Episode 4 The Farm Fixer

Small, family farms are in trouble.

This hasn't seen any action for a while, has it?

Business consultant Nick Hewer is going back to his Northern Irish roots

to help them diversify

and make radical changes before they go under.

What can you do with 17 acres?

But are the farmers ready for his advice?

I'm not a farming guru with all the answers.

But having observed many companies over more than 40 years,

what I can offer is a great, big dollop of common sense.

This series follows local farms

embarking on a long-term fight for survival.

-You're not turning bookings down, are you?

-There'll be tough decisions...

That source will pump for ever and a day, and they're going to sell it?

But doing nothing is not an option.

End of a long day, and for me, a depressing day.

Nick is on his way to a 30-acre farm

in Derrygonnelly near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh.

For Gordon Fallis and his wife Rowena,

there is no better place to be.

This is just the best place to bring up a family.

I grew up as a child here myself, and hopefully I'll be able to pass that on to my children.

The problem is, Gordon is struggling to make the farm pay.

Right now, they're living off the agricultural grants

for land management, and Rowena's part-time work as a healthcare professional.

But it's not enough to keep the farm going,

a farm that has been in Gordon's family for generations.

The land is fairly marginal. I think you'd be hard-pushed to make a viable living

for yourself and your family from 30 acres in Fermanagh.

The plan is to build a microbrewery.

If Gordon can sell 500 litres of beer a week, the farm will survive.

Nick Hewer has been called in to help.

Gordon Fallis has a small 30-acre farm,

but he needs to diversify. His hobby?

Brewing. He makes a few bob at it,

but now he needs to turn it into a serious business.

And that's my concern,

because turning a hobby into a profitable business

requires a great deal more than simple, raw passion.

Nick has eight months to help Gordon set up his beer business

and save the farm.

Good morning, Gordon. How are you? I'm Nick. How are you?

-How's it going?

-Hello.

-This is Rowena, my wife.

My background's really an academic background in environmental science.

I'm by no stretch of the imagination a businessman.

-Who have we got here?

-This is young Tom.

And this is Catherine.

-Hello, Catherine.

-Hello.

Nick's first job is to look around.

It's a chance for his dog Jasmine to get some exercise.

For Nick, it's a chance to get an understanding

of what needs to be achieved to save the farm.

So your interest in this farming is what?

Because you're not farming in any traditional sense, are you?

Not really in a commercial sense.

-My main interest is to manage this land for conservation.

-Yeah.

Not a profitable sort of enterprise.

No, it may be a noble sort of cause.

Noble, but you've got to put food on the table, too.

That's right.

Aware the family farm was unsustainable,

two years ago, Gordon got a brewing licence.

He's been supplying a few bars and a local restaurant

with a range of beers called Inishmacsaint.

Nick is about to get his first taste.

So this is the alchemist's den, is it?

This is it. This is the mad scientist laboratory here.

This is a microbrewery.

Well, no, this is actually what I would term a "nanobrewery".

I'm looking forward to a little sip.

-Take a smell first. Give it a swirl and see.

-Yeah.

-It's quite dark.

-It is. That's a porter.

-It's called a porter.

-Right.

It's like a light version of a stout, really. Can you smell it?

Should be getting sort of caramel, roast coffee notes.

This beer has only just finished its fermentation.

It's what we'd term a very green beer. It wouldn't be ready to sell yet.

It's all right. I like it.

Oh, right. What's all this, then? You're not in the scrap metal business, as well, are you?

To buy a microbrewery of this size off the shelf would really be prohibitive in terms of cost for us,

so we've had to go back to the drawing board

and take a different approach.

What we've come up with is to buy old dairy equipment from farms in the local area,

which have stopped dairying because they're too small.

That's the way to do it. Good for you.

When you've bolted this sort of Heath Robinson affair together,

what sort of maximum volume would you get in terms of bottles per week?

Per brew, we'd be able to produce 500 litres of beer,

which would translate into 1,000 bottles.

There's potential to run that three times a week,

which would translate into 3,000 bottles a week.

However, that would be at the very maximum end of capacity at the moment.

3,000 bottles tells me that's not a big microbrewery.

What I want to get out of this is a living for myself

and enable me to do my farming activities at the same time.

I don't want to become the next Guinness or a millionaire, really.

You don't?

No. I'm very blessed to be living on a farm here,

and it is a lifestyle choice that I've made

and I like the idea of a cottage-sized brewery on the farm.

I haven't run into many people like you.

Most people are driving for the most they can possibly...

