'Adaptability' the key as family brewer turns 150

The fifth-generation boss of a family-run brewing firm said it has had to adapt and respond to market pressures to keep going for 150 years.

Charles Wells opened his first site in Bedford in February 1876 and the company, rebranded as Wells & Co in 2019, is celebrating the anniversary this month.

Chief executive Peter Wells, the founder's great-great-grandson, said the firm's longevity was due to realising drinking habits had been changing and selling its former brewery to Marston's for £55m to build a much smaller craft brewery.

"We want to make sure that we're around for another 150 years," he said.

The company brews 21 different beers, including keg, cask and canned varieties, and has just introduced Double Star Bedford Bitter, billed as a "revival of a former favourite", to mark the anniversary.

It now employs about 1,000 people and has 160 pubs across England and 19 in France.

It is based at Brewpoint, its third location in Bedford, on one of the main approaches to the town.

The site opened during the Covid-19 pandemic in October 2020 after the firm sold the Eagle Brewery in Havelock Street to Marston's.

That brewery is now run by Spanish brewer Damm, which produces Estrella Damm lager there.

For its first century, Wells was based at the now-demolished Horne Lane brewery in the town centre.

"We decided it was time to change our model and move away from being purely driven by building beer sales into really focusing on being great pub operators," said Wells.

"Having a brewery is still absolutely integral to what we do; we love beer, we love everything about it," he said.

"But it's really important that what we have today is a brewery that is able to create a great variety of different styles and types of beer and also different strengths, down to the non-alcoholic beer, to make sure that we're really able to adapt and respond to those different trends."

He said the firm's biggest challenge was to control its costs, use green energy and adapt.

Brand manager Jackie Black, originally from the United States, has been in the industry for 10 years.

"We're always remembering where we've come from, while looking to the future," she said.

"It's a constant state of research development, looking at what the pubs want, but also what our consumer wants."

She said the firm's "high-tech" building could "scale up and scale down to adapt to those changes".

"We're making this a destination - it's no longer just a factory tucked to the side," she added.

Head brewer Andrew Fleming, from Canada, said it was one of the only breweries in the country working with "exciting" experimental low carbon hops that did not need to be dried out, using less energy.

"We're supplying the producer with a lot of data to see the utilisation and efficacy and see how the flavour transfers compared to the normal hop product," he said.

The industry was "continuously changing", he added, and brewers needed to adapt to "new raw materials, processes but also maintain the integrity of the traditional product like cask beer".

Fleming said: "We're only one or two degrees of separation away from what's growing in the fields, whether that be barley or hops.

"We have to change when it comes to things like sustainability.

"We need to adopt new processes, looking at local supply chains, embracing these changes so that we can extract absolutely the most that we can.

"We also need to look at innovation and continue to make new products and get into new emerging markets wherever possible."

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said: "Brewing beer is a heritage tradition lasting for millennia and, along with pubs and pints, is an intrinsic part of the UK's cultural and social identity.

"While the process hasn't changed, tastes and challenges have, and brewers have lasted the test of time because of their ability to adapt and innovate."

Wells said he hoped the company would stay within the family and was already training the sixth generation.

"We want to embrace the immediate family who stem from our founder Charles Wells," he said.

But the company stressed that being a Wells did not guarantee anyone a job, and that they would have to work for another business for five years first and only be appointed on merit.

The firm also hopes the planned opening of Universal Studios' first UK theme park nearby will provide another great business opportunity.

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