News

New Name for GSB?

Boring. That’s what the Marketing Department thinks of the name ‘Special Bitter’, especially as the other beers we brew have characterful names (without, we hope, being childish or too nerdy). Names like Fuggle-Dee-Dum, Ale of Wight, Duck’s Folly (especially! For an explanation follow this link), Inspiration and Iron Horse all have some story behind them.

By contrast, Special Bitter is a very ordinary name for the outstanding beer we have been brewing for 17 years - a beer that has three times reached Bronze in the Great British Beer Festival, as well as many other awards and accolades.

The beer itself hasn’t changed, and we’re perfectly happy to continue to support the name ‘Special Bitter’ if customers prefer. It was Babs that looked through the modern urban dictionary and spotted the new name (now registered by us). If you want to know its meaning, just search Google for ‘Scrumdiggity’. You might be surprised and amused……….

New Brewery Building Opening (Press Release, 6th June 2008)

Anthony Goddard (left); Martin White, Lord-Lieutenant; Alan Titchmarsh, High Sheriff

"The first casks rolled out from the Isle of Wight's Goddards Brewery almost exactly fifteen years ago. In those days the island had a Governor and Lord-Lieutenant in the person of Lord Mottistone who declared the brewery open at a launch party in August 1993. Five years later, Chris Bland was Lord-Lieutenant and the opening of a new kegging hall was to be the excuse for the second launch party.

"Last month, the move to a larger building on the original Barnsley Farm site at Ryde was the justification for the third launch party. This time newly appointed Lord-Lieutenant Martin White did the honours, aided and abetted by Alan Titchmarch, the Island's High Sheriff.

"Anthony Goddard, himself a former High Sheriff, admitted he was a terrible nerd, and had worked out that some 4.25 million pints of Goddards had been enjoyed since 1993 - "that's enough pint pots laid side-by-side", he said, "to stretch for 254 miles, or the equivalent of Ryde to Scarborough, or Barrow-in-Furness, Wexford in Eire, Nantes on the Atlantic coast, Rheims the other side of Paris, or Brussels. For the six summer months of 2007 we were producing a pint every 55 seconds on average, 24/7. That's a piddling amount by the standards of the big brewers, but quite a milestone for us".

"Top customers, Derek and Ruth Smith from The Traveller's Joy at Cowes were amongst the guests at the latest launch. They were told that the 275,000 pints they had sold would stretch for 10 miles - "a useful way up the A3 from here", as Anthony Goddard put it.

"The new move now brings the 15-barrel plant up to 8 fermenter/conditioning tanks which should provide a relatively easy 20,000 pints/week capacity. "We've seen some pretty impressive growth, especially over the last two years. We just hope that the ridiculous hike in beer duty the Chancellor saw fit to introduce, and the huge rise in fuel, malt and hop prices won't now take the gloss off things. The economy looks to be getting shakier over the next few years, so we're going to have to keep pushing", concluded Anthony Goddard." 06-06-08

Excise Duty Hike March 2008

"Inexcusable" is the word that springs to mind. Alastair Darling's ridiculous assertion that the way-above-inflation rise in beer duty rate would be spent on pensioners fools nobody. Furthermore, trying to imply that our customers are habitual drunken louts who need to have the price of their tipple raised is a insult. We don't, and never have, aimed our products to appeal to 'lager-louts' (for want of a better description), and no way deserve to be hit so hard when raw material prices have also shot up (see item below) 21-4-08

Raw Material Prices

Never before have world-wide barley crops AND hop crops been so poor. Normally if there is a shortage in Europe, say, then North America can make up the shortfall. This year, though, has seen such global shortages that we cannot even obtain the Oregon Fuggles we have used for the last 12 years, and prices of other hops have trebled in some cases. The story is similar with malt. We allowed for price rises in budgets for this year - but we're running at 71% over, so far. We think it might be a good idea to pray for good harvests this year............ 21-4-08

Altered Roles for Andrew and Babs

For 18 years Goddards Brewery had been wholesalers of 'third-party' beers, wines, spirits and soft drinks on the Isle of Wight, as well as brewing in our own right.