They can't help themselves, they've got to keep growing.

But you've said, "No, that's not what I'm about."

In more than 40 years in business,

my observation is that businessmen must keep growing,

introducing new products, new services.

Do you think Henry Ford said to himself one day,

"Actually, I mustn't make any more cars. I'm making too many already"?

No! It's in their stomach that they've got to keep growing.

But here we have somebody, Gordon Fallis,

the last thing he wants to do, he said to me,

is to make a million. Now there's a turn up for the books.

Before Nick presents his plan, he's keen to get a look at some finished beer.

There is none on the farm,

but he has tracked a bottle of lager down to a local golf club.

That tastes great. But here's a problem.

The bottled beer market's a crowded marketplace.

This little chap is going to have to fight

for its place on the shelf behind the bar.

The standout values of this bottle,

I would give...five out of 100.

It's nowhere near good enough.

Enough to kill it, frankly.

The time has come for Nick to give Gordon his verdict.

The beer might taste OK,

but if it's going to save the farm,

then there's some serious work to do.

Thank you, Gordon.

You're a very unusual character.

Frankly, you're the first businessman I've ever met

who's horrified at the idea that you might be successful.

In a way, Gordon, your product and you have got the same problem.

You're both starting from scratch, pretty much.

This little bottle here has got to fight for its share on the shelf,

and it's up against a crowded marketplace.

Everybody's on that shelf, all saying, "Buy me."

And this doesn't say, "Buy me." This says, "Bury me."

It looks as though it's something from the funeral industry.

I think what we were trying to achieve with labelling and branding we have at the minute

is a cottage industry-type feel product, which isn't out there in the marketplace.

Most bottled beers you see nowadays

are very corporate, shiny-labelled.

We wanted this to convey the impression that it is made on a farm, by a farmer,

even to the point where the label's been stuck on by somebody.

Fine. OK?

Give that message to a good designer and they'll give you that.

But what they'll give you will be something that you can actually read.

The product's good.

It just needs to be recognised as being good by more than just me.

The name Inishmacsaint comes from a monastic settlement near the farm.

The monks brewed beer for personal consumption.

Nick has bigger plans.

He's hoping a panel of experts will help him to convince Gordon

to raise his game.

Neil Lynas is involved in drinks marketing.

Oliver Hughes runs bars all over the world.

And Adrian Saunders is from CAMRA,

an organisation that champions small, independent brewers.

Nick wants to launch Inishmacsaint at CAMRA's Belfast Beer Festival

in a couple of months.

The fact that it is unfiltered and slightly cloudy,

I just wonder how his customers are perceiving this,

because they are so used to crystal-clear beer.

The growing popularity of wheat beers has conditioned people,

to a certain extent, to drinking a cloudy beer.

I think the benefits of taste far outweigh the cosmetic value of a clear beer.

That's a good lager, by the way.

I would be a little bit worried in the sense that

lager drinkers are usually the least discerning of all beer drinkers.

It's very much a mass market.

What about the packaging? That really is your area, I think.

This is your shop window.

I just wonder, does it give the customer

the overall standout from the crowd,

which is a very cluttered place?

I just noticed in your living room a picture with a lot of colour.

-If I could go and get that, bring it back to you and let you see it?

-Yes.

Meanwhile, you're in the states now, you're in China.

Yeah, we were in China for Shanghai Expo.

We opened a bar in New York six months ago.

New York is a fascinating beer market.

I don't think Gordon has got the States in his sights.

My initial plan was to concentrate on the local market here.

We've established a presence, there's a demand for it there.

If we can start small and spread outwards.

It's not difficult, these guys are experts in their field.

They bring beers in from all over the world.

I just happened to spot this earlier.

It is, for me, something with the mystical Irish cross,

the backdrop of Fermanagh.

-Maybe the colour, and the use of this, on the bottle...

-Ah-ha.

..could bring a different dimension.

Can I ask a terrible question?

Is it too long as a name?

No... I wasn't sure at first. It's really grown on me.

-I'm afraid the name's non-negotiable, Nick.

-OK, hands up. Sorry... Hands up.

Is there room, say, in the British market, in the English market, for the beer like Inishmacsaint?

A good quality beer, you know, will sell anywhere.

We'd be delighted to launch your beer in the States,

put it in there and get a bit a publicity around it, you know.

Get a bit of life into it.

It might be a good thing. That went really well.

Three experts liked everything about it.

They liked the product.

They loved the imagery on the big poster, which may be translated onto the label itself.

