#04 Reviews
“Without criticism there would be no improvements”
by Geoffroy Birtz
With our combined experience in architecture and design of almost two decades, we were unfortunate to have very little exposure to the business, finance and marketing side of things, let alone starting our own business. So before we started putting our products on shelves and running a full-on business, we first had to make sure we received as many honest reviews as possible and learn as much as we can from those who have already made it in the business.
We are really fortunate to be surrounded by so many of the best brewers in the country, who were willing to try our box of samples and have kindly provided loads of useful feedback! Working in the design field has also given us the advantage of having friends with a keen eye for design and the willingness to critique and improve our branding. We definitely felt that we needed that assurance to keep doing what we love and provide a product that will soon be loved by others too.
The overall feedback was really positive and the process itself had taught us so much.
By packaging and labelling the beers by hand we soon realised there was so much wastage involved! Not only from the continuous supply of cardboard boxes but also that our bin was left filled with rolls of non-recyclable glossy paper from the back of our sticky labels! We were quick to decide this was not going to be our approach going forward and we were soon inspired by the Belgian brewers approach and revisited our bottle labeling method. We also had to address the need for bolder branding and colours to create a more distinctive brand, something to stand us out from the crowd, something eye-catching.
As we expected, “Namenlos” the oatmeal milk stout was rated as the most favourable beer from our range, which is also our very own personal favourite. This is followed by the “Dry Wit in a Wet Country”, an easy drinking witbier inspired by the classic Belgian style beer. We revisited our pale ale, “Electrical Storm” to give it a more distinct hop aroma by hopping later in the boil and reducing the temperature of our hop stand to avoid boiling off the precious hop oils! We tried a few new approaches to the Rye IPA also, following feedback, to make the beer clearer and increase the hop aroma/flavour. The change in yeast to a higher flocculation strain helped keep the clarity and changes to the hop stand and dry hopping helped retain hop aroma.