The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

Bristol Voices LIVE: Bristol Beer Factory MD Sam Burrows, on the 'story-behind-the-story' of being BBF- and all the wonderful Community Impact work they do, through 'Brewed2Give', 'TalkClub' & fundraising through 'Clear Head'

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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Ever wondered how a journey from Cornwall could lead to the vibrant beer scene in Bristol? This week, we’re thrilled to feature Sam Burrows, Managing Director of the Bristol Beer Factory, as we kick off our "Best of Bristol" series. Broadcasting live from the lively Bristol Beer Factory taproom, Sam regales us with tales from his early days in the industry, his father’s influence, and his adventurous stint in Australia. Amidst laughter and anecdotes, we explore the essence of leadership, personal growth, and the simple yet profound lessons learned from the rugby fields of Port Scaffo on the Roseland Peninsula.

Tune in for a hearty mix of brewery banter, sports reflections, and the inspirations that drive us. We admire the steadfast dedication of breweries like Formbridge and Timothy Taylor, celebrating the unparalleled craft of cask beer in local pubs. Drawing inspiration from elite athletes like Johnny Wilkinson, we chat about mental fortitude and embracing failure as a stepping stone to success. With a sprinkle of humor, we share our quirky distractions—those "squirrels" that capture our attention, from snow-capped mountains to the intricate art of brewing.

But there's more than just beer on tap—partnering with Talk Club, we highlight the powerful collaboration behind "Clearhead," an alcohol-free beer promoting mental health awareness. We chat about community impact and corporate responsibility, sharing insights from the Bristol Beer Factory’s Brew to Give initiative and the storytelling magic of Legacy Life Reflections. Sam and I delve into the importance of community engagement and legacy, inviting listeners to participate in capturing the stories that matter. Join us on this engaging episode of the Good Listening To Show and discover the stories that shape and inspire us all.

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)

Thanks for listening!

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the Clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. Ladies and gentlemen, men, men, men, men, men. Would you please welcome your host for this evening's wonderful performance of the good listening to show, stories of Distinction and Genius. Motivational comedian, chris O'Grime Wonderful. Now, whoever said to me you couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery? Well, eat my shorts. We're doing one. Hurrah. Free beer, free show. Give us a cheer if you're happy about that. And free beer, free show is a riff on one of the greatest advertising slogans ever, apparently, which was free coffee next exit. So free beer, free show. What can possibly not go right with that.

Speaker 2:

Now, the Good Listening To Show is a storytelling podcast which features squirrels and a tree with me motivational comedian, chris Grimes. It's a show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers and also personal heroes into a clearing or serious happy place of my guests choosing and from that centre point the rest of the story scape of the podcast unfolds. From that point I'm absolutely delighted that tonight is also the launch of a brand new series strand called Best of Bristol, bristol Voices, which is setting out to tell all the best stories of all the creative endeavours that are happening in my home city of Bristol. Thank you sincerely to Sam Burrows, who you're going to meet shortly, as being a really quick early adopter. I do a lot of comedy improvisation with a company called Instant Wit, based in Bristol, and there's a lovely mindset of yes and that is implicit within how you do comedy improvisation. But Sam Burrows was a wonderfully open yes ander and here we are doing this inaugural show which, very, very excitingly, is being broadcast as we broadcast, from the Bristol Beer Factory taproom here in Southville in Bristol, and we're also going live on the interweb on LinkedIn, facebook, twitter and YouTube as we do this Wonderful.

Speaker 2:

So, without further ado, it is my great, great pleasure and indeed my great fortitude. See what I'm doing there. That's his favorite brew from the Bristol Beer Factory. Ladies and gentlemen, in min, min, min would you go absolutely batshit crazy for tonight's special Bristol voices guest. Md of the Bristol Beer Factory. Sam, thank you, shake me by the hand if you would Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Sam that is.

Speaker 2:

I gather that is a pint of your favourite brew, is it not? As always, pal as always, and that is the Fortitude brand. That is Lovely. How many beer factory brews do we have going at the moment?

Speaker 3:

Oh, mate, any For a year. We do around 40 different beers a year, so they're changing week in, week out all the time. I might try the odd one, and then just straight back to Fortitude. So I'm a bit stuck in the mud.

Speaker 2:

And I asked you about Dest destination mars a few moments ago, and your answer was I've no idea. You said but that's one of the, that is one of the brews, that's one of the new ones that's just out with the bright orange cans there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, someone. You asked me what it was and my actual reply was fuck knows. So also, just before you started, you had some fantastic advice from your uh, from clem, your brand advisor, and just share us what the feedback was to sort of get you he's at the back and apparently I've got the baritone dullness of an insomniac's best friend, so it's all right sitting here articulating to you guys, but for anyone listening on radio or podcast will fall asleep very quickly so that's the other title.

Speaker 2:

It's welcome to the insomniac's podcast. Yeah, we've gone already. Now, just to blow a bit of happy smoke at you, I asked you when I first met how long you'd been here as MD and you said I don't know. I'll have to check LinkedIn for that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I know that you've been here. Well, it says on LinkedIn 13 years two months, but that's not just as an MD. So just tell us the story behind, the story of what brought you to the Bristol Beer Factory.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's how I suppose it all started. So I got into the beer trade back in 2004 down in Cornwall, where I grew up, and my dad ran a British Legion club in my hometown of Liskeard and I came back from Australia sort of trying to play rugby and just travel around being a bum and he broke his leg the day I got home. So he was like you know how to run a bar? And I was like, of course you know working bars as kids and worked in bars across Australia. He said, can you open the club? And I was like great British Legion Club, 20 odd years old, that'll be a barrel of laughs. Actually, actually they were a great bunch.

Speaker 3:

But from that, from that moment then I met a guy called tony cause who was our sort of molson cause rep and he said to me there's a job going with a company called charles wells who are quite an unknown brewer, based in bedford at the time. But they had, um, they had the rights for the red stripe brand and they just won the corona brand, which is a Mexican lager which went like must-stock mental, went from like 80,000 cases to 8 million cases in like 18 months, and that was the reason I got the job Blagged. The job Was down in Devon and Cornwall basically selling Red Stripe and Corona around Newquay and around the coast on the surf, driving a split-screen VM V-Dub camper van Red Stripe branded with a surfboard table woofer speakers in the back.

Speaker 2:

I thought I was the absolute nuts. Yes, sam Burrows, the absolute nuts, that'll do lovely.

Speaker 3:

It was honestly the best time of my life back then. It was just amazing, amazing times. Obviously I was really really good at it, selling beer in Cornwall and Devon, so I got promoted rather quickly and then I got into what's called a national account manager's role. So you looked at the big distributors across the country. Obviously I was down in Cornwall Bristol was two and a half hours to anywhere and I had a big customer called matthew clark here but I was coming to bristol. I was flying to edinburgh, going to heineken, all those horrible big macro rubbish and um, so I had to move to bristol. It was bristol or london, and in my time there we'd merge with young Young's in London, which a few people would have heard, so it was Wells and Young's and so London was too far from Cornwall. They didn't have good pasties there. I couldn't get home to Mummy if I needed to, so it was very much Bristol.

