Rebellion Year Summary 2024
09 December 2024
Contents
- Beer & Awards
- Pubs & Other Trade Stockists
- Tap Yard
- Shop, Drive-Through & Home Delivery
- Membership Club
- Mini Barrels
- Social Nights
- New Partnerships
- Engineering Developments
- 2025 Plans
2024, a stormy year for everyone, with high interest rates and
inflation making life a bit more difficult. However, lots of good
things to talk about at the brewery. Here's an overview of some of
the highlights from this year at Rebellion...
Beers & Awards
This year has been another tough one in the brewing and
hospitality industry, with cask ale sales being particularly
affected. However, this has given us the exciting opportunity to
branch out into the world of craft beer.
Hazy Pale & Small Batch Success!
Hazy Pale, our 4.3% New England Pale Ale, started as one of our
small batch development beers, brewed just for our Tap Yard and
1ltr returnable bottle. With demand for a craft beer growing, we
released Hazy Pale as a full-time beer, with great success and
haven't looked back.
Available alongside our regular and monthly beer range, the
small batch beers are typically a more modern craft style, often
with more innovative flavour profiles. To meet growing demand, we
invested in two new 1000-liter tanks, allowing for more frequent
and larger-scale production of small-batch beers.
Highlights from the small batch range have been beers like the
raspberry and blackcurrant sour, dry-hopped lager, and
Mexican-style lager. Other notable releases included a Mince Pie
Porter, Lime and Coriander Gose and a White Milk Stout. Of course
we have exciting plans for next year, including a Coffee Breakfast
Stout, Maibock and Oaked Czech Pilsner.
If you don't think the craftier beers are for you, we encourage
you to please ask in the Tap Yard for a sample, if only to widen
your beer knowledge.
Our core business and passion still lie with traditional cask
ales but it's great to offer a wider range of products to cater for
the different tastes of drinkers. In fact, we've seen that many of
you are as happy to drink an extremely hoppy and opaque new England
pale ale, such as Hazy Pale, as you are a crystal-clear traditional
session bitter or genuine local craft lager. Not that we should be
surprised, this exactly mirrors our own drinking habits!
Beer Awards
It's been really satisfying to win gold medals for Hazy Pale in
both the International Beer Challenge and SIBA midlands beer
competition. It's reassuring to see that judges think it's as good
a beer as we do. The awards also show that we can turn our hand to
any beer style, either traditional or modern, and make a
best-in-class version. This is highlighted by picking up golds for
Lager, Black and Overthrow at the SIBA (The Society of Independent
Brewers and Associates) Midland's beer competition, with bronze for
Roasted Nuts as well. Hazy Pale, Lager and Black have all
progressed to the national final in February, so fingers crossed
for some more awards to come.
Barrel Aged Bottles
This year has also seen our first foray into special barrel-aged
bottle releases. We launched with the Belgian Quad in the summer
which was a fabulous beer and I'm looking forward to opening a
bottle at Christmas to go along with a cheese board. We've just
released the second barrel-aged beer, Three Threads, a 6% old ale,
750coming out in time for Christmas too and this is also tasting
spectacular (it will also be great with cheese!). Looking to 2025
we've already got the barrels full of an 8% Imperial Stout ready
for bottling sometime next year.
Bottled IPA!
IPA, our biggest selling and most well-known cask beer was
released in 500ml bottles this year. It's more carbonated than its
cask version but we are happy the core characteristics of the beer
have translated well into the new pack type. Unsurprisingly, it has
been a tremendously popular addition to the line-up. Better late
than never!
Pubs & Other Trade Stockists
Our focus continues to be local and only supply to pubs, clubs,
hotels and restaurants within a thirty-mile radius. In terms of the
wider marketplace, the global beer brands continue to place immense
pressure on smaller producers, and this is something we encounter
daily. Whether it's through tying in pubs to complicated deals with
equipment installs, squeezing the margins ever tighter, or cleverly
marketing mass-produced global brands as smaller independent ones,
it really is as important as ever to drink local.
In regard to supporting your local, SIBA (The Society of
Independent Brewers and Associates) has this year launched The
INDIE BEER campaign, promoting high-quality craft and cask beer
brewed by truly independent breweries across the UK. Their aim is
to increase awareness that by choosing independent beer, you're not
only enjoying great-tasting beer but also supporting local
businesses, pubs, and sustainable practices. We support this
campaign and hope you agree with the message. So next time you're
down the pub and your mate asks for a pint of Madri (owned by
Coors), Neck Oil (Beavertown owned by Heineken), Camden Helles or
Pale Ale (Camden Town Brewery owned by AB InBev) or even London
Pride (owned by Asahi) maybe encourage them to have a pint of
Rebellion Lager, Hazy Pale or IPA instead! More information can be
found at www.indiebeer.uk.
Hazy Pale in Trade
The feedback from our trade customers on the Hazy Pale release
has been overwhelmingly positive. Pubs and clubs that have stocked
the beer have sold nearly four times our initial weekly estimate of
1,000 pints during the summer. It's also become one of our
best-selling beers in our Tap Yard and Shop.
A Thriving Tap Yard
Our on-site bar continues to develop and grow in popularity,
attracting not only locals but those visiting Marlow from further
afield.
The beer has never been better, with all our beers tasting
incredibly fresh thanks to the quality of the beer and upkeep of
our bar by the Tap Yard team.
