Tucked away in a rural idyll of small, winding lanes in Suffolk sits a 13th-century manor where devotees of real ale can lunch in tapestry-adorned surroundings before taking a tour of St Peter's Brewery, from which its owner is hoping to produce England's first major global beer brand.
The brewery, set in listed buildings, exports 75% of its distinctive, oval-shaped bottles to 15 countries, including the US, Canada and Russia.
Demand is rising and head brewer Mark is already squeezing out four times more bitter than the cramped site was designed for.
But while the building, location and odd-shaped bottles may be a production nightmare, they are a marketer's dream. It is not surprising that, for once, marketing has won out over manufacturing because the man behind St Peter's is John Murphy, founder of Interbrand. After years of telling clients how to value and build brands, in 1996 he took the profits from selling Interbrand to Omnicom and set up St Peter's Brewery.
Murphy then put all his efforts into creating a 'texture' for an English beer brand by creating a story and history for it. This began with the purchase of St Peter's Hall, South Elmham, near Bungay, which he spotted in Country Life.
A compulsive buyer of medieval arch-itectural salvage and antiques, Murphy set about refurbishing the property.
As part of the brand story behind the cask-conditioned ales and bottled beers, the water is drawn from a bore hole 100 metres below the brewery. And, for devotees unable to trek to Suffolk, Murphy bought a London 'shop window' in the form of the 18th-century Jerusalem Tavern in Clerkenwell.
St Peter's distinctive 500ml bottle, a copy of one used in 1770 by a colonial innkeeper near Philadelphia, is well-known to ale enthusiasts and forms an important part of the brand texture.
Murphy came up with the idea for St Peter's after noting that while England is a leading beer market, none of its beers is well-known globally. This realisation followed an Interbrand project for Scottish & Newcastle in the 80s, which found English brewers were focused on their tied pubs and not worried about creating global beer brands that would have to be bottled for export.
So, while foreign brewers spoke the same branding language as Procter & Gamble, British brewers 'were sticking beer in kegs and flogging it through pubs, not building brands', says Murphy.
But Murphy lacked brewing experience. He soon realised it is much harder to put a living liquid into bottles than a keg, and for years it seemed an impossible manufacturing feat to line up a label on an oval-shaped bottle.
A lot of effort goes into producing the beers themselves, which are made from local barley, East Anglian malts and Kent hops. A wide range is produced under the St Peter's brand, including Cream Stout, Golden Ale and Suffolk Gold. The beers have won a raft of awards but, more importantly, sales have risen by 40% year on year and annual turnover is now £2m.
Thanks to PR alone, the brewery is up to its weekly capacity of 57,600 pints, so there is no point in advertising, even if the funds were there, points out managing director Colin Cordy. To increase production, it would cost £5m to buy the land and build a second brewery. At 61, Murphy isn't keen to bring in private equity investors, so he is looking to sell.
It is a route he has been down before. In 1996 he and three others bought Plymouth Gin from Allied-Domecq. At the time, it was selling just 3000 cases a year. When Murphy sold the brand last year to V&S Absolut Spirits, it was the UK's third biggest-selling gin.
Murphy says St Peter's is 'poised' to become a big global brand, but to do so it needs to be part of a big company with the ability to boost production, widen distribution and pay for advertising.
'The brand is now at the stage where it really ought to be part of a portfolio of a much bigger brewer. In the right hands it could be doing 100 times more in eight to 10 years,' he adds.
Although Murphy spotted a niche overlooked by the big brewers, he now needs one to take the brand forward.
TIMELINE
Dec 1993: John Murphy sells Interbrand to Omnicom.
May 1995: He founds St Peter's Brewery with the purchase of St Peter's Hall; a 13th-century moated manor house in Suffolk.
Mar 1996: Building work begins on the brewery in listed agricultural buildings.
Jun 1996: The brewery produces its first cask ale.
Feb 1997: St Peters produces its first bottled beer and Tesco becomes the first national retailer to stock it.
May 2002: A bottling line is added to the brewery to bring the operation in-house.
Jan 2004: Colin Cordy, a former Carlsberg Tetley sales director, joins St Peter's as managing director.
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