Speaker 2:

And it was your dad that had broken his leg. He didn't break your leg.

Speaker 3:

No, no, it would be us. Or tried, shall I say, but no, no, it would be us. Or tried, shall I say, but no, yeah. So that was how I came to Bristol and then, like with everything when you're working for a company that turns over hundreds of millions of pounds, it was a bit corporate. I wasn't driving around in my split-screen old camper van, wasn't having the time of my life, and I met Simon and George, who founded the brewery here in 2004,.

Speaker 2:

So this is our 20th year met simon and george, who founded the brewery here in 2004.

Speaker 3:

So this is our 20th year. Congratulations, yes, yeah, so it's a big year for us. Um, and that was sort of the the integration into bristol beer factory, the introduction to bristol beer factory, that those conversations and simon had a sort of business here where we had a couple of young american brewers. Um, we were sort of bringing in hops from all over the world and were starting to make some pretty fabulous beers back then, beers like Southville Hop and Independence, which are still with us and stalwarts of our business.

Speaker 3:

And he was like, do you want to take a massive pay cut? And I was like, yeah, sounds interesting. And it was an interesting thing because, you know, I learned probably more not what to do than what to do when you work for a big company like that, and I value them and I remember them with the fondest of memories. However, seeing that opportunity with a little business like this, I mean, when I joined there was five of us and the business was turning over about 400 grand a year. We were tiny, we were cash strapped, um, the business was on its ass, in all honesty, and luckily I came along and mentioning that amount, you you've raised 200 000 just in the last year, 300.

Speaker 2:

It's gone up 300 and I'm just going to do that. Another trick in a way of a good story, chris. Yes, sure, but you're doing extraordinary stuff for the community and that's really one 300.

Speaker 3:

It's gone up 300. And I'm just going to do that. Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story, Chris.

Speaker 2:

Yes, sure, but you're doing extraordinary stuff for the community and that's really one of the things we really want to talk about here, and I'm also really just talk about Brewed to Give.

Speaker 3:

Yeah well, brewed to Give is probably the biggest initiative the brewery's ever taken on. It's something that I think all of us who work here at Bristol Beer Factory and the pub company are really, really proud of, and rightly so. It started as a sort of light bulb moment in my head back in 2019 when we were supporting St Werberg City Farm and their annual farm fair and I met the wonderful Carrie Halfordord, who is here in the audience tonight, and we helped them set up their bars, put up staging using our truck and sold them the beer at like cost price and at the end of the, you know, 5 000 people came through the doors that day and it was just one of those brilliant events and you see the amount of work and the programs and the initiatives that the farm were doing for their community and for the adults and kids in Bristol. It was quite an eye-opener for me and when Carrie told me how much money they had raised I was just like, oh, if I'd just given them that stock.

Speaker 3:

You know, beer is our currency. It's not like I'm writing checks, it's that ability to use that currency really wisely and we can turn that can of beer from one pound into three or four pounds. So I sort of chatted to Carrie about it and you know the success of that event and realized that I think I'm right in saying if we'd actually given them the stock, they would have made another £4,000 or £5,000 on top of the £22,000 that they'd raised that day, which is such a significant amount of money allowing the farm to continue with the good work that it was doing. Obviously, that was the summer of 2019, and then something happened that means my timelines have really blurred for a couple of years. I mean, we all sat in our gardens and drank ourselves dry, you know.

Speaker 2:

And you have said famously that actually the coronavirus period was the best thing that ever happened to the Bristol Beer Factory.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I don't think there's a lot of businesses that would say that, and that is true. It hit us incredibly hard financially. We made a lot of mistakes through that period, but we also. It was also the beginning of where we are now and for us, we took the opposite approach of the very British approach Times of austerity Britain cuts it, slashes and slashes and slashes costs. And I was trying to take a leaf out of the Germans book really of investing in our team, investing in the business. We've rebranded the whole company. Clem at the back, who hates my dulcet tones, is a big part of that. He's still awake, he's still awake yeah.

Speaker 3:

So everything you see the road mapping, the branding, the beer names, how we are, how we look and how we are perceived is is down to cloning does amazing work for us. So we did that. We also developed our lager infinity all the processes of building that. But then the, the big, the big key, while we sold our bottling line and bought a canning line and this was all in preparation instead to ready. So when the market reopened that April, we were ahead of our competition. We had a whole new brand portfolio. We had rebrand, we got rid of the bottles, got the cans. We were ready to go bang.

Speaker 3:

But the big thing that we did do in that period, which has been a game changer for our business, was we developed Clearhead and the Clearhead story along with me and Carrie and our work that we've always done loads of work within our community. That's always been really important to us. What we haven't done is find a way to bring it all together and make it a really effective mechanism to support Bristol and the people that live in this city. So Clearhead was yeah, that was the game changer. So do you want me to talk about how Clearhead was born?

Speaker 2:

We'll get onto that as well, but Liam Gallagher's attached to that story, as is Talk Club. There's lots of really, really rich stuff to talk about. Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. So let's curate you through the journey of the Good Listening To Show, and it's my absolute pleasure to curate you through a clearing, a tree. There's going to be a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. There's some alchemy, some gold, a couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, a golden baton and a cake, and I've got some comedy props to dish out as we go through as well. So, first of all, energetically, what is? Where is a clearing for you? Sam Burrows, md of the Bristol Beer Factory, where do you go to get clutter-free, inspirational and able to think?

Speaker 3:

This was a hard one Because I'm a Cornish boy through and through but I'm also a mountain lover, so I was a bit tired of this. But if I didn't choose Cornwall and Port Scaffo on the south coast, in Roseland, where my parents live and where I get those golden couple of weeks a year to hang out with them and with our children, so we're in Port Scaffo, rosen Peninsula. The sea is lapping, it's not the rain, and that's where we are.

Speaker 2:

So here we go. We're in Port Scaffo on the Rosen Peninsula. Yeah, and you're tutoring a Jack and Noah, is that right? Jack and Noah, well done. Yes, and you've missed a trick on not calling them Jack and Nori. But anyway, that's aging myself terribly there.

Speaker 2:

So yes, we're going to be there. Then, port Raffo, you said Port Scaffo, port Scaffo, port Scaffo. It's all about listening. There you are, port Scaffo. I'm now going to arrive with a tree in your clearing. I'm going to shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. So how do you like these apples?

