Interview - David Aynesworth & Steve Blizzard

Name:	David Aynesworth and Steve Blizzard
Age:	60 and 48
Job:	Directors of Wharfedale Brewery
Date of interview:	11 Feb 2004

Do you live in Skipton?
No, we both live in Hartlington, near Burnsall.

Family here?
David: Yes, my family's been in Wharfedale for the last 40 years. Steve: Well, I'm from Baltimore, Maryland originally. This has been my home for fifteen years now.

What school did you go to?
David: Leeds Grammar School and the Royal Argicultural College. Steve: St Pauls School for Boys in Baltimore.

Do you have a favourite pub in Skipton?
All of them. In this business, we love all pubs.

What changes have you seen in the town over the years?
David: Tremendous changes in the town, since I've stopped working there - I used to work in Skipton. Back then, you could literally park anywhere, there were no traffic lights, the only thing there was was a belisha beacon outside Manby's shop. So the amount of traffic, the parking has just changed out of all recognition. You could arrive anytime in the morning, and you could just park anywhere on the setts, outside wherever you wanted to. Thats been a big change.
The Dales has been stripped of jobs. I can remember when every village used to have a mill. Grassington, Burnsall, Skyreholme, Embsay - they all had sizeable mills. Then in the 50's and 60's cheap imports knocked those on the head, so those jobs went. The planners at that stage, whenever they went, they become empty, they wanted them turning into houses, or knocking down and having houses built on the site. So there were no jobs being replaced. Every culture's been shedding jobs like mad, because of mechanisation and other reasons, and then suddenly Foot and Mouth hits, and you can see there's been no jobs replaced - there's been a bit of tourism, but that's seasonal, and Foot and Mouth really has shown that, has made everyone aware of it, so now this sort of thing is happening. The winds of change. 10 or 20 years ago this never would have happened. We wouldn't have stood a cat in hell's chance of doing this.

	The best thing? - To watch people drink a pint of our beer then come back for another one. Same again, please.

Describe your job in 5 words
Best served beer in the Dales.

Do you love your job?
Oh yes. Its every mans dream.

How long have you been doing it?
We were dreaming this up for 4 years, but we've been in production now for 5 months.

How did you get into it in the first place?
Steve: My wife said I couldn't have any more cars. I needed to spend more time at home. So I turned one of the Follies that I have into a mini-brewery.

What's your typical working day like?
I can be doing anything: helping Sam deliver, talking to distributors, answering mail, writing letters, interviewing and hiring people. Its amazing how many people want to come visit and look around a brewery. Because it's a small brewery, people like the way that you can see the whole process right in front of your eyes.

Whats the best thing about you job?
To watch people drink a pint of our beer then come back for another one. Same again, please.

What's the worst thing about your job?
Not every pub in the country sells our beer. Yet.

What's the strangest / most outrageous thing that's happened to you in this job?
Meeting some of the characters that work in the supply side of the brewery business. The biggest coincidence we've had in all this was having an article appear in the Craven Herald saying we were fermenting this idea, then we got a phone call from one Adam Witek (now our master brewer), saying he'd like to be involved. That was tremendous. Another thing that happened was way back before we'd started in production we had a publicity shoot going on for this brewery that didn't yet exist, and on the strength of that Customs and Excise came round and raided my house thinking that we'd been producing beer without paying for a license. They were very serious.

What do you see happening in the future, in your business?
David: We're going to expand into different sorts of beers, we'll be producing wheat beers, other beers like that, mainly in bottles. We want to increase the output of this place, but we dont see ourselves becoming an enormous brewery. We want to stay a quality specialist beer local producer. Steve: We supply the best served beer in the Dales. We'll be developing relations with publicans, relationships with distributors, expanding out into Ilkley, Otley, up towards the Lakes, and then we have the bottle market, too, as David says. Making sure our name gets out there. But not to supermarkets. We'll never sell to supermarkets. Also water - because we have some of the best water here in the Dales. Bottle the water.

What effect does the internet have on you at the moment?
We have our own website. It keeps merchandise collectors at bay. People come along searching for new breweries and merchandise, and we can clearly mark that we have none. Listing and linking to our stockists provides re-inforcement, so as people come look at us, they also can see the Tempest Arms, the Devonshire Arms - it's reciprocity, for the supplier, we're also helping them advertise.

How do you see this changing in the future?
In terms of wet sales, what's happening is that people are ordering, whether it's wine, beer, whatever, it's direct they're ordering it, and so we see it as we get larger and as our customers get larger, they're ordering their stock live, on the internet. An order supply system - that comes within the next 12 months. Small business to small business.

Do you have a favourite website?
Our own: www.follyale.com and the Broughton Hall one: www.broughtonhall.co.uk I use that one quite a lot for work.

What are your hobbies? How do you relax?
David: What's relaxation? I think we do the opposite to relaxing. I like restoring vintage machinery, I'm restoring an old east coast sailing cobble at the moment. So there's one of those in Hartlington at the moment, being rebuilt. Restoration. I can't do with sitting about. Steve: Phases, in my life, like David I like restoring cars, we became friends through the restoration of old cars, I have a Model-T Ford truck, used to have a Bentley. I switched over to producing ale when my wife said I couldn't have any more cars. And now for relaxation, I chase women.

What issue is close to your heart?
Employment in the Dales.

If we gave you £5 million right now what would you do with it?
Steve: I honestly can't think of a use for £5 million right now, because we're living a dream here - I dont think it would change anything. Wouldn't make a jot of difference. David: Certainly wouldn't move anywhere else.

Do you have anything you want to plug / publicise?
Two things: We're very much about employment in Skipton, so the Skipton Building Society - www.skipton.co.uk. The other thing is CAMRA - www.camra.org.uk/ - they've created the awareness that real ale is a better substitute than lager. They provide the environment which helps make us successful. Traditional ales were disappearing left right and centre. Do not underestimate what CAMRA has done, and is continuing to do.