Fifi La Beer Bus pt2

So the first part of Ffi’s journey began on Friday 26th March, when she was picked up and transported the 2 odd miles down the road to Terry’s Beetle Services, where all the part’s had been shipped in from Germany. The list of work was quite extensive, with a fair few brand new panels required, as we were way past patching with fabricated metal work. And I have no doubt that when the guys start cutting back the metal, they will find more little bits that require doing, that will all mount up. But the original list was as follows.

N/S wheel arch tub (under seat)
O/S wheel arch tub (under seat)
Complete cab floor
N/S Wheel arch complete
O/S Wheel arch complete
N/S Battery tray
N/S Rear of wheel arch (inner)
O/S Rear of wheel arch (inner)
O/S Front lower wheel arch
N/S Behind of front seat
O/S Behind of front seat
O/S Inner sill
O/S outer sill
O/S chassis rail repart
Inner front valance
Panel rear of cargo floor
N/S seat belt mount (on wheel over tub)

N/S - means near side, which is the side nearest the pavement, so the passenger side.

O/S - means off side, and is essentially the drivers side.

As soon as she arrived, she was up on the lift, and the guys got stuck in with their cutters. Cutting back all the bad metal, cleaning it up and preparing for the new panels. You can see from the pictures below that cutting out the bad metal often just exposes more.

So much of the front end needs to be replaced, they couldn’t do it all in one go. If they did, there would be no support, and the whole front end would buckle. So they are cutting back a bit, welding on new metal to add strength, then moving on and cutting out the next bit. Now lucky enough for me, but potentially not the guys doing the work, i live about 10 minutes walk from the garage. I also don’t have masses to do on my days. So I have been making a nuisance of my self and dropping by every couple of days to document what’s happening, and try to prepare myself for any nasty surprises. So far we have been lucky, and discovered just a few break lines that could do with being replaced. We have also decided to move the external oil filter and chiller to a more efficient location. I had installed these myself at the side of the road with little access. But seeing them so clearly, after walking around underneath, it was obviously not my best work.

Unfortunately, with the Easter weekend, they have only really had 4 full days to get stuck in, so not that much has been done. But they have been making some good progress, when not stopping to talk to me. The original estimate was about 10 working days, of which we loose 2 this weekend. So I am hoping to get her back from Wednesday 14th April, but have the time and patience for that to go over. This gives us time to plan the interior, order supplies, and start building. Which we plan to do ourselves, so save a bit of cash. It also gives the samples we have requested to arrive. We need a lot of vinyl for the upholstery, so need to make sure we are getting the right colours and thickness etc.

The main part of this interior fit out will be how we deal with the back of the van, or the camper part. We do not plan on using the van for camping. We want a van we can drive to festivals, and serve beer in an interesting and comfortable way. So we want to make the back space of the van into a sort of bar booth, with a U type seat. The picture below is a rough idea of what we want to do, but as you can see, there is not actually that much space.

One thing we do plan to do, to make better use of space, is the front seat conversion. And I thank Martin Bellamy who’s van i have taken inspiration from, and continue to use pictures of his set up as an example. We currently have a couple of standard, if extremely worn out, front seats. If we decided to keep these, we would need to spend some time and effort sorting these out. So we decided to scrap them, and try to reclaim some of the space back. These 2 front seats will be converted to a single, long, bench seat, that can seat 3 people relatively comfortability. But the beauty of the bench seat, is that it can be designed so it can be used for seating in the back when the van is stationary, therefore ‘reclaiming’ about 30% more space.

To do this, we first need to remove the 2 bulkheads that sit behind each of the 2 seats. In some vans, this is a single bulkhead going the full width of the van. But ours is a ‘walk through’ version, so there are 2 with a gap. Now what ever set up you have, these bulkheads will be giving a certain amount of structural support. As ours was a walk through, they offer less than the single panel, with the van being reinforced in other places to compensate. But we plan to totally remove these panels, so will be loosing some structural integrity, especially side impact protection. So we wont be removing them completely, and will be adding strength were possible. We may also install a metal pole that connects each side of the van while driving, which can be removed when parked.

But why are we putting so much effort into removing these bulkhead panels? Well, we will be installing a funky little bracket to the front bench seat back rest than enables us to flip it over. This means that when driving, the back rest is in it’s rear position and makes a forward facing seat, but when we park up we can flip it over towards the front of the van, meaning the seats are now facing into the back of the van. These were popular in the original early split screen vans, but fell out of favour. We have spent some time trying to find some bench seats that we can either afford, or cheaper ones we can convert. This has proven difficult, because to have them used in both positions they need to be a lot deeper than standard. So we are going to need to make them ourselves. Which means we are currently researching the best materials for safety and comfort, especially on long journeys.