Speaker 2:

So this is where you're going to talk about four things that have shaped you and all the Bristol Beer Factory. You can go where you like, when you like, how you like, as deep as you like. So, four things that have shaped you. Just to reassure you at this point, it's not going to be a memory test. I'll go back on myself. Three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention. And borrow from the film up, that's a bit, oh squirrels. You know what never fails to grab your attention, irrespective of anything else that might be going on for you and all the Bristol Beer Factory, and else that might be going on for you and or the Bristol Beer Factory. And then the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you.

Speaker 3:

We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us. So back to the four things that have shaped you, sam, I suppose start at the beginning. My childhood was very much rugby, very much a rugby boy, that sense of community, that sense of being in a team. I was quite a late developer, so the first sort of, until sort of 12 years old 5 to 12, I was absolutely useless at it, and those moments and the friendships that that sport has given me and the sense of working in a team later on into leadership captaincy, that game has been a pivotal point in my life, or a pivotal moment in my life.

Speaker 2:

Of being the captain within a rugby team.

Speaker 3:

Well, just the game in itself you know and what you learn and the trust. The rugby world is very different now. The rules are very different. You have to be pretty sharp and you have to trust everyone around you. And I have a friendship group that I played rugby with since we were five years old and I'm 46 now and we still get together every year and you know that means we've been friends for 40 odd years, which is phenomenal. And there aren't many organisations. A lot of people meet their friends for university and stuff and we'll have friends for life, but there aren't many people who can say they've got that group of eight mates that have been together from some of us for two or three years.

Speaker 2:

Sorry to interrupt you. That's rarer within men generally to have such a core friendship group, which is where Talk Club comes from, which I'm hoping we're definitely going to get into. But you don't have to go into that yet at this point.

Speaker 3:

What was the other?

Speaker 2:

question I'm just hearing also a through line of whenever you're put into a position, there's a leadership emergence in you. Your dad opened up the Legion Club rugby team. Be the captain. You started working for the Bristol Beer Factory. Become the MD. So there's definitely a through line there of leadership. And one thing that I researched about you about leadership is you've said all the best ideas, with you as a leader, are already within these four walls because of how you've chosen the team around you and how you've all risen together 100%, yeah, and without question.

Speaker 3:

I mean we'll probably talk about I want to talk about my team later on but without the people you work with, without the people you play sport with, if you don't delegate and, more importantly, the future of success, delegation's great. People want responsibility. You give people responsibility, but if you want to see what success looks like, it is all about empowerment and that trust that comes with empowerment. So the people that lead and run our teams, the different departments across our business, they are the ones that make the difference and allow me to do the projects that I'm working on. And they're the guys that make the difference and allow me to do the projects I'm working on, and they're the guys that are driving this business forward. And that takes trust, which is categorically number one, and me to keep my nose out of everything. And you know that's what empowerment is, isn't it? It's allowing people to flourish, to develop, to learn.

Speaker 3:

Our senior management team are all in their first sort of leadership roles themselves, and seeing how far they have come over the last four or five years is the main reason we are here, the reason we're doing things like brew, to give the reason we're doing everything as well as we are as a business, so you almost want to make yourself redundant. That's how I feel, like if I'm doing my job as well as I can, empowering the people in the business to do their jobs as well as they can, they'll hopefully be a little bit blinkered on their departments, which leaves me a little bit of a role to keep steering the ship. Else I will be redundant.

Speaker 2:

So there's an inference there where you, where you end, they begin. And that's the whole point of teamwork to make the dream work absolutely yeah, yeah so we're getting definitely the story of you as an emerging leader in your first shape. So, going back to the four things that shaped you, onto the second shapeage now, obviously my parents, um only child don't suffer from only child syndrome at all.

Speaker 3:

Just to be clear about that. Just to be clear Again. You know, small family Entrusted. You know I made very few mistakes. I pushed the lines. I did everything that every teenage boy will do, scared them useless, might have drunk a few too many beers one time and really and ended up in an ambulance kind of scenario.

Speaker 2:

Okay, one of them um.

Speaker 3:

We've all done it we've all done it, you've all done it. I can see it in your eyes, so it's you know, you definitely you know the support of my parents and and the family and friends, obviously massively inspiring to me. Other, where we now that's two. Are your parents still with us? If you? Yeah, of my parents and the family and friends obviously massively inspiring to me.

Speaker 2:

Other, where are we now? That's two. Are your parents still with us?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, both my parents are still with us. My dad's not particularly well right now, but that's another journey and another story. Yeah, so they're good.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Third shape it's now.

Speaker 3:

This industry. You know there's something about hospitality. If I wanted to go and make a load of money, I'd go and sell diggers with my mate, stu.

Speaker 2:

Stu here. He's not here.

Speaker 3:

He's not here, but you know he makes a truck ton of cash and that would be great. But, as I said earlier, it wasn't. Money is not the thing for me, it's what we're building, what we're trying to achieve here, and this industry is just infectious. If it gets into your blood, you're in it. There's nothing else you can do. I couldn't go and do anything else now. Yeah, you know, it's ever-changing, it's ever-evolving. Jez is here. He's been in the industry a long time as well.

Speaker 3:

There's people around here in this room, and you can't get out of it. It's about the people, it's about the product. There is nothing better in the world when you I'm putting my hand on the microphone if you're in a bar or a pub and people are ordering your beer in front of you and they have got no idea who you are. Yes, and I must be even more spectacular for our brew team and the guys that really do the graft on making the beers. When you, you'll get a group of people going well, have you tried that? And they'll sort of pass their pint. Oh, my god, that's amazing. It's a brewer's, yeah, and they're like right, five of them, six of them, yeah, and just getting that sort of buzz from the industry of people enjoying your product and the doors that it opens for you and the opportunities that do come along your way with tickets to the cricket, to the rugby, to Glastonbury and all the nice bits the perks of the job are a nice side of it.

Speaker 3:

So the industry is inspiring in itself to me, to be honest.

Speaker 2:

And the purpose that's so clear is that you, as you say, of your own branding volition, we brew to unite people and communities over world-class beer. You've just described that in terms of people being at the bar. Go five of those, please. Yeah, for sure, uh, okay. So you could be allowed one more shapeage, or if you feel you've covered, that shape. I think I've covered my shapeage okay, so let's get on to three things that inspire you now and the beer industry.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, if we talk sort of industry, I love breweries and companies in this business who stick to their roots and stick to what they're good at. We all have a tendency in this world now to like what's all new and shiny, so we see these big curves of trends happening all the time. So there are breweries out there that people like Formbridge, who are based up in Derbyshire, timothy Taylor, landlord in Yorkshire. They've never changed their approach to what they do. They develop and they make great products, but they're still core to cask beer, and cask beer for us is king. Cask is king. You will see that some of it in uh, in some of our sort of marketing material and hashtags and all that sort of things. Cask beer is what is how beer was invented. You know it's in its purest form.

Speaker 2:

You've got some great monikers, because another one you've got is pubs as hubs.

