Topsham Ales,,,,community support bear

Topsham Ales Co-operative members celebrate receiving their share certificates

The group contained people with many useful skills, a solicitor, someone with experience of planning, and someone with lots of experience of setting up co-ops.  The Topsham Ales Co-operative was then set up, its first committee was voted into place, a 3 year business plan was created which was circulated around everyone, and then the issue of membership was addressed.  The idea was that the project needed to raise £35,000 in order to get the business going, and would invite members who would each invest a minimum of £500, in return for which they would get one vote and an annual dividend (to be agreed by the members).  There was also an opportunity for people to become ‘Friends of Topsham Ales’ for a small fee, in return for which they receive regular updates on the project’s The Topsham Ales Co-operative was then set up, its first committee was voted into place, a 3 year business plan was created which was circulated around everyone, and then the issue of membership was addressed.  The idea was that the project needed to raise £35,000 in order to get the business going, and would invite members who would each invest a minimum of £500, in return for which they would get one vote and an annual dividend (to be agreed by the members).  There was also an opportunity for people to become ‘Friends of Topsham Ales’ for a small fee, in return for which they receive regular updates on the project’s progress.
Within 2 months, and with very little marketing other that word-of-mouth, all the £37,000 of shares were sold to 56 members, and there was a waiting list of people wanting shares.  Much of the work done to get the brewery established was done by volunteers, but some professional work was paid for with shares.
The building work was done on the brewery space, the equipment was purchased, the barrels were purchased and the first attempts at brewing were undertaken.  At the time of writing, the brewery is still refining its brewing, ready for a launch in February 2011.  It plans to sell through 3 Topsham pubs, and a couple in Exeter, as well as, in time, producing bottled beers.  It will produce 3 main beers and some one-offs, and is getting ‘Topsham Ales’ pint glasses produced.  They are keen that the beer be a celebration of Topsham, what they term “drinking the view”, and have done a lot of research into local history when designing the names of the beers.  I asked Mark Hodgson, one of the founders of Topsham Ales, for his tips for other groups wanting to create a similar project.

• Involve the community as much and as early as you can: generate enthusiasm and show that it is possible, keep it moving forward and keep people informed
• Create a good business plan: send it round the group for comments, get expert help and try to get the business model right, always over-estimate and plan for the unexpected (for example, they planned for the first 3 months of operation to not produce any drinkable beer!)
• Be different and exciting!: don’t be shy of saying it will be local, it will be community-owned, it will be co-operative….

Topsham Ales sees itself as the opportunity to model localisation in practice.  It gives its spent yeast to a local baker, its spent hops are fed to local pigs, it will do its local deliveries by bicycle and trailer and it is sourcing an increasing amount of its hops from a grower in East Devon.