They liked Gordon. They liked everything about it.

The possibilities, they say, are endless.

Let's just get Gordon on board and I think we could have a runaway success.

Nick might have left amidst talk of New York

but as winter sets in, the realities of building a brewery, and of running a farm,

have sent Gordon crashing back to earth.

We do a lot of coppicing of hedges

and the season has really just opened.

I'm doing a bit of that at the minute, too, and that's quite time-consuming.

I've also got to try and make a few quid for myself doing other jobs, as well.

I've really a lot on my plate here, and it's quite hard to juggle all those things

and try and make everything successful.

With the Belfast Beer Festival only a month away,

Nick has phoned to check on plans for the launch.

How is it looking?

Well, unfortunately, we won't be bringing anything to the festival this year.

-You're not going to make it?

-No, no, no.

I think our priority is to try and get the plant installed here

and get some production up and running.

There's no way you can make the festival, it's a month away, or so, at least.

We could've possibly got some beer out for it,

but I'd prefer to concentrate on getting the brewery running, instead of putting in something substandard,

-which would be counter-productive.

-Oh dear, that is a disappointment.

I really thought that was going to be a sort of launch pad for you.

That's gone by the wayside.

I want to offer you a challenge too.

-Remember we talked about the labelling?

-Yes, yes.

What I want you to do is, you carry on in your own direction.

That's fine.

But what I am going to do, is go away and redesign the label at my end

and then we'll stick them on bottles

and we're going to see what the public thinks of your design and my design.

-OK.

-If I'm wrong, and you win, then I'll buy you a pint.

Today is the Belfast Beer Festival.

Beers from across Ireland and Great Britain have come to compete for prizes.

Sadly, Gordon has disappointed Nick by failing to get Inishmacsaint ready in time.

A lot of the local breweries are showcasing their products here,

as well as a lot of beers from across the water and from the south of Ireland.

We're really looking forward to trying a bit of the competition here

and seeing what's going on.

The festival will also give Gordon a chance to look at branding ahead of Nick's label challenge.

There's parts of this I like and parts I'm not as keen on.

It's got a quirky, funny name with an image to go with it.

This is an example of a bit of branding I wouldn't be that keen on.

If Nick's is something like this, I'd be disappointed.

I think it doesn't really appeal to the modern market.

The competition to design new labels has begun.

Nick is working with Mike McKee at Loop Design.

They already work with a few microbreweries and know the local market well.

That's a customer who we have. That seems to be working very well.

He's now supplying the likes of Sainsbury's and Tesco's. Yeah.

Gordon's using his friend, Julian Brown.

Julian's day job is designing products, not packaging,

but Gordon's convinced he'll come up with the goods.

I want this to be sold as Fermanagh beer, a monastic brewing tradition, that's gone back 1,000 years.

I think we've really got to tap into that.

That I can't read.

-That was an off the wall one.

-I think so. Were you smoking strange tobacco when you did this?

I like the simplicity and starkness of that two-tone label,

which is quite similar to our old label.

-Maybe we should just go back to the old label.

-Maybe we should.

We've got to produce something that's quite difficult to achieve.

We've got to produce a branding, a label,

that has a strong local look and content

and yet is also clearly highly professional and full of quality.

If Gordon, in his second run at this, comes up with something

that meets those challenges, then I'll be delighted for him.

Frankly, I want Mike and me to win. We like winning.

It's Friday night in Belfast and, at one of its busiest pubs, battle is about to commence.

-Gordon, this is what I've been up to.

-This is what I've been up to.

Right, let's have a look.

-There are parts that I like, yes.

-Right...

You nearly gave me a heart attack!

That's very funny.

Where's the real stuff? Let's have a look.

All right. I tell you, this is a lot better than the first show.

-I'm not saying it's better than ours.

-Yeah.

-That's one big improvement.

Anyway, listen, let's see what the market says.

Let's see what the public says. Let's do a survey.

I think, this one here.

I like that one because it looks more traditional. This one just looks more like a beer.

That one looks more manufactured. I think that one's the most attractive.

The current score is 2 to 1 to myself and Julian.

Nick's got a bit of catching up to do.

I'd go for this one.

You'd go for that one, the more traditional.

I think this is trying to be too clever

and I think for people of my age, it looks very dated.

I think I'd be attracted to that one. It looks modern and new.

A man of your age? Well, you've got to keep going.

-I prefer that one.

-OK, that is...

You think that's got a bit of quality to it?

-That says craft beer on it.