Speaker 3:

Well, pubs as hubs you know, pubs as hubs you know and you've hit the nail on the head there, chris, you know, cask beer is the one style of beer that cannot be replicated at home. You can get cans and bottle-conditioned beers, but when we came out of lockdown I sat in a Barley Moe, which is another one of our pubs, and I very rarely pull rank, but I was like the first cask out of that hand pull when this pub opens is mine. I don't care what anyone says. They can all f***ing wait. I'm having that pint and it was one of the most glorious pints in the world.

Speaker 2:

So you're a man who knows when to pull rank? Yeah, very rarely. Clearly you're listening to that. That's great as well, very good.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, those are the sort of inspirations within our business and I think they're great people for us to make sure that we sort of follow their journey, and it's very easy to get veered off and get pulled. Everyone's got an opinion. Loads of people love to drink beer and loads of people love to tell me what we're not doing right.

Speaker 2:

They've all got an opinion. Look at them.

Speaker 3:

You know that's great and you know some people's ideas are brilliant and I will take them and I will listen to people. I always listen to people but that staying true to yourself is really, really important. I think we're brilliant at that here. Yes, so that sort of inspiration trade, are we on inspiration?

Speaker 2:

Yes, this is definitely that.

Speaker 3:

Definitely inspiration. Love it, yeah. And then, I suppose, sporting inspirations. I'm a terrible golfer who loves golf, but I can still be Johnson at the back. There he is.

Speaker 2:

Who plays every day and you'll have heard the joke that golf allows you to dress up as a pimp at the back.

Speaker 3:

There he is, who plays every day and you'd have heard the joke that golf allows you to dress up as a pimp for the day. Yeah, absolutely, and obviously a big rugby guy. But I think, with sort of inspiration I look at people like Johnny Wilkinson. Of course.

Speaker 3:

People that are not particularly big in stature but big in balls and big in his mind, how strong he is mentally, how you know how his mental journey through playing rugby now you listen back to the way he talks on his podcast and stuff like that he was terrified, you know, terrified of playing, terrified of failure. So I've always looked at that as don't be terrified of failure. Failure is the best way to learn. But you know, taking those inspirations from elite athletes, I always look to elite athletes, elite anything, and try and draw inspiration from it. So that side of it and I suppose, like the third point of my inspiration and I go back to this because I was saying earlier is the guys I work with, the team I work with, because we've just been on an amazing journey and hopefully we've got a long journey ahead of us as a team and that is why we work.

Speaker 2:

That's a really profound echo location for you. You keep talking about the hub of the team.

Speaker 3:

You know, we all, as individuals, when we're out there and we're working, we're searching. You know, a bonus is lovely, but I always feel recognition is the highest thing going, and and when you get recognition from your peers externally and you get recognition from your team, that for me is the most inspiring, inspiring thing. And I think sometimes, when you're in my position which I'm very fortunate and incredibly grateful for you have that. You don't. You're kind of I don't like the sort of the pyramid and the hierarchy, but there is one. There's an accountability level, so there aren't there aren't many people to tap you on the shoulder and say you're doing a good job. So when you get that from the guys you work with, the team that you see every day. It's a very big marriage and we have our ups and downs, but we have some pretty good, honest conversations when they're needed.

Speaker 2:

And it sounds like there's reciprocity in that they come and pat you on the back when the time is right as well Sometimes, but it's enough to keep me really happy and really inspired a bit of love every day.

Speaker 3:

We all do, don't we? Yeah, you know so wonderful.

Speaker 2:

Okay, now we could be on to the uh, two, uh squirrels. I'm going to throw a squirrel at you, which so? Oh, squirrels borrowed for rather deliciously from the film up, which we all know. Have you all seen the film up squirrels? So what are your two monsters of distraction, what are your two squirrels that never fail to distract you, whatever else is going on for you?

Speaker 3:

Mountains with snow on them. If I get stuck on bloody Instagram, which I don't even know how to use, and see mountains of snow, I will sit in our tap rooms, and there's not enough room in the office for me conveniently. No room, sam Down, you go, sit in a bar on your own at 7 o'clock in the morning and then, obviously, I might check Instagram and have a look around and then I'll see mountains and I'll see people skiing and wish I could ski like that, and then, 45 minutes later, I'm ignoring everyone.

Speaker 2:

So the staff regularly come down and you're weeping into Instagram.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, why can't I do this?

Speaker 2:

That's pretty much it, that's a great squirrel Mountains with snow on them, mountains with snow on them.

Speaker 3:

When were you?

Speaker 2:

last up a mountain with snow on it.

Speaker 3:

I'm very Well. I was up a mountain in August, but there was very little snow, surprisingly, that's because it was a summer holiday.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks for the thanks for that. I wondered what was happening. The last time I was up a mountain with snow on them was in March, with one of my business partners and two other brewery owners in Bristol. We ski together every year. Which is another great thing about our community in Bristol with the brewing trade is we're all mates, we look out for each other and it's such a competitive market. But it is lush that the brewing community in this city is so on it.

Speaker 2:

And this city famous, famous for microbreweries.

Speaker 3:

I mean today there was a.

Speaker 2:

Viper True announcement. Yeah, we're not going to talk about it. We won't talk about it, so I yeah, we're not going to talk about it.

Speaker 3:

We won't talk about it, so I'll get back to what I was talking about Chris the Bristol Beer Factory. Let's get back to the Bristol.

Speaker 2:

Beer Factory Pubs are tubs, kegs is key.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, the four of us go skiing every year and it's basically skiing as a transportation device from restaurant to bar and it's wonderful. It's amazing Drinking ros rose up on the mountains and 2 000 meters up a hill eating steak what can go wrong?

Speaker 2:

love that inspiration. Thank you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, squirrel rather, do you want a second squirrel.

Speaker 2:

What was the squirrel question? What's your monsters of distraction?

Speaker 3:

you've got distracted oh, I do get distracted, distracted by the sound of my own voice.

Speaker 2:

Yes, anything else made you go, you go. Oh, so for me, sadly, it's a ping pong table, because I can beat anybody in this room.

Speaker 3:

But Probably a golf club. If I see a golf club, I have to practice swing it, and my practice swings are unbelievably good.

Speaker 2:

You had a golf swing like an octopus crawling out of a tree. Yeah Was a diss. I once heard about a golfer.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, probably.

Speaker 2:

I also do know a really good joke about golfing, but I won't. I'll tell you afterwards or, if we've got time at the end, I'll tell everyone the golfing joke Maybe you could do that in the Q&A. Yes, would you like the golfing joke in the Q&A?

Speaker 3:

Excellent, there we are.

Speaker 2:

There we are, so now. Thank you for your squirrels.