So that’s where we currently are. Loads of research, and starting to order in materials while we wait on the cutting and welding. But we want to make sure everything fits as well as it can, and we are not really that pushed fro time, so we are going to wait until we have the van back before starting on the interior. That way we can measure and confirm before we start cutting anything. We are also searching the internet for inspiration on the smaller details. But we will go into that another time.

Fifi La Beer Bus pt1

Those of you familiar with myself, or those who have frequented the brewery for open days or to buy beer, are also likely familiar with the van that has been parked in various positions outside our different units on Boston Business Park. Well, this is Fifi La Bus, my 1968 VW camper van, which I have owned for many years now. About 3 years ago she was due an MOT, and I just did not have the money to get her through. Add to this the fact that I was so rarely driving her, it just didn’t seem worth it. And there she has sat ever since, moving occasionally as the landlords have commented, or we have tried to incorporate her into events. But at no point in the time has she moved under her own steam.

Every time I walked passed my heart broke a little more. I used to tap her in a friendly way, and whisper “Hey Fifi, not long now girl”. But it soon became clear that this was a lie, so it happened less frequently. And for the last year or so, she has just served as a sad reminder of better times. How things have changed over the last year. And how I have been thinking about the old girl. First off, we opened our on-line shop, and offered free local delivery. But local delivery is not always walking distance, especially with 4 cases of beer under your arms. We have week days covered, but Steve out sales guy, and recently promoted local delivery drive, does deserve his weekends off. So I try to step in and do these deliveries on Saturdays. I started doing these on a very illegal electric scooter, for which I got lots of positive feedback about as I ride past people. But again, I was limited to what I could carry. I've also got a front puncture, and these are a nightmare to fix. So I found myself hiring a car to fulfil these orders. But for this to be economically viable, we have to have a decent volume of orders. It soon became clear that it would be good if I had my own vehicle again.

I remember the heady days back in 2013 when we first opened the brewery, and I would often do London deliveries in my van. I always got so much interest, and such a great response from customers. So it got me thinking that it would be well worth trying to relive that. Which then led me on to think that it would be good to have the brewery branding, in a tasteful way, all over her. That way she becomes something of a mobile billboard. But then, well, my brain went off on one and the ideas flowed. More on that a little later, as I am digressing.

Another thing that got me thinking about getting her going again, and to flip back to the start, one of the reasons I stopped using her. Along with the financial side of driving a classic vehicle, there is the time it consumes. I am a very hands on person, as I used to be an engineer. I am also tight, so do not like to spend money paying someone to do something that I should be able to do myself. Also along the being tight, a lot of the fixes for the van were just sticking plasters, which always needed more attention down the line. This meant owning a classic VW was a time consuming hobby as much as just owning a vehicle. Now this was fine in my previous job, when I essentially worked week on week off. But as the brewery grew, my time and personal finances were quickly consumed. And unsurprisingly, as previously mentioned, this all dried up. But I have a lot more time on my hands right now. We are obviously selling a lot less beer than we would like, which means we are brewing a lot less. We are also sending our beers off site to be canned, as we don't don't currently have the funds for in house canning equipment. Filling a large vessel for shipping is a lot quicker than thousands of mini bottle shaped vessels. I have been in charge of, amongst other things, production in the brewery since the start. In the past we have had a team, but this has shrunk over time as we made things more efficient. But as production time is now at an all time low, we have taken advantage of furlough. This means I do now have more time on my hands, going from being in the brewery pretty much every day to check on something, to sometimes not at all. Meaning I can get stuck into a good project.

So the time is now, or potentially never to get the old girl (she is 53) back on the road. I am no spring chicken myself at forty mumble mumble. Now I am pretty much out of practice, so would not trust myself with any of the more in-depth safety orientated stuff that needs doing, like structural welding etc. But luckily, we have one of the best VW specialist garages just under 2 miles from the brewery, who just happens to have a massive gap in his schedule. So the plan was to drop it off with Luke at Terry's Beetle Services for a once over, so we know how bad things really are. Well, things are pretty bad. A lot of welding is needed to get her through an MOT. She is exempt from MOT, as she is so old, but safety dictates to us that she needs one anyway. It was decided that while Luke and his team had her up on their lift, it was be quicker, and ultimately cheaper (due to the quality of the work), that they would do all this welding. Then once she has passed her medical (MOT), we will take her on and make her our own.