We've added an extra evening of street food; you can now enjoy a
bite to eat on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. We've had a fantastic
selection of food vendors, and the feedback has been great; we'll
keep mixing up the food so keep an eye out for what's coming.
You'll also notice an upgrade to the general aesthetic this year
with the addition of new lighting, plants plus improved furniture
and heating system making the space even more comfortable to relax
in.
In addition to beer, we now offer cocktails, wine, spirits, and
non-alcoholic beverages. Our coffee and cake offerings have also
become popular, making the Tap Yard a great spot for a morning or
afternoon break.
We've just completed a project to improve the surface water
drainage around the Tap Yard so customers shouldn't need to avoid
the occasional puddle that would appear after heavy rain.
We're very proud of the Tap Yard, since opening in the summer of
2021, it's turned into a very popular and exciting area of the
brewery; we can't imagine not having it. We'll continue to put
effort into constantly improving the space and what's on offer.
Please let us know if there's anything you think could improve
what we're doing or anything missing.
Shop, Drive-Through & Home Delivery
Our shop and drive-through remain popular choices for customers
to pick up their beers, merchandise, wine and artisan produce.
We're committed to continuously improve both areas. Additionally,
our free home delivery service continues to be a hit, with our team
delivering a remarkable 32,825 orders this year!
Membership Club
Our membership club continues to thrive, now with 4600 active
members. In addition to benefits of monthly social nights with free
guest passes and discounted beer across our shop, drive-through,
and online store, members now enjoy discounts in ourTap Yard bar.
We're committed to enhancing our membership program and plan to
carry out a full review in 2025.
Mini Barrels
In 2023 we introduced a new metal tap system for the 22 pint
mini barrels. This upgraded tap replaced the old black plastic
version which had become increasingly unreliable. Since their
release the reduction in reported issues has been significant. The
taps allow for a more controlled pour from the mini barrel and a
better beer for you.
The key to the new system is making sure the tap is fully
cantered on the barrel before engaging the tap, you can find
instructions here.
If you haven't seen a new tap yet, please stop by the shop for a
demonstration.
Social Nights
Our monthly social nights, both public and members have been
brilliant in 2024. Since restarting in 2022 after Covid, we've been
improving the nights in their new format.
We've added guided tastings, which are a great opportunity to
learn a bit about, and taste some of our beers. We've also expanded
our outside seating options.
Our kitchen continues to produce a great menu. With the help of
Chef Will Shaw and a new butcher, we've upgraded our food to offer
delicious burgers and sausages plus new 6oz steak rolls. Along with
the street food, the options for food are fantastic.
Thanks to the large, heated Tap Yard, you can enjoy the night
comfortably, no matter the weather.
We'll continue to develop each aspect of the night making them
better and better.
New Partnerships - WWFC & Old Town Hall
We launched two exciting partnerships this year.
In the summer we became the official drinks supplier of Wycombe
Wanderers FC, who are currently (as of writing this) top of League
1. It's been an excellent partnership so far, and we've really
enjoyed working with everyone from the club and catering team.
Fingers crossed that Wycombe's good run of fortune continues;
whispers of promotion are already afoot…C'mon you Chairboys!
We also collaborated with the Old Town Hall at The Wycombe Swan
to introduce "Live with Rebellion" music nights - showing off some
amazing musical talent in a great local venue, and now with great
beer too. If you like live music and good beers, might be worth a
look with events in the New Year…More info can be found
here.
Engineering Developments
Tank Cooling
A new temperature control system for our tanks was rolled out in
the Fermentation Area, replacing the old system which had been in
use for nearly 20 years and was presenting some maintenance
challenges. The new system provides a graphical display of
target and actual temperatures during fermentation, increasing our
beers overall quality and consistency.
Our Borehole
In 2023 we dug our borehole, accessing the water table to use
within the brewery. This year, we've increased the extraction to
about 50,000 litres per day. The additional water is treated
and used in the Fermentation Room for cleaning and flushing the
fermenters. Pipework has also been installed to transfer
borehole water to the Conditioning and Packaging Area, and this
will probably come in to use in the new year.
Plans for 2025!
Introducing the 2025
BeerRange
For our monthly range for 2025 were stepping back into ancient
Greece with beers named after Greek Mythology. You can look forward
to beers linked to Zeus, Hercules, Poseidon and Icarus amongst
others. The beers will vary from 3.4% to 4.7% and offer a variety
of character and flavour using hops new to us such Solero and
Talus.
New Website
After almost 12 years, we're getting a new website. I'm sure
those who've used the site will feel it could do with a refresh and
so do we. We'll be aiming for a modern, easy to use site that will
make finding information and buying our beer a pleasure plus a
membership app, giving members quick access to their card,
discounts, news and social night booking.
Shop Stairs Upgrade
Possibly our most significant news. Our "temporary" shop stairs,
constructed from scaffolding just 7 years ago will be replaced by a
new staircase, wide enough for more than one and a bit more
aesthetically pleasing.
So as another busy year of brewing and beer enjoying comes to
and we'd just like to say thankyou. We're very lucky to have you,
our amazingly supportive customers, both in retail and trade, your
support across the board really is very much appreciated.
Here's to a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a fantastic New
Year filled with good cheer and beer!
2024 in Numbers
Number of brews: 485
Pints produced: 4.2 Million Pints!
Pints sold in our tap yard: 113,070
Home deliveries made: 32,825
Full Time Staff: 60
Part Time Staff: 20 with more at Christmas