Speaker 3:

I am petrified of cotton wool, and by petrified I mean loose cotton wool, like cotton wool pads, the ones that my wife uses to take make-up off. I can just about deal with A bag or a ball of cotton wool is kryptonite to me.

Speaker 2:

Can I just say I hope the stuffing's not coming out of my squirrel. No, please, edit, don't. My dog chews her toys to bits and my kids say I hope the stuffing's not coming out of my squirrel, no, please edit, don't?

Speaker 3:

My dog chews her toys to bits and my kids have to pick all the stuffing out.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So do you know the story behind the story of that?

Speaker 3:

Well, I don't know where it came from, but the thing that has disturbed me my entire life is this fear of cotton wool has manifested itself into a fear of candy floss because the texture is so similar it's evolving and getting deeper.

Speaker 2:

I like this. Yeah, what's?

Speaker 3:

after candy floss. So now picture this. I'm sort of 13 in list guard in cornwall at the local fair. Candy floss man is chasing me.

Speaker 2:

I'm sprinting like an 80s halloween movie it's not calrophobia, it's not the crown, the clown face, it's the no, it's the cotton wool or the candy floss Cool yeah, very random, we like you for that and I just can't handle the texture.

Speaker 3:

It just On my stag do. The first morning I woke up I'm the same, I'm the same. I woke up in a bed of cotton wool, oh, and I had the most outrageous rage act.

Speaker 2:

Most people would think that that would be a happy landing, waking up in a bed of cotton wool. Oh God, so Joe? I had no idea. Joe is my daughter's wonderful boyfriend. It's a texture isn't it?

Speaker 3:

Just don't even talk about it. It makes me sweat.

Speaker 2:

I'm done with that number one fact we have shaken your tree majestically and now we're going to talk about we stay in the clearing, move away from the tree. Next we talk about alchemy and gold. Yeah, now, when you're at Purpose and in Flow as the Bristol Beer Factory, as Sam Burrows MD of this entity, what are you absolutely happiest?

Speaker 3:

doing in what you're here to reveal to the world. I suppose what I really love about my life and my role is every day is different. And then as we we talked about earlier, sort of seeing all the parts come together, bringing brew to give to life. And let me say this without carry, brew to give would not exist. You have these ideas and we have the. I'm in the position to make those ideas come to life, but I would have fudged the hell out of it. It would have been a disaster and I'm so thankful to carrie for coming on board, leaving some werebirds and coming to us to make that happen. What am I?

Speaker 2:

I'm leaving, I'm going, left off again no, no, this is purpose, absolutely yeah, so the purpose of that and, I suppose, the work we have done with and your part is getting the right team around you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's all about that and let's now segue deliciously with that segue into, uh, talking about clear head and talk club. So it's an extraordinary story and it is about men feeling safe in spaces in which they do feel safe. And I know that liam gallagher has also done a single which is called you're too good for giving up, which is to sort of lance the really significant boil, I suppose, of the incidence of young men's suicide. So you have partnered very overtly with Talk Club. Just tell us the story of how you got involved.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so Talk Club. So you wouldn't believe it right now, but a few years ago I used to train pretty regularly in the gym next door.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, I laugh too much. Thanks, pal, the gym next door and the sorry, I laughed too much.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, pal. Yeah, so the owner of the gym, uh guy called craig stevens, gave me a, gave me a call and said we've got this guy called ben acres who is one of the founders of talk club and he's looking for a space to run this men's uh talking and listening group, uh, in its basic form. Would you? He wants to talk to you. Are you happy to meet him, exchange numbers, et cetera, et cetera. So Ben came here. He told me about Talk Club and he was looking for venues to host his first Talk Club meeting. So I was initially rather skeptical and a little bit well, look, we're an alcohol brand, you're talking about men's mental fitness, men's mental health. So I had obvious reservations about it. And Ben I don't know if the loads of you who are lucky enough to met him he's the most incredible human, incredibly passionate and has just gone on the biggest journey with what Tall Club is and what it's become. But his words were to me if you've got to walk through a sterile sort of reception to go and see somebody to talk about your mental health, that is an incredibly difficult process. We all know. With anything, when you learn within yourself, it's those first steps are the hardest, and he is, and he was rightly so. Now, and it's so obvious, I need a space where men feel comfortable walking through the door. If those barriers are up, they're not going to come Although you know there'll be far few would come. So I need somewhere where anyone can walk into in a comfortable, safe environment, with a, with a private space where we can host these, um, these talk club events, uh, talk club meetings. So the first ever and I was one over immediately with him so the first ever talk club took place in the, in the room behind that shutter which is up. Um, I can't even remember how long ago it is. Steve's here. One of the community officers will probably tell me three, three, four years ago. Yeah, 2019, I think. Yeah, so it was one of those COVID moments.

Speaker 3:

So Talk Club started here. So it's sort of in our DNA and when you're a brand and when you're talking about stuff like that, there's a lot of greenwashing that goes in and lots of brands associate themselves or give money to and it's a lot of bollocks. Half of it. They're doing it to tick boxes. For us it's a real story and it's something that's very, very close to my heart and very close to our business and an amazing partner for us. So obviously our relationship built and we were helping talk club try and find more venues around bristol places with safe spaces, function rooms, areas where these uh, where the meetings could take place. And he was in my ear, in my ear. So obviously he wants to raise money. He was they were a cic at the time wanted to become a charity and it's all about fundraising for them and that's why it's become an integral part of our Brew to Give programme. So he was like we want to do an alcohol-free beer and I was like er no thanks.

Speaker 3:

No one drinks that it's all crap and not interested. And he is a very persistent man, ben Akers, and he kept coming back and kept coming back. And then there was a guy at Talk Club, neil very persistent man, ben Akers, and he kept coming back and kept coming back and they then it was the guys at Talk Club, neil, and these guys that created the name Clearhead, which is undoubtedly one of the great names of an alcohol-free beer, and eventually, sort of Tris and I, we were in lockdown so we had nothing to do. So Tris and I had Brewer and I started talking a bit more about it, talking as a team. We were a whole little bit.

Speaker 3:

There's a few reservations around whether where alcohol-free beer was and and we were very lucky that we got in first, or one of the first movers in it, especially within Bristol, um, and we threw about 35,000 liters of beer down the drain through, uh, through that process. It was so hard to make. We had to get in a bit of help to help us. We had to use a special technique to make it. We don't have the luxury of having de-alkalisers and make the alcohol strip it all out, and there it is. Job done. We had to brew it at 0.5%. It takes a lot of skill and it's something we've continuously adapted and working on and making that process better. And then, after 35,000 litres of throwing down the drain, we kind of went wow, actually that tastes like a beer. That's incredible.

Speaker 2:

That's a lovely equation for Speculate to accumulate 35,000 litres of waste equals success.

Speaker 3:

Thank God for R&D tax breaks, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's the next podcast.

