St Austell Brewery is one of the South West’s biggest breweries with a managed estate of high quality destination pubs, hotels and inns with rooms in scenic locations. These businesses tend to be seasonal and food led, and coffee has long been in growth across the estate.
Now, the Brewery is diversifying into the coffee market with the development, design, branding and launch of its own new, exclusive brand of Fairtrade coffee. The Brewer & Bean coffee brand was trialled in 2013 – with great success – in six of its outlets. The result: its launch across the company’s 25-strong retail estate in Cornwall and Devon this February.
The Brewery is adapting the basic coffee shop model to provide high quality freshly ground coffee to drink in and take away, as an alternative to the big name national coffee brands on the high street.
Changing pub audience
Brewer & Bean’s launch comes as pubs are increasingly looking to food and accommodation as their main source of income, and St Austell Brewery has responded to this trend by creating a unique coffee brand which will appeal to this new audience.
The Brewer & Bean range, supplied by local firm, Cornish Coffee, has been blended to St Austell Brewery’s own unique recipe, using a combination of two Fairtrade beans: Robusta from Uganda and Arabica from Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and Salvador. The unique blend of roasted coffee beans is then freshly ground to order by the pubs’ trained baristas.
The “Brewer and Bean” brand is all about quality and consistency. The blend is unique to St Austell Brewery and sourced and blended by local firm Cornish Coffee, who also carry out Barista training in all Brewer & Bean outlets to ensure all staff serve the perfect coffee. This training will be backed up with mystery visits each month in each outlet.
A full menu of Brewer & Bean coffees, including classic espressos, lattes and cappuccinos, as well as slightly more unusual options like bianco mochas and café con hielos will be available to either drink in or take away.
Customers can also choose from a range of Tea Pig Infusion teas, Fairtrade hot chocolates and the traditional Cornish cream tea.
Quality beers, quality hot beverages
Nick Hemming, St Austell Brewery’s catering development manager said: “Customers know that when they visit a St Austell Brewery pub they are guaranteed fantastic, locally brewed beers, and now we want to offer the same assurance of quality with the hot beverages we sell. The market for coffee shops has exploded in recent years, and we want St Austell pubs to become as famous for serving tremendous coffee as they are for great beer.
“St Austell Brewery’s pubs, hotels and inns are also well-positioned for offering take away refreshments – you can pull into a car park right outside the pub, rather than having to pay to park at a shopping centre or head into a busy town centre. By choosing a St Austell pub for coffee, customers will also benefit from being able to enjoy a proper meal from a good menu with their coffee, rather than just a pre-packaged sandwich.”
Now, St Austell pubs are not only comfortable, welcoming and with free wi-fi (an essential accompaniment to coffee these days!), they also offer customers more than traditional coffee shop chains with their wide choice of fresh, tasty locally-sourced food plus beers, wines and spirits.
In addition to being available in all the Company’s managed estate, the first Brewer & Bean retail unit will open during February half term, within the Old Custom House in Padstow, with further coffee shops planned to be rolled out over the coming months.
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