03.07.2020
Fyne Folk – Malcolm Downie, Head Brewer
Fyne Folk is a new series of blogs introducing our team members and talking to them about their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. As we welcome more of our team back in the glen, we want to share their stories from lockdown, how they’ve been coping and what their hopes are for a post-pandemic brewery and world.
We’re kicking off with head brewer, Malcolm Downie. Malc will be a familiar, friendly face to many who have visited Fyne Ales over the years, or followed us for a while – he’s the smiling leader of our brew team and creative force behind many of our beers. Malc is one of a handful of our team who has continued working at the brewery all the way through lockdown, adding online order processing, deliveries and much, much more to his responsibilities working within a smaller team.
It’s been almost fifteen weeks since we closed the Brewery Tap & Shop and the start of lockdown, how have things been?
Fifteen weeks is a crazy amount of time – over a quarter of the year, and we’re not out of it yet. If I had to summarise the period, I’d say it’s been lonely, both personally and at work.
There were days at the start where there were only two of us here at the brewery and going from working with a decent sized team every day to just the two of us was a real culture shock.
And then you add in all the uncertainty around what the virus was going to mean for us as a brewery in the long term, the first few weeks were really tough on us, as I’m sure they were on everyone, really. No one knew what to expect.
We saw a positive response on our online shop very quickly after lockdown announcements, so that was what you were mostly working on?
The support we’ve had through the online shop has been lifesaving for the brewery, and sanity saving for me. I’ve never been someone who finds relaxing very easy – I like to be busy, I like to be working, and I’m not sure how I would have coped with spending all day every day at home.
On the other side of it, we saw a big jump in online shop sales right at the start of lockdown and we thought ‘okay, people are panic-buying, it’s not sustainable’ but until last week the orders kept coming at a really good pace, along with lots of messages of support, which was really heartwarming.
How have things changed since the early days of lockdown?
We’re a lot more organised now, we had to change the way we worked very quickly and it took a little while to get everything straight, but we’ve worked hard and things are running a good bit smoother.
In terms of what we do, I know the team have worked hard to try new things and keep momentum behind the online shop – we did the NHS pint donations, venison boxes, FyneFest at Home, and the Mini-Cask Club – trying lots of new things to keep us in people’s minds and our beers in their hands while they couldn’t go to the pub.
I think the Mini-Cask Club is going to be a very good thing for the brewery going forward – it’s the first of its kind and it’s something we’ve been talking about for quite a while, so it was good to have the time and energy to make it a reality and launch it so successfully.
We’ve recently been bringing members of the team back to the brewery as they’re needed, and it’s been great to have more people around the place again, and we should be open to the public again soon, which will be another big milestone.
Oh, and the traffic’s much worse now. My drive to work was a lot easier at the start of lockdown.
How have you been using your personal time in lockdown? Have you been doing anything different?
Gardening, mostly. It’s not something I was particularly interested in before all this, but I’ve really taken to it. At the start we had a jungle and now we’ve actually got a garden.
We’ve some really nice fruit trees that have given us some fruit, or would have if the birds and squirrels hadn’t eaten it all.
And what have you been drinking?
We did a trial batch of Fyne Lager in mini-kegs before all this started and it’s a really nice drinking beer, so I’ve been taking one of them home regularly – they’ve been really popular, as all our mini-casks and kegs have been.
I’ve been ordering online from friends breweries too – got a big order in from Magic Rock, another from DEYA and most recently Arbor. It’s been nice to drink beers I wouldn’t normally try – just getting a mixed case and exploring different styles, and nice to know it’s supporting other folk who are in the same position as us.
What have you missed most while locked down?
I’ve been missing my family, who I haven’t been able to see as they’re up in Aberdeen – I’m looking forward to going to see them this weekend now the travel guidance has been lifted.
And I’ve really missed my fencing – I get little reminders on Facebook of tournaments that I did in previous years and it makes me sad. I like to keep active and I’ve just been trying to play it safe with all activities, so it’ll be good when we can get started up again properly.
What are your hopes for the future as things start to get back to a version of normal?
It seems like a lot of folk saw the pubs reopening as a sign things were starting to get back to normal – we saw a dip in online shop orders as soon as the UK government announced the opening date for English pubs.
I can’t blame people for wanting to get back out, but at the same time, it’s not going to be the same as it was before. I hope people are sensible, because a second lockdown as it was before would be devastating in so many ways.
The volume of beer we’ve sent out to pubs in the last ten days is miniscule compared to this time of year normally, so I also hope that those who have bought our beers from our online shop in the last few months will continue to order from us, hopefully people who have been drinking our bottles, cans and mini-casks know how good the packaged beer is and help us keep going a little while longer.
Anything else you’d like to share about your lockdown experience?
Just a huge thank you to everyone for their support – I don’t think any of us at the brewery expected such a huge amount from so far and wide, for so long.
It’s not been easy, and it’s not going to be for a good while yet, but it feels like there’s a little glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, and if people keep supporting us the way they have so far, we’ll get through this.