Speaker 3:

So that was how Clearhead was born. It was a partnership with these incredible people across the Talk Club. Charity, yeah, and that was sort of born before Brew to Give came to fruition. So we give 5% of all the clear head sales directly back to Talk Club in cash. It goes to helping them grow Talk Clubs, helping them employ people within the community to help grow Talk Clubs.

Speaker 2:

Talking of growth from that Genesis point. I mean the stats were, and they could have even changed, because you corrected me before and said it was 2,000. It was 300,000. There are 3,500 men in talk clubs within 80 centres in the UK currently, of which they all started here, which is a thing to be incredibly proud of.

Speaker 3:

Oh 100%.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and you know it's quite mind-blowing and the guys will come to us and say tell us some really strong taglines. You know you're saving lives and you're all a bit well. You know that's a pretty broad statement to make. Yeah, and it takes a little bit of time to sink in that you know the work you are doing is directly helping people save their lives and keeping their mental scores up. You know it's all about how are you out of 10 with Talk Club. It's a great gauge asking for a number rather than how are you doing pal? Yeah, I'm all right, you know how are you out of 10?

Speaker 2:

Yes, sorry, you were about to ask the question.

Speaker 3:

And I think it came from working with children, because children couldn't, wouldn't be able to articulate to you how they really felt. So they would say you know well, how's your pain out of 10? Or, but now it's, how are you out of 10? So that's, you know, one man's eight is another man's five and that's fine. And the whole idea of the premise of Talk Club is keeping your scores up, inspiring people within your Talk Club's positivity and thinking of it like going to the gym for the brain, for the head, which is a really good way of looking at it. It's just part of your overall fitness package.

Speaker 2:

And a very, very authentic story, as you say, not just ticking boxes of association, the fact you've got a core alcohol-free. It's got a tiny bit, it's 0.5.

Speaker 3:

There's more alcohol in a ripe banana. Say that again. This is official there's more alcohol in a ripe banana, people.

Speaker 2:

It's official, there's more alcohol in a ripe banana. People, it's official. Just while doing a bit of a comedy foray, I googled you before we did tonight's show, and did you know that the first thing that comes up, apparently you've Paul, no Shut your face and I'll tell you. I googled you and apparently you've had three children with singer Jessie Ware. Oh Results yeah, done well. Extra bonus question what are the names of the children that you've had, please?

Speaker 3:

We don't know that's good.

Speaker 2:

Or you could have been a singer-songwriter Mad for it from South Manchester.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's me as well. Obviously, that's the older ego Then.

Speaker 2:

I go MD Bristol and then we're off basically, and then we're off basically, and you have, of your own volition, described yourself as being a very proud MD and, if I may say, that's coming across really, really clearly. Do you want to say anything else about Talk Club, or about the Liam Gallagher Association as well, because that was extraordinary when that?

Speaker 3:

happened too. I mean, yeah, I mean that was nothing to do with me.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, that's all Talk Club, and I suppose their story is inspiring to so many that people like liam gallagher and richard hammond and tyson fury and other people that have had very public troubled difficulties with their mental health are jumping on board because they see how important it is related yeah, so you know, for us, I suppose the other thing I want to talk about from a Bristol Beer Factory perspective is we do all this work with Brew2Give and our incredible team, the work we do with Clearhead, but it's also the work we're doing behind the scenes with sort of our impact as a business and our environmental impact. So that is something that we've warts and all sort of displayed and published recently, which is a big project that my colleague clem has worked on, and that's really about showing you know our impact to the environment as a brewer. And you'll see a lot of companies. There's three scopes to it.

Speaker 3:

I'm not completely knowledgeable about all these things, so if I get this wrong, I apologize, clem, but a lot, of, a lot of people will show just scope one and two or scoped two and three, whichever it may be, which actually makes a lot of business look really good. But when you look at your full supply chain from hop producers and we buy hops from australia, new zealand, north america, all over europe the same with some of the malts we use most of that is UK produced. But we have a big effect and that scope, whichever number it is, is the big big part of how we do that. So we're challenging our supply chain to do a better job. We're telling them what we're doing and what we're working on and how we can be a you know a better business, and how we can get to net zero without greenwashing and without telling a load of frank bollocks.

Speaker 2:

Um, so that's our journey frank bollocks is my next guest. Oh and some boy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I look forward to speaking to frank bollocks on the show. That's great.

Speaker 2:

So, yes, now we're going to talk, I'm going to give you a cake. Can I eat it? That's not cake, that's a fucking squirrel. So here's a cake. So, there you go, you get to put a cherry on the cake now, and this is stuff like what's your favourite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future.

Speaker 3:

Sam, I don't know where I heard it, but and I can't remember it.

Speaker 2:

Excellent.

Speaker 3:

Next question. I have no fucking idea, but I remembered it now. Don't you worry, it didn't take long, the fortune is pretty good.

Speaker 2:

I've just got to bring me and Gabe out of this.

Speaker 3:

So I love it and it's very simple. But it's hope is not a strategy, and I just hear too many people going I hope this works, I hope this does this and I hope this achieves this. That is not a strategy about how to get something done.

Speaker 2:

Because you're in the back room pouring 35,000 litres down the drain.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that's not like we're hoping that works, we're working towards it. There's a strategy behind it, and so, yeah, for me, hope is not a strategy.

Speaker 2:

Lovely quote and thank you for remembering it, even though you didn't at first.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I was remembering it earlier when you told me I had to say it.

Speaker 2:

Thank you Good research from both of us. Ok, what's the best piece of advice you've?

Speaker 3:

ever been given. Sam. Never say yes if you can't do it, and I think that was a bit of. I started out in the sales world and to be successful in the sales world, nearly every salesperson I know. When asked a question from a potential customer or a customer, can you do this? They go yeah and then can't deliver. No follow-through, yeah, and so I've always never be afraid to say no. Never say yes when you can't do it.

Speaker 2:

Never be afraid to say no and there's quite a good counterpoint to that other added, which is about if you're, if you're, asked to do something that you don't know how to do in life, say yes and work it out later.

Speaker 3:

That's a classic. That's a classic branson quote.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so no truck with that shit is what you're saying very good, okay.

Speaker 2:

So, um, we're going to ramp up to shakespeare shortly. Oh, I'm very knowledgeable on him. Very good, um, and we're just borrowing from the seven ages of man's speech all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely plays. We'll talk about legacy in a moment, but just before we get there, I think it's fallen on the floor. I've got to go behind the plasma screen to get something that fell over. Oh, that, this. This is the lovely moment which is called Pass the Golden Baton moment, please. So now you've experienced this show from within and the storytelling construct, who would you most like to pass the golden baton along to? Who would most enjoy being given a damn good listening to in this way? I?