-Yeah.

So, therefore, that looks like a craft beer.

If there's any justice in the world, there's your winner.

After a busy night, the results are in.

Gordon is about to get a glimpse of his future.

-Your design.

-Mm-hm.

-Mike's design with a little bit of briefing from me.

-Yeah.

-We have taken a very scientific approach to this.

-Right.

We have gone to the people and the people have spoken.

The people say, or 60% of them of the 50 we surveyed say,

Mike pips you at the post.

We win. You owe me a pint.

We've got the name, we've got the brand.

We've got the labelling, all right?

-Maybe it can be taken a little bit more.

-Yeah.

-The next stage is production.

-Yes.

When are we actually going to be tasting some beer? Pretty soon, I hope.

It's time to fill some bottles with beer.

It's now winter in Fermanagh.

With Christmas around the corner, Nick is back in Enniskillen, searching the pubs and off-licences.

He's hoping to find some of Gordon's beer.

15 days to Christmas and there's not a bottle or keg

of Inishmacsaint in the town of Enniskillen.

What a shame! What a missed opportunity.

It's four months since Nick came to help save the farm,

but Gordon's new microbrewery has yet to produce any beer.

Not everything's connected up, when you reckon the first brew will be?

Firstly, things haven't gone as quickly as I'd hoped.

-Not in time for Christmas?

-They never do.

We've missed on the Christmas market but I'd rather get things right

and learn how to use the brewery properly and produce a good beer first before we rush anything out.

I think that would be counter-productive.

My first beer took over a year to perfect.

I need to be 100% happy with my product before I put it in front of anybody.

Where's the label in all this?

It really is quite an important decision in terms of selling the beer.

I wasn't entirely happy with the survey we did in Belfast.

I took the liberty of putting the two examples of the labels on our Facebook page.

You old fox, Gordon! What have you done?

All I did was ask people to vote on which one they preferred.

I don't like the sound of this.

We had a sample size of roughly the same as what we had in the pub, verging on 50.

Unfortunately, 85% of those people

were in favour of the label that Julian and myself designed.

The demographic, I guess, is unlikely to be as balanced as in the pub.

Facebook people, I'm not complaining, I'm not criticising,

would tend to be the younger people.

Anyway, that's not really the point. The point is that you've got to go with something that you like,

-then you can get really behind it.

-Yeah.

I don't think Gordon Fallis does things he doesn't want to do anyway.

That's probably a fair assessment.

When you're good and ready, when the labelling's done,

when the branding's done and you're happy, we're going to launch it.

Not just here locally but we are going to take it to a bigger audience.

-Is that a deal?

-That's a deal, yes.

-Brilliant. Well done. Good.

My visit here today has produced one disappointment

and that is, we are clearly going to miss the Christmas trade, a boom time for beer-drinking.

The second worry is that Gordon said, "Well my first beer took a year

"to bring up to the standard that I was satisfied with."

I hope he doesn't take as long with his second beer.

After a fraught two months of malfunctioning valves and broken chillers,

there's good news, the brewery has produced a test brew.

This is the very first bottles off the press.

So, it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Gordon's dad is here to share in the moment.

Excellent! Good to see that.

There was a few moments there, two weeks ago,

when I didn't think that would be happening any time soon.

So, it's good to see.

-Cheers!

-Cheers.

With the brewery finally working, the race is now on

to get everything in place for a March launch.

-That's well professional looking, isn't it?

-Yeah.

It's just such a world away from what we had before.

Professional labels will help, but Nick knows

the local Fermanagh market will never be big enough to save Gordon's farm.

The beer needs a UK-wide launch and Nick has found the perfect location.

-Hello.

-Hello, is that Gordon?

-It is, hi, Nick, how is it going?

Gordon, the good news is that I firmed up a venue

right in the heart of London's swinging Covent Garden for you.

The opinion-forming section of the London crowd

hang around Covent Garden and Soho.

It's such a great opportunity, Gordon. Such a great opportunity, we can't miss it.

In a few days, Gordon's beer will be scrutinised by some of the UK's foremost beer critics and buyers.

This could take a while.

The next stage is up to him.

It's not really my thing, schmoozing and talking to people in London.

I'd far rather be in here making beer than doing that sort of thing

but, unfortunately, that's one of the things I'm going to have to start getting used to.

A little bit more selling and trying to market the stuff a bit more.

Hopefully it'll sell itself.

I certainly think that label's going to do us a lot of good in terms of selling it.

It's the day of the launch.

