“When people were told to stop going to pubs, that was one of the worst weeks I can remember. Customers didn’t know what to do”

For Martyn Railton, owner of import & distribution company Euroboozer, lockdown has meant plunging sales and rising uncertainty  

Euroboozer’s base, a warehouse just off the M25 north of Watford, is normally a hive of activity. Six or seven vans leave every day to deliver beer into London: pallets are packed to be sent off around the rest of the UK; beer arrives from around the country and, via ports like Harwich, from overseas. This importation and distribution company employs 14 permanent staff and four regular contract workers, handling significant brands that run the gamut from iconic Danish craft brewer Mikkeller to historic Austrian lager-makers Stiegl. 

Right now, though it’s very quiet. It has been for the past two months. Kegs and casks of beer are still squatting where they were placed when they arrived in March. Much of this beer is out-of-date, particularly the cask ale, destined never to be drunk. There’s just one person working here, warehouse manager Mark McInally, and he’s doing everything: receiving beer, packing beer, and driving the van on its one or two trips per week into the capital. 

This, of course, is thanks to the Covid-19-induced lockdown, which has affected companies like Euroboozer as much as any in the UK beer industry. “The week of the 16th March, when the Prime Minister told people to stop going to pubs, was one of the worst I can remember,” says Euroboozer owner Martyn Railton. “We had customers not knowing what to do; we were getting messages saying they were closing for the foreseeable future, and they wouldn’t be able to pay bills for the time being. Quite a few friends and colleagues in the industry were losing their jobs.”

Railton, 38, endured a hectic few weeks in those uncertain days of March. In the early days of the month he was in Austria, entertaining customers on a ski trip, when one of those customers got a text message from a pal who thought he’d got Covid-19. From the 11th to the 13th, he was hosting the Mikkeller team in London when Denmark went into lockdown. “It was getting progressively more and more empty on the streets of London,” he says. “On Friday the 13th, I was in Clerkenwell, and it was like a ghost town. I could have crossed the road with my eyes shut.”

The following Monday, he called a meeting at the warehouse, to tell staff that they should work from home from then on. The UK’s own lockdown began on 23 March, following hot on the heels of the first announcement of the job retention scheme on March 20. All but four (Railton, McInally, plus national head of sales Andy Bennett and operations manager and beer buyer Mitch Adams) of Euroboozer’s staff are currently furloughed.

The warehouse

“That was one of the best days I've ever had,” Railton says of March 20. “I’ve never felt such relief, driving home from the warehouse, knowing that I'd be able to keep paying people. If that hadn’t been announced, after April I’d have had to cut everyone’s wages. No necessarily redundancies, but definitely cutting wages. Instead, everyone is still getting 100 percent.” 

Elsewhere, things have been less comforting. Normally at this time of year, according to Railton, weekly turnover is around £100,000. In the worst week of lockdown, during April, it was just £2000, although the average has been between £7,500 and £10,000. 

“Luckily for us we already had some bigger deals in place, outside of our normal on- and off- trade,” Railton says. “We knew there was another load of our four Mikkeller beers going into M&S at the start of May, and we’d just got another listing agreed for M&S, To Øl Gose to Hollywood. Those deals meant that at least every 8 weeks, we’d have a decent sales week.”

To Øl, the Danish brewery that recently built a new facility just outside Copenhagen, has been one of Euroboozer’s unexpected stars during lockdown. Mikkeller has sold well too, with demand much the same as before lockdown, while Stiegl has done as well as could be expected, given 95 per cent goes into the on-trade: the Grapefruit Radler, in particular, has sold “quite well”.

It’s been an odd time, with odd things happening. A shipment got stranded in the Midlands due to a row between two freight companies. Another shipment was held hostage in order to get payment up front. And two shipments have been impounded by the Border Force; the first time, Railton says, this has happened in 17 years of business, over claims the driver didn’t have the right documentation. It means more stress and a financial outlay at a time when cash flow is not what it should be.

There’s no time to brood, though. The post-lockdown world is approaching fast. How will Euroboozer be able to deal with supplying pubs if they re-open at the start of July, as has been suggested by the government?

“I certainly wouldn't have been confident if pubs had been opening on the 22nd [June, as was mooted], and I don’t think there would have been a huge amount of beer available,” Railton says. “I know it only takes a week to brew beers like Stella and Carling, but I'm not sure even they’d have been able to get their shit together in time!

“If it’s the 4th of July, then everyone will want to fill their cellars the week before, and that’ll be tough. Most of our staff will still be on furlough, but it won’t take much for us to re-open. I’ve just been looking at how many days I can bring people back from furlough.”

There’ll be new rules in place at the warehouse, he says, including fewer people in the offices - a maximum of three - and new procedures over handwashing et al. The world outside is changing too, Railton believes, perhaps permanently. 

“If you’d have asked me how confident I was about the future, six weeks ago, I'd have given you a different answer,” he says. “Back then we were in survival mode but we’ve been treading water reasonably well the last few weeks. We’ve adapted pretty well in terms of the opportunities we’ve generated with off-trade.

“We’ll probably emerge with a very different sales mix. There was a poll asking the public if they’d be confident going back to pubs - I think about 33 per cent of the public said they would. We’ll be more focused on off-trade, and some other opportunities that we’re looking at.”

Breweries will change, too. “The craft beer industry is very good at innovation, and it has been forced to innovate over the past few months,” he says. “A lot of breweries are probably thinking now, ‘We’re making some serious margin out of our online sales, let’s hope it continues.’

“People’s drinking habits will change. Drinking at home will be more popular. People have got into a groove; we’ve got a group of local friends here in our village that we’ve known since we moved here. We catch up once a week together online - that’s quite enjoyable, everyone has a drink. I think that form of online communication is here to stay; people are used to it now.

“And breweries will focus more on core brands. I think some breweries will have found during lockdown just what their core beers were! I’d expect people to have more of their favourite beers in the fridge at home. A lot of people have gone back to the tried and trusted during lockdown.”

It’s an uncertain time. Just one thing, indeed, seems inevitable in the beer industry: greater debt. Railton is currently talking to his bank about a loan, and anticipates that he won’t be paid for a decent chunk of his beer currently sitting in pubs’ cellars. “We needed to make sure we were still trading, to cover the fixed overheads,” he says of the loan, “to make sure we were still here. 

“I hate being in this position. We’re all looking forward to the day this logjam starts to ease, but I don’t know what level we’ll get back to. I don’t think we’ll be there at Christmas. This Christmas is not going to be like a normal one.”