Speaker 3:

think, because of what we're doing and what this show is about and about the communities that we're working with. I am going to pass this to carrie halford because brew together is such a special, special initiative that I believe can not just be about Bristol Beer Factory but be about loads of great light mining companies within this city pooling together to help the charities in this city do their job, which is so, unfortunately, necessary. So, I'm going to pass the community baton to Carrie.

Speaker 2:

And, at this moment, a round of applause for everything the Bristol Beer Factory are doing. And Carrie, thank you. Ok, so where can we find out? I'll get on to Shakespeare in a second, I'm just going to change the end of it slightly when can we find out all about? Because we're broadcasting live to the world as well. Where can we find out all about the wonderful? We're broadcasting live to the world as well. Where can we find out all about the wonderful work of the Bristol Beer Factory on the internet? On the line, no problem. On the line? What? No, just, where do we go if we're watching? It's not complicated. If people are watching, thinking I need to go to the URL. What's your website? Oh, that.

Speaker 3:

That's www. No, there's another W.

Speaker 2:

Oh God's sake, Is there W W W Whiskey with water?

Speaker 3:

Yes, yeah, bristolbeerfactorycouk. It wasn't complicated, was it? And there you will find all about Brew to Give, all about our impact report, all about our relationship with Clearhead and Talk Club and all about our wonderful, world-class beer range.

Speaker 2:

And you're a micro brewery and I was going to tell you no, we're not. No you're not Okay, apologies. I was going to make a segue into how your impact is micro and macro.

Speaker 2:

I was flyering up the street. Do you know that expression? Flyering up the street? I was badgering my neighbours with. You ought to come to this show. It's got free beer and everything. And Sonia and John, who are my neighbours, just to make it really specific came dashing out when I'd given them the flyer and said Bristol Beer Factory are fantastic. Our school's just got loads, loads new gym equipment because they gave us Clearhead for free. We sold it for £4 a tin and we've got loads of new equipment and that's just a really brilliant micro example.

Speaker 3:

I think that is just the. That is the premise of Brew2Give we're taking the can of beer for a pound and turn it into four and helping charities fundraise really, really efficiently and making the most. So just to tell you where Brew2Give is at the moment, he's fundraised really, really efficiently and making the most. So just to tell you where Brew2Give is at the moment, we're about 15 months into the project, a little bit longer now. We've raised over vested over £100,000, cleared over £300,000 of unreserved funds for over 150 different groups and charities and CICs across the city. So it's really starting to make sense. Yeah, 150 different groups and charities and CICs across the city.

Speaker 2:

So it's really exciting to me. And now we're going to talk about Shakespeare. All the world's esteemed and all the bed of women. I'm not going to do the whole good play. So, legacy, how, when all is said and done, at Sandburrows and the Bristol Beer Factory, would you most like to be remembered? Sorry?

Speaker 3:

about that. What's your legacy, dear? I mean, this is our legacy, isn't it? It's things like Brew to Give. It's about thinking we're not just a beer producer or an alcohol-free beer producer. We're a business within this city. This city has made us, and the administrations around the country can't support us, so it needs businesses like us other incredible companies across the country to pull together, work together and support ourselves, because without that, we're not really going to survive very well and it's about four simple things, which I saw on your website too people, beer service, community, bish bash, bish Bosch.

Speaker 2:

yeah, they're the four pillars. Wonderful, ladies and gentlemen, a huge round of applause for Sam Burrows and the Best of the FF Actors. And now, because it's live and we have the opportunity to do this, because you've got a pulse and everything, you're a live audience. This is now an opportunity to throw a question brick around the room. It's very, very soft, so you might get twatted in the head, but it won't matter. So what questions might you have for Sam, having listened to the show? Lovely, it's right at the back there, which is very convenient, so I'm going to just hurl it. Don't worry, look to catch it, mind your beer and mind your head. Can you pass it back? Wait, wait till it gets there wait, there's a microphone in it.

Speaker 2:

The microphone is in the in the brick. Just hold it in front of your face and in cornwall.

Speaker 3:

What was your rugby club? Let's go lou. Terrible team terrible team yeah, I'll go along lovely.

Speaker 2:

next question from anywhere in the audience. Yes, sir, when do you?

Speaker 3:

think your social awareness, social drive came from? Is that your parents, or rugby, or where? Probably the people I work with? And it's a really good question. And someone asked me that uh, who was I talking to last night? Um, lauren from Season and Taste, which are a restaurant go.

Speaker 3:

So where does this come from? I was, oh god, that's deep. Um, I don't want to go there. Um, yeah, it's the people I work with and the inspirational people around me, people that really give a shit and help drive you and push you in the right direction. It's not all about me steering a ship. It is about the inspiration I get from the people you work with when you work within your community and you meet people like Carriots and Weberg City Farm or people within our teams.

Speaker 3:

And we should look at this. And we looked at B Corp, looked at that sort of getting that accreditation and we sort of went through a bit of the process and we just, you know what, we'll just strip all the good bits out of this and we're going to lay it into our business and you know, and be better, be better employers, be better engaging with our communities and all these things. So I've always been incredibly open to it and I'm not gonna sort of I can't kind of really pinpoint it I've always, like I suppose, wanted to be generous. Maybe I just want to be liked, maybe it's just that deeply self-centered, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2:

But you know, hopefully we're, we're going in the right direction, we're doing all the right things it's a really good question, so I deflected that a little bit you very much strike me as a man in very much the right place at the right time, doing exactly the right job in the right city. Life's timing, isn't it? Next question Three is always good to have at least three questions. So has anybody else got a question humming inside your brain, pan?

Speaker 3:

What would you like your golf handicap to come down to? There he is. It's irrelevant as long as I beat you, jono, wonderful A failed diss there, jono Wonderful.

Speaker 2:

A failed diss there from Jono was that His handicap is obviously worse than yours. His handicap is golf. I can tell you the golfing joke at some point as well. Any other questions from the audience?

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

I think it's a lovely lady called Penny. Would you mind chucking it? Ben behind you there's a lady with her hand up.

Speaker 1:

Yes, Hello, great job, chris. Hi, nice to meet you, sam.

Speaker 3:

Thank you and you.

Speaker 1:

I'm speaking into it. You said earlier that mistakes are learning opportunities. What's been your biggest and costliest learning opportunity that you'd like to share with us all?

Speaker 3:

Sorry, can you say that again?

Speaker 1:

You said earlier that mistakes are just learning opportunities. What's been your costliest, perhaps most emotional learning opportunity that you'd like to share with us all? Or that you can share with us all.

Speaker 3:

I suppose that's an absolutely brilliant question. I haven't made any, I've just I've learned from other people's.