The brewery side of the business has been growing rapidly in the last two years - to the point that a pint of Goddards is enjoyed every 55 seconds "24/7" as they say in America. By contrast the wholesale business had been under intense competitive pressure and we closed down that division of the company in February so that we can concentrate exclusively on brewing Goddards.

A by-product of this change is that Andrew Young, our Sales Director, will be concentrating on our 'export' sales to England, whilst Babs Mitchell, our Admin Director in the office here, will look after home sales on the Island. So far, we don't miss wholesaling one little bit! 21-4-08

Inspiration now 5.0%

Bowing to the fashion for reducing the strength of some beers, we now brew the seasonal Inspiration at 5.0% instead of 5.2% as hitherto. We've left the hop rates the same, so what was already a hoppy beer is hoppier still - more hops than a dead frog, as they say ! 21-4-08

Fullers

We're delighted that for the second time, Fullers have added our Special Bitter to their third-party beer offers for October 2008 - a good opportunity to taste our beers in the Fullers (including what was Gales) estate. 21-4-08

Branding Beers - a serious business

Some here think that "Iron Horse" - one of our seasonal beers - isn't a very warm, customer-friendly name. Typically, Anthony Goddard came up with "G-Spot" or "The New G-Spot" which was considered, er, not quite the ticket. Pity really.....21-4-08

Goddards in China

When Goddards Brewery drayman Ian Mouat went out to China to see his out-laws he took a bottle of Ale of Wight with him (and a polo shirt by the look of it).
Here's a holiday snap of his father-in-law, Mr Gang Liu in Shanghai with the aforementioned bottle..

100K Klub

There are eight licensed outlets that are members of the Goddards Brewery 100K Klub, having served more than 100,000 pints. Top is Travellers Joy, Cowes with an astonishing 265,000 pints, followed by the Duke of York, Cowes at 175,000 pints. The other members are Seaview Hotel; Crab and Lobster, Bembridge; Wheatsheaf, Yarmouth; Island Sailing Club, Cowes; Anchor Inn, Cowes and the Red Lion, Freshwater. Their support has been wonderful, and they've each had a certificate as a token of our gratitude.

Derek Smith of the Traveller's Joy commented, "That's an awful lot of beer. We had no idea we've sold so much. Clearly we couldn't have done if the beer had been crap!" Quite so, Derek...

Bling

Nigel Eldridge - our 'new' (he's actually been with us over two years, now!) Assistant Brewer has been 'flying solo' for a while, which is a considerable relief for Chris Coleman, his Head Brewer boss. Chris can now go on holiday without worrying about what's going on back at the shop. An unexpected facet to Nigel is his penchant for haute couture. These glasses are a good example. Perhaps he should stick to the day job??

Fuggle-Dee-Dum Voted IW CAMRA Beer of the Year

We're delighted to report that Fuggle-Dee-Dum was recently voted IW CAMRA Beer of the Year. It's a credit, once again, to Chris Coleman, Nigel Eldridge and relative new-comer Alain Elliott who continue to brew some of the best beer in the World (a modest little claim we like to trot out repeatedly). It's the result, too, of attention to detail and the maintenance of high standards - no surprise that they managed a 5-star rating from Environmental Health, then.

At the presentation evening at the Yarbridge Inn, Chris Coleman was presented with two certificates. One was the official CAMRA document, and the other was presented by Yates Brewery for being "the happiest brewer on the Isle of Wight". As regular readers will know, Chris is a considerable af-fish-ianado, so the industrial size tin of tuna chunks he won in answer to a quiz in Portsmouth CAMRA's Ale Mail still probably ranks as the high-point of the last few months. Our photograph shows Chris in ecstatic mood...

Full House !

We reached another of those little milestones recently when every vessel in the brewery was full - a total of 30,240 pints. That's enough for a pint for 1 in 4 of the Island's population. Another little statistic is that we're having to purchase another 500 casks, which will take our cask population to well over 1,300. That's a piddling amount by the standards of the big brewers, but quite a capital commitment for us.

Barnsley Farm, Bullen Road, RYDE, Isle of Wight, PO33 1QF
Telephone: 01983 611011
Facsimile: 01983 611012
Email: info@goddards-brewery.co.uk