How are we going to make her our own? Well, to start with, she will not be getting a full on paint job. These can run into thousands of pounds, which we just don’t have. The paint she does have is about 15-20 years old. This means she already has a nice 'well used', worn', 'Ratlook', which we feel is a great look for the brewery. So once we get her back, in a road worth state, we will spend some time painting and merging the new panels into the original paint job. Another reason for not spending thousands on a new paint job is that fact that she is going to be a bit of a work horse, like what she was designed for. We need to not be afraid to use her, and not be face with a huge bill if someone else damages her.

Next will be to get the branding right. We will have Weird Beard Brew Co. written in large letters across both sides, obviously, with some social media details smaller. We will have some kind of mural on the very front to give her some attitude, and something for all the people passing us on the roads to look at in their rear view mirror. So we will have one of our tell tale skulls very prominent on the front. And while we are at it, we may as well get something on the back too. But most people will be speeding passed that anyway. Now we have some decisions to make here. We can either get some large sticker decals printed, which will have that instant impact and visibility, along with ease of application and updatable. Or, we go with a faded old fashioned look, which will go with the overall look of the van. This options will take more time, care and money, but will be a lot more subtle, which kind of goes against what we are looking for.

Potential branding

Then we have the windows. She is a camper van as opposed to a panel van, meaning she has windows all the way round. And these windows are also prime real estate for branding, but they also do need to be usable as windows, we do need to see all those cars, motorbikes, and pushbikes passing us. So do we go with stickers on the windows that will impact visibility but fade in the sun, or do we make some really good curtains, that have these skulls or other branding on.

Now it is the interior that is where we foresee most of our time and efforts being spent. We do have the classic interior, with rock & Roll bed, sink, cupboards etc, but that has never really served my purposes, even when I was camping. So we have stripped out everything and plan to start again. But before we start filling the space, we will need to insulate for sound and temperature. There really is nothing worse than driving a noisy VW bus rattling down the motorway with the stereo super loud to get over the road noise. Well, maybe sleeping a cold badly insulated van is.

We will keep a bed, as we may need to sleep in her at events in the future. And we will need storage. But we want to focus our attention on serving beer, and making her usable at events. Add to that, we may need to ferry people around, so need seating. So what we are planning on doing here is occupying the bulk of the back with a large U shaped booth style seating plan. The driver and passenger seat will be replaced with a long bench seat that is reversible, so when parked up, will be facing backwards, into the van. There will then be another long bench seat towards the rear of the van, facing towards the front. So now we have space for 4 people, 2 each side facing each other. It is worth mentioning at this point, that there is a large sliding door on one side, the passenger side, of the van. The next step is to add another long bench seat, this one will be facing out towards the sliding door. This now gives us a nice booth for people to sit in, we just need to add a table in the middle. For usability, we can make the seat at the very rear of the van a rock & roll bed, which is just like as sofa bed, meaning it opens up to make a double bed. The seats that were facing the sliding door will also be rotatable, so when we are driving, and the front seats are now facing the front, these side seats can now act as 2 more seats, but facing towards the back, as no one wants to be sideways in a moving van. It also makes supplying seat belts to all usable driving seats a lot easier. This means we should be able to carry, along with the driver, up to 6 people.

Possible inside cushion colours.

We will be making, and upholstering all these seats ourselves, and are planning on going with a red and green striped pattern based on my favourite 80s horror film character. Also green is one of the brewery branding colours. All exposed panels or wood work will be covered in our own can labels. This gives us the opportunity to update it on a day to day bases when we have new releases. We will also need to build in some useful, well designed storage into the back, possibly including a fridge.

This is not going to be cheap, so we are hoping to get some money to fund this from the crowd funding campaign we are running. One of the paid rewards is the chance to get your name written somewhere on the van. We are yet to decide where this will be, and I guess it is kind of dependant on how many people buy this option. We could potentially have all the names on the back of the van, on a panel on the inside of the van, around the bottom of all the windows. There are many options, and we would welcome any feedback. But let me take this opportunity to encourage you to all 'buy' your spot, for just £15. And I am pretty sure you will get a beer from me if we ever cross paths at a festival we are pouring at.

We are also going to need a sound system. We are known for our love of music, especially heavy music. So we need a good sound system that can be played loud when needed, but also good enough quality to be clear at lower levels. All of this will need powering, and we can't always rely on mains power getting to the van in a muddy field. So we will have several large batteries built in, with efficient solar panels to charge them.