Speaker 2:

You can watch the shit that other people get into.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean some of them for sure. I suppose the learnings that have really helped me the most, especially in sort of the management of people, have been, as I said said I think I sort of alluded to when I worked for charles wells, wells and youngs I learned more not what to do than what to do and watching an organization that was a lot of jobs for the boys, um, people just being promoted into roles because they were mates and all that kind of stuff, and thought I'm never, ever going to do that. You know, look from within, create opportunity within the business when the timing's right. Bring fresh people in, because fresh impetus is always great, because you get a bit blinkered in in your own world. So, yeah, probably, just as I say, just crap management and learning what not to do, seeing what not to do to learn into what to do. Yeah, that's a great question, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Lovely answer too. Are there any more for any more? Yes, another question Would you like to throw the brick please? You're doing very well with brick throwing, thank you, put that on your CV.

Speaker 4:

Hi, I'm from Redc, red catch community garden, one of the community organizations that you support. Thank you very much, um. My question is what would you say to other ceos or mds of other corporates to get them to feel what you feel to support other community organizations?

Speaker 3:

well, I think, with the, with our sort of dreams of and Carrie and I talk about Brew2Give and its future. I think you know we're the sort of we've gone ahead and we've built this and we're building a platform and now that we can kind of show people that it's not only the right thing to do, but it's actually good business at the same time. So I think people always will always be fearful. So we give two percent of our turnovers. That's how. That's how we create our budget for the previous year. So last year we did five million pounds, so our budget was a hundred thousand. Um, and that's us. You know, this is a volatile industry and committing that is a commitment and you've got to stand your ground when you make a commitment like that and that 2% will remain and that is how we will define the future of Brew2Give.

Speaker 3:

But what we want from what I want and hopefully Carrie feels the same is that we can create that platform where fundraising is quite simple. It's about bringing people together, uh, over the things that we all love to create, to drive and create money for the charities that we're working with. So if we can get so, as an alcohol brand we can't hit everybody. You know we can't really work with faith groups where alcohol doesn't work. We can't work with homeless charities. We can't work with children's charities. We'll support them, but that'll be through cash. But we can't turn up with cans of beer and bottles of beer and and do all that which you know usually involves a good time and people spend wisely. So what I would, what I would love to see brood to give involved, how that evolves is then like-minded companies. See the, what it's done for us and what we're doing within our communities, within the city raising that bar, raising communities, which is what brood to give is all about. And it doesn't have to be two percent of your turnover, but it's like using as I've sort of arced on it about the currency. But if you were a faith group in the city and we're not your bag I want Brew2Give to be able to provide the tea, the cake, the coffee, the soft drinks that you need Because, as I said, it's about bringing people together.

Speaker 3:

So we want to be able to show that and elaborate that and carry works relentlessly with better business groups and networking and what and our journey and why we're publishing it so much and what we're doing and and talking about it and we're very transparent, and we, you know it's very key that we're very transparent, so that is how we are going to inspire other like-minded businesses to join in. My dream is to prove, to give producers a million pounds of unreserved funds back to the communities of our city. We won't be able to do that ourselves unless things go stratospheric, which I hope they do. If we can do it, all great, but we will need some support along the way, and we need that support along the way because we want a greater reach. We want to be able to get to the communities that don't particularly fit our bill as a brand that we are and the business that we are.

Speaker 2:

Lovely answer. Thank you very much. Any more questions? Yes, sir, can you throw the brick behind you? Thank you very much. Any more questions? Yes, sir, can you throw the brick behind you. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you so much for the questions that have come in.

Speaker 3:

The question is who thinks up the names for your beer, and is it the person's sole job? Now that Mr Lyons is a very interesting talking point in our office, I'd like to do it actually.

Speaker 3:

The naming of beers. As I said, we make somewhere in the region of roughly around 40 beers a year, 30, 40 beers a year, which a lot of those are new. I used to do it all, but that was a long time ago. The gentleman who sat at the back there, clem, who tells me I'm an insomniac's dream, is mainly responsible for 99% out of the back there. Clem, who tells me I'm an insomniac's dream, is mainly responsible for 99% of the names.

Speaker 3:

There are a few that we all sort of hold tight to, that we're our own. And now it's got to the point if you suggest a name, he won't use it Because it's all about Clem. So Clem does nearly all of our naming. And I tell you what. It's a seriously hard job when you're producing that many different beers. If you look back at our back catalogue which I wish we could sell to Virgin for a load of money there are a lot, a lot of names in there some absolute beauties and you'll know that Clem's turned megalomaniac when there's a brand that comes out just simply called Clem.

Speaker 3:

I mean, that will never happen.

Speaker 2:

I think that was clear so yeah, he's a man. He's right there, johnny any more for any more. That's sort of beginning to feel like the right amount of questions. Thank you very much indeed. Just a final question for from me, for you, sam, and as this has been your moment in the sunshine in the construct of the good listening to show, is there anything else that you'd liked me to have asked you, or is there anything else you'd like to say?

Speaker 3:

no, I think we're. You know, I think it was really important for for this opportunity to chat to you guys. In fact, I want to say thank you all for coming really on a wet Tuesday night. I really appreciate it. But that you know, for you to get a little bit from the horse's mouth, a little bit about how Talk Club was born, what we stand for as a company, what we're trying to achieve as a business and our responsibilities and to achieve as a business and our responsibilities and how we want to help our city, and I hope we've got that across. And when you're in a bar somewhere and there's three or four different beers to choose, know that 2% of that is going back and you are making a difference. Yes, so thank you again. Wonderful, thank you.

Speaker 2:

And it just remains for me to say thank you so much sincerely, for me too, personally, for being an immediate, early first adopter of the Best of Bristol Bristol Voices series, joined to the Good Listening To Show. It's been an absolute joy and privilege speaking to you. Check out the goodlistingtoshowcom website. As a slightly personal point, I'd like to dedicate this show this evening to my father, who very sadly died a month ago, on April the 19th, one of the series strands within the show, of which there are seven different series strands. One of them is called Legacy Life Reflections and about three years ago, just before my father dipped into a crater of declining health, I'm delighted and thrilled that I actually got him in the halcyon days of his 80s and he was my first guinea pig for the series drama which is called Legacy Life Reflections, which is where you can record the story of somebody near, clear or close to you for posterity using the structure of this show. So I'd like to dedicate this show this evening to my father, colin Grimes, and, if you've been watching on the various interweb channels YouTube, facebook, linkedin and and and thank you so much for taking the time to be here as well, and, ladies and gentlemen, please give a huge round of applause for the wonderment that is Mr Sam Burrows. To the bar, to the bar, and there's some theme tune music as we play the show out.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to the Good Listening To Show with me, chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how care of the series strands at the goodlistening2showcom website, and one of these series strands is called Brand Strand Founder Stories For business owners like you to be able to tell your company story, talk about your purpose and amplify your brand company story. Talk about your purpose and amplify your brand. Together we get into the who, the what, the how, the why you do what you do and then, crucially, we find out exactly where we can come and find you to work with you and to book your services. Tune in next week for more stories from the Clearing and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts.