Enthusiasm on tap for Arundel Brewery’s new owners

The past six months have been a steep but very exciting learning curve for the Walker family, who have bought Arundel Brewery.

Samantha Walker and her brother-in-law Neil’s feet have hardly touched the ground, as they got to grips with preserving the traditional values of this long-established, award-winning local brewery, while giving it a more contemporary edge.

The Walkers have embraced the company’s mantra, ‘great local beer produced by great local people’ and are also determined to stay very much part of the Arundel community. Samantha’s first action was to join the Chamber of Trade, closely followed by taking a stall at the monthly farmers’ market.

Now they have underlined that commitment by becoming the main sponsor of the 2013 Arundel Festival and in the very near future, bottles of their Sussex Gold beer will be appearing with stylish new labels, with a special limited edition planned for release during the festival.

This rebranding, which will also apply to the Arundel Special Bitter, is a bid to attract more younger fans.

“We want to do keep the existing customer base, but also to take advantage of the growing interest among younger people in the craft beer movement – there’s an increasing desire for locally-produced, quality beers,” said Samantha, whose focus is on the marketing and brand growth side of the business, based on Ford airfield.

The brewery supplies draught beers all over West Sussex and also has a range of bottled beers, selling well in supermarkets locally, and in off-licences and restaurants.

Neil has been kept busy learning every aspect of the brewery, while former managing director Jeremy Owen, who has been involved since it was set up more than 20 years ago, has retained a small share and still takes an active interest in its progress, concentrating on the technical side.

“When we took over, there was an extremely good existing team who have tremendous loyalty to the business and we have kept all of them,” said Samantha.

“It was very important to us to have some continuity.

“he only change has been in the ownership and I like to think we are moving ahead by giving everyone who works for us a new focus and real commitment to seeing it grow over the next few years.”