Sponsored article: Staropramen
Capital venue has plenty in the tanks
By Dave Hunter
When Castle Leisure Group decided to transform its Edinburgh sports bar, Sportsters, into the high-concept beer palace, Brewhemia, it was far more than just a name change.
The massive project transformed the interior – and frontage – of the venue as well as completely redefining the offer inside.
Premium products became the focus, with a specialism in European-style tank beer.
The beer, transported in tankers from the brewery and stored in copper tanks, is unpasteurised and considered to be the freshest it can be anywhere outside of the brewery itself.
“As a category it’s not that common to find. And sometimes you have to educate the customer in terms of what they’re having,” Brewhemia general manager Daniel Wylie told SLTN on a recent trip to the venue.
“That process never stops, because it’s not really common to find tanks here. Some people still don’t believe that the tank on the bar actually has got beer in it.”
And the system is a little more complex than a standard keg and beer cellar setup.
In addition to being transported by tanker – and in the case of Czech beers that journey can be over a thousand miles – the unpasteurised nature of the liquid can mean a greater chance of dirty beer lines if they’re not properly maintained.
“The product needs a little bit more care and attention. You’ve got to keep those lines ferociously clean so they’re on a really tight schedule for cleaning,” explained Wylie.
While Brewhemia serves tank beer from a number of breweries, the biggest-seller is Czech beer Staropramen, and so Castle Leisure and Staropramen brand owner Molson Coors Beverage Company are celebrating that joint success with a year-long activation at Brewhemia.
The project has seen Staropramen become the first beer brand to take over the venue’s famous frontage, with an eye-catching display that features a working clock inspired by the Prague astronomical clock, which is linked to two (