These are all decisions that we will be making as we go, and will be very much dependant on finances. But we plan to write at least a blog post each week, to keep anyone interested updated on progress. Also so we have it recorded for future reference,

Weird Beard Needs Your Help

Take your mind back to the halcyon days of 2013. Donald Trump was just a reality TV show star, Boris Johnson was just a Mayor and Corona was just a Mexican Beer. This was the world into which Weird Beard Brew Co was born. We were one of a handful of London Breweries, and one of just a handful of UK Breweries brewing modern, hop forward beers. By and large, the world made sense and it was for all intents and purposes our oyster. We brewed great beers, sold them to great customers and they were drunk by great people. Easy. 

Before all this madness started, we sold to bars, bottle shops, and the odd walk in customer who braved the journey to the brewery. Every two or so months we would have an open day, which was great for the books due to direct to customer sales, along with being a great and memorable day out for both staff and customers. We've not had an open day in well over a year now. And with pubs pretty much closed this whole time, our cask and keg sales simply died. To start with, we couldn't even sell to bottle shops. This did improved over time as various restrictions where lifted, but we are no where near pre COVID sales. Far too much beer had gone down the drain, which is essentially pouring money down the plug hole, money we can't recoup on the disposable kegs and beer itself.

We quickly got an online shop up and running, and shifted our transition to cans into a higher gear. This has helped us keep our heads above water, or at least close enough to the surface to take a well needed breathe now and then. But we are not quite making enough each week to cover costs, and the debts are mounting.

We are not the only people struggling. Our trade customers are also in dire straits. We know it's not just us pouring beer down the drain. We know our trade customers have little money to throw around. So it breaks our hearts to have to chase them. But the more lenient we are, the deeper in the hole we get. We also have to factor in that a lot of these businesses may not survive, and we will not see a certain percentage of what is owed to us. So it makes sense for us to be as lenient as we can, to help our customers stay afloat. And hopefully when we are close to normal, these guys will remember our help.

Cash flow is the life blood of a small business. A perfectly viable, asset rich business can fail if the cash is not flowing. To brew beer we have to buy ingredients, usually on 30 day credit terms. The beer itself can take 30 days before it can leave us. Then we often give 30 days credit terms to our trade customers, which more often than not is just the day we start chasing payment. If a customer does not pay us on time, but we need to buy ingredients up front, the arteries get blocked. We do thank our suppliers who have showed us some leniency on this.

Through all of this our local customers have been amazing. They have supported us where they can. And we like to think that we have helped them through difficult times with a mostly same day free delivery service. But people do need to realise there really is no such thing as free delivery. Someone always pays. We are now, to an extant, in competition every other brewery in the country. All hoping to get a few of your valuable pounds. But you can see the squeeze. You can see the free delivery freeholds decreasing. You can see more and more discount codes. More offers. The beer is not getting any cheaper to produce, package safely or to deliver. The breweries are absorbing all these costs. Trying to temp just a few more sales. A business can make more money if you make a little on a high volume of orders. So you have to cut the cost the buyer sees, and hope the gamble pays off. If you, as a customer have a discount code, try not to use it. We use them to try and tempt in new customers. If you know us and like our beer, and you can afford it, please pay what it is worth. That way it's more likely to still be there after lockdown mark 8.

When this is all over, and that is looking so temptingly close, we want to jump right back in. Hire a new head brewer, move towards getting our own canning line, look into opening a tap room on site, and convert our 1968 VW camper van into a mobile bar. We have so much ambitious drive in us, so much great beer to share, and so many good cans in our cold store. But with this drip drip effect of running at a slight loss, each week for so long, we are going to struggle to keep it going. So many of our suppliers will be frustrated with chasing us for the little money we have, some of them have started asking for payment up front. No credit means we first need to spend money to then make it back. Remembering a beer can take anything from 3 to 6 weeks, sometimes more, from the day you order ingredients to the day you can sell.

Covid specific cash flow issues

As mentioned, we do not currently have a tap room. We open up every so often for open days, which are events. We supply the hospitality and leisure industry, so when they suffer we suffer. But we are NOT classed as hospitality. That means we get none of the associated benefits and grants. We have seen a massive decrease in money coming in, but our outgoings have barely shifted.

• Full rent & service charges.

• Full business rates - No business rates relief due to 3 units.

• No grants due to not being hospitality.

• No VAT reductions due to us not counting as hospitality, just a holiday, which is now over.

What are we doing to help ourselves?

We have not just sat back and complained though. For a full year we have been working as hard as we can to make the numbers work. First off, as mentioned, it took us just a weeks to get an online shop up and running. There were teething problems, and a financial outlay, but we go there. This on line, direct to customer approach has accounted for 80% of all our sales over the last year. We do sell the beer at a higher price direct to customers than we do to trade, but there is more work and cost involved. The individual beers need to be picked, and packed. The boxes we ship in need to be of a higher quality. All the payments we receive have a little bit taken by the supplier of that service. And lastly, we heavily subsidise postage, and absorb the costs of any loss or damaged items.

