Beavertown has grown from a 700-litre batch brewery to producing eight million pints a year and eyeing a bar estate, gin distillery and, ultimately, Beavertown World – a beer, restaurant, retail and events space where fans of the beer can congregate. Jessica Mason talks to owner and founder Logan Plant
Things could have turned out very differently for Logan Plant.
Five years ago, Plant was already living many people’s dreams – following in his famous father’s footsteps (Robert of Led Zepellin) by working as a professional musician – while home brewing as a hobby.
After he graduated to brewing out of the cellar of a bar he owned, Plant came to “one of those moments in my life where I was either going to take a chance on my dream or I was going to stay where I was and not be very happy”.
He decided to stage-dive headfirst into his new career – taking inspiration from the colloquial name for De Beauvoir Town, Hackney, where his Duke’s Brew & Que gastropub was based – Beavertown.
The company’s move to its current headquarters in Tottenham two years ago was a turning point in the development of what is now one of the UK’s most high-profile craft beer brands. In 2014, Beavertown was brewing 1,000 hectolitres. This year it will produce 45,000hl.
So, where next? Plant says he is “very hopeful now with a site in east London” and reveals “the first Beavertown bar will open in the first quarter of next year. It’ll just be called Beavertown, or later down the line: ‘The World of Beavertown’.”
Plant has worked closely with Coutts Bank along the way, used some asset finance from Lombard, as well as investing his own savings into the business “which is now, thankfully, being repaid”. He adds: “I’ve tried to keep equity tight and just work as much as I can through loan and asset.”
Plant says that part of Beavertown’s success is down to understanding the “new-age drinker”.
He says: “People want to go out and have a good time and be stimulated, and I don’t think anybody’s going to be turning back to drinking all that commoditised cooking lager. I think craft beer is a movement that has propelled itself amazingly over the past five years in the UK and it’s going to continue to become more and more mainstream.
“My motto is to have great beer on every street corner of the UK. They’ve done it in America. You can even get great beer in gas stations, at every 7/11, on every street corner, in every great city in America and I’d like that to happen in the UK,”
States of inspiration
When it comes to his beer heroes, Plant cites how microbreweries, including Magic Rock, The Kernel, Siren, Cloudwater and Burning Sky, continue to inspire him.
“Further afield, looking at some of the godfathers of craft from the US, to meet people who have built this industry from scratch over there and are still going strong 20 years
on is amazing,” he states, pointing out how he is a
huge fan of Sam Calagione at Dogfish, Greg Koch at Stone and Steve Hindy at Brooklyn.
Not just impressed by their beers, or the growth of their business, Plant is clearly taken by their dogma. “I have taken massive inspiration from how they go about their everyday work and the principle that they abide by,” he explains.
And it is not just brewers that have inspired Plant, who admits that the marketing approach of Innocent Drinks had a big effect on him when he was starting out.
He says: “Innocent were the first guys to be doing something different at that time and the products were solid, of course, but the way they communicated to the public was huge, it was massive. I think they were one of the forerunners to do that kind of honest face-to-face stuff in their industry and a lot of people have followed. That is an inspiration and I’ve tried to do that a bit. We try to be our own, be a bit different and just by doing that and defining ourselves within the beer market stands for something.”
Plant insists that Beavertown is not a brand, but “part of a movement” and more “a brewery with personality”. Its creation and development has been progressive and honest, rather than contrived. “It was never ‘put together’ to build into standing for something else in any particular way.”
He expresses a desire to “build a new brewery” that will become “the pinnacle of Beavertown’s production” and add a distillery to it. Plant wants to deliver “an amazing Beavertown experience” as part of it. The ultimate dream is to create “a massive production brewery that has that forward-facing customer experience where you have a big retail bit, a big bar, a big restaurant space all attached to the brewery”. London – the company’s spiritual as well as physical heartland – is the only location being considered.
“What I have always wanted to do is bring the beer to life. Beavertown is so much more than just a beer. It has a personality and a heartbeat too,” says Plant. At Beavertown World, events “will need to be based around being as inclusive as possible and educating as much as we can. We want to do more tastings and bring more people into our world of beer. We also want to create a great experience around food and knowledge,” he adds.
“Beavertown Bars will bring in our friends [other brewers]. We’ll be talking about their breweries and their beers, and serving them alongside some food and being as informative as possible,” he explains.
Plant is not limiting his ambition to beer, he’s considering a line of spirits to complement the business and show some love and investment within other categories.
“I love gin, so for the new production I’m hoping to have a distillery along the side. Gin is a very similar base to the beer that we produce. You can get really creative with the infusions and it’s one of my favourite drinks.”
Plant is clearly revelling in the success he is making out of his vocation.
He says: “If you want something to happen, you have to put everything in. You have to live and breathe it. I guess ‘realising a dream’ has got to have been my best business decision.”
■ Jessica Mason is a freelance journalist
specialising in drinks and the hospitality sector and can be found at @drinksmaven