In a few hours, Fermanagh's first craft beer

will receive its world premiere at the Porterhouse in Covent Garden.

Gordon, and his wife, Rowena, have arrived early to help set up.

They're wonderful, aren't they?

This is where it's happening, at the minute, in terms of craft beer.

To have Inishmacsaint amongst all the other brilliant beers around here, would be great.

I'm just couldn't make up some of these packs for the launch.

-A beer, bit of info, a postcard and a beer mat.

-OK.

-You work away there.

Nick has invited top brewing industry experts, international trade press and buyers.

It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Gordon to sell and promote his beer.

Nick wants to make sure he is focused.

Of course this whole thing kicked off by finding another income stream for the farm, didn't it?

That's right. Ah-ha.

And, erm, I think you said you could do one brew a week, which is what, 1,000 bottles?

Yeah, you're right, yeah.

How many of those do you think you could sell into Fermanagh?

I'd like to think I could get rid of at least half of those in Fermanagh.

OK, 500, and trade price selling in, would you get £1.50 a bottle?

-I would like to get that and upwards.

-1,500 quid a week coming into the farm.

But within the structure that you've created, the brewery structure you've got now.

What's the maximum capacity?

With the purchase of a couple more tanks, which aren't a big expense,

we could increase that to 3,000.

-3,000 bottles?

-Yes.

What's that? 1,000 is 1,500...

-4,500 a week and it's an economy of scale, too.

-It is, yeah.

So don't think about the one brew a week, think about, wow,

if I can turn these people on, you know,

you could be working day and night.

-Can't wait!

-You look pale!

It's time to launch Inishmacsaint to the world.

In a couple of hours, Gordon will know

if he has created a product good enough to save the family farm.

Tonight, we're in the heart of London.

It's launching Inishmacsaint and here's the man behind it,

none other than Gordon Fallis.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hi, folks, I'm going to keep this brief

because I'm not a great man for public speaking.

I'd feel more at home in a field in Fermanagh, to be honest with you,

and we're a long way from the bog lands of West Fermanagh here tonight.

The idea of our beer, there's nothing complicated about it, it's all about the taste.

We don't fine it, we don't filter it, we don't pasteurise it,

it's beer as nature intended it should be.

It might be a bit hazy but that is the way beer should be drunk.

I'd just like to thank you all for coming tonight.

I've had great support from Rowena here and my family,

Nick has come along and given us some good advice about our branding and encouraged me

to get it out into the wider public realm.

I hope you enjoy the beer.

If you want to chat about it, come and have a word with me,

mingle, do what we do here in London, you know.

-Thanks again for coming, cheers.

-Well done.

It's a good pitch.

Over 100 new breweries opened in the UK in the last 12 months.

Has Gordon done enough to impress Nick's invited guests?

There are four, five microbreweries in Northern Ireland now.

How would you describe it to consumers though?

-I thought it was an IPA for its taste.

-A lot of people say that.

It's been a great day. I'm really pleased about it. What's pleased me most

is Gordon's attitude.

I've never seen him so fired up and enthusiastic.

The thing is, there's a great buzz here tonight. I'm really hopeful.

It's beer from Northern Ireland, which I know is pretty rare

because I've researched it.

It's really good to see a craft brewery from there

and it's good beer.

Is not a crazily flavoursome beer.

It's very drinkable, very quaffable.

I think the guys nailed it, it's got a nice, dry, hoppy finish.

It's pleasurable.

There's a debate with small breweries as to whether you want to be sessionable

or you want to be or you want to be distinctive. Distinctive stands out for the first pint

but you might not order the second one.

This one's just about on the cusp. You can imagine having a second glass of this.

He's nailed it, it's a great beer.

The critics are happy but what about the buyers?

Nick knows the Porterhouse would be a key London outlet. Will they place an order?

It's obviously led by the consumer.

There's 24 bottles in the case, the 24 hours in a day.

Say, ten cases a month, something like that.

That's a nice, gentle start for a fine beer.

So it's been a hell of a day, what's it like being a salesman?

It has. It's not something that comes naturally to me

but it certainly makes it easy when people are here that are passionate and enthusiastic about beer.

Exactly, that's the key thing with you.

You are passionate about beer, the taste of the beer.

You're also passionate about the brand, how it's made, what it stands for.

As long as you can keep those things to the forefront of your mind,

you got the beginnings, really, of quite a nice business here.

-They love the beer.

-That's great, yeah.

They like what it stands for, brilliant.

Thanks very much for your help, cheers.

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