We went into the first lockdown with 5 sales & production staff. Now just 1 person full time and 2 part time when needed, furloughed when not. Hell, During this first lockdown we couldn't furlough some staff due to no part time furlough. This meant we either had to let people go, or find things to keep people working, while paying full salaries. A lot of money was spent to pay staff for work that did not need to happen, just so we didn’t have to let them go. The new part time rules have helped massively, but I feel guilty glancing at emails on my phone, thinking how many hours I have or haven't worked. As with everything at the moment, it is unclear how long this will last.

In our first few years we grew and expanded. Outgrowing our original unit, and slowly expanding into 3. We are now trying to bring this down to 2 units to save on rent & rates. This is not ideal, and involves certain compromises. But this isn’t as easy as just handing the keys back, there are costs involved. For example, the unit needs to be returned to how it was originally let out, which means we have to, just to start with, remove a giant cold store. So to save this money, we first need to spend money, that we don't have.

We received bounce back loans, which help us massively. It meant we could shift a lot of small debts, that were potentially harming our suppliers, to one HUGE debt. But lets be clear, they are just that, DEBT. These potentially need to have repayments starting very soon. Even if this is extended, this is still money we have to pay back, and now needs to be included in our business plan, essentially meaning price rises.

We have always tried to get a good amount of our beer into cask, as we love to drink cask ourselves. This means we had a huge number of rented casks. We have sent most of our rented casks back, so we can save on rental. But there are costs incurred there too, eh removing our branding. So even to save money in the long run, we lose now. This also compromises out position when things do re open, as we now can not supply as much cask.

The first, and most important way to help your local brewery are.

Crowd funding as been a last resort to us, hence why we are only launching now. And we would much rather keep the cash flowing in the traditional ways. We realise that not everyone has spare money to give away. So if you want to help a brewery that you do enjoy, there are a number of simple things you can do.

• Buy beer direct. It’s as simple as that. Support your favourite brewery by buying from their website. No one really wants handouts, We want to make beer that you guys enjoy. So buy beer as a gift, or enjoy yourself.

• If you have a discount code, try not to use it. We use them to tempt in new customers. If you know us and like our beer, and you can afford it, pay what it is worth. That way it's more likely to still be there after lockdown mark 8. If discounts are auto added at checkout, and you can, cancel the discount.

• If you can, pay full postage. There is no such thing as free delivery, someone has to pay. If you are paying less than £9 for your beer delivery, you can bet they brewery is paying for it out of their pocket.

What else can you do to help us out?

If you are in a position to go a little further though, we've put together a number of rewards to entice you to pledge. Most of these rewards will be delivered/redeemed later in the year.

• £10 donation for our never ending thanks.

• £15 donation and you will get your name immortalised* on a special dedicated panel (or window) on our beer bus.

• £25 will get you a limited edition 660ml bottle of Barrel Aged Gaslight the Electorate.

• £30 will get you a limited edition Weird Beard supporters T-Shirt.

• £40 for a 'bottomless glass*' at one of our future Brewery Open Days!

• £50 will get you a £60 'discount code' to be used on our webshop later in the year.

• £60 will get you the limited edition 660ml bottle of BA Gaslight the Electorate (above) along with a special T-Shirt and a 330ml can of Gaslight the Electorate.

• £250 will get a hand picked selection of our beer (worth at least £50) delivered each month for the next 6 months.

• £300 will you get you a limited edition, Stirling silver Holy Hoppin' Hell Ring.

• £475 will get a hand picked selection of our beer (worth at least £50) delivered each month for the next 12 months.

• £2000 will allow you and up to 4 friends to help us design a beer from scratch and come along and help brew it (and drink it afterwards)! This is an experience you and your friends will remember for a long time.

If you can help out, we encourage you to check out our Pay It Forward page.

What is the end game?

When this is all over, we want to jump right back in. We plan to restore our 1968 VW camper van (Fifi La Bus) to create a new delivery van and mobile bar for events. This saves us money renting and moves events outside where they are safer. We also intend to hire a new head brewer, over the next year, to bring a fresh perspective to what we do. Move towards getting our own canning line, giving us way more flexibility as to what we put into small pack and when, while also saving us a bit of money. Then eventually opening up our very own tap room, either on site or in a new separate location. We have so much ambitious drive in us, so much great beer to share, and so many great beers in our cold store.