beer, spirits, you know, or whatever.

Speaker 2: 41:17

We just need something new, really, which just creates, you know, better environments for people to hang out and just enjoy their time together. So, yeah, we're a brewery, but actually that's kind of the thing for us. We want those two things to be hand in hand and to just have a reason. And I think we couldn't right now, because we're, you know, we're still startup mode, but we could set, you know, 10 of profit goes to so and so and hand it off to someone else. That's great, but actually, um, our version of doing good would be bringing people.

Speaker 1: 41:55

We want to bring people together, that's that yeah, actually, but doing work on the ground, you know, rather than passing it on and and seeing what happens with it.

Speaker 2: 42:03

Yeah, so you know, the future sort of rambling, long winded, answers your question. The future is a lot of that stuff, and where we, you know, touch wood, where we make money, we become more profitable over time. We will want to put profit into those as well, and that business model is sort of self-fulfilling as well, into those as well, and that's a and that business model is sort of self-fulfilling as well. So yeah, um, a tap room attached to a brewery is, um, you know, it makes good commercial sense, but we're doing that in a slightly different way well, I can't wait to see it because you know it does.

Speaker 1: 42:33

It sounds like you really are invested in this and you can hear when you talk about it. You know this isn't just a brand and kind of, this isn't just something that you said, okay, this is what the brand is about. This is. These are the brand values. You know they're your values and that's why you're doing it, which I think is really refreshing to see and you're seeing it with a lot of these kind of startups, but yourselves in particular.

Speaker 1: 42:56

It's it's a really relevant thing and it's a really visible part of what you do.

Speaker 2: 43:01

Yeah it's very personal as well. So I was mentioning earlier where, where we started, you asked well-being and, you know, maybe a sort of pot of history there that's steve, my partner and I sitting down and over the course of time, and then you know we could you know, wouldn't it be awesome if there was a place where we could bring the kids, the dogs and the you know and not drink um or have an occasional drink, or you know?

Speaker 1: 43:27

and still feel like an adult, you know still feel like you're doing something social and you're not just in the corner of a dusty pub with an orange juice not enjoying it yeah, right, yeah, which is huge and like, and we're all on that part.

Speaker 2: 43:40

you know, that's something that's very dear to me as well. I'm super conscious and aware and my relationship with alcohol fluctuates, but yeah, the idea of it being something where you actually have to remove yourself in order to not drink, that's a terrible, that sucks right.

Speaker 1: 43:59

Yeah, it's the dogs.

Speaker 2: 44:02

Because the social side of it is that's the tonic, that's the yeah, for, for my perspective, that that's the thing, right, it's. The social side is the thing. It's not the liquid that you're consuming, right, it's, it's the um, it's the company you keep and and the good times that you have together. Um, but uh, yeah, it is exciting. Right now there's there's like, yeah, there's lots of um on the brewery side. There's lots of breweries doing lots of flavors of that in different ways, which is, uh, it's cool, it's just so much more exciting. There's so much better, so many better things to do now, um, and I think, um to get it and and the pub trade gets it and, um, you know, and you get it. They're all evolving and in this kind of way to be just broader, more accessible and having better products at the end of the day.

Speaker 1: 44:50

Well, I can't wait to see how all of that goes. I can't wait to see what the future holds for you, and I can't wait to drink some more of your beers, because it's been too long, quite frankly. So I'm going to make sure that I do that on my next bottle shop visit.

Speaker 2: 45:04

Do that. Yeah, We'll pop some up to you as well. Yeah, the APA came off the canning line today.

Speaker 1: 45:15

I never say no. Roger, thank you so much for coming and chatting to me today. It was really nice for you to come on. I was waiting for martin to make an introduction, um, and then when you dropped me a message and I was like, hey, it's like okay, hey, it was nice. So thank you very much for taking the time out of your day that's been great.

Speaker 2: 45:36

Thank you, mate, really appreciate it full disclosure.

Speaker 1: 45:39

Since recording this episode, he has sent me those beers. I have drank all of those beers and I can confirm they are incredible, so do yourself a favour and get yourself some. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Sober Boozers Club podcast. My name is Ben Gibbs. You can find me on the social media at the Sober Boozers Club. For more information on Only With Love, head to their website onlywithloveco. And before you say no, I'm not missing out the uk, it is really just co. So go and do that and I'll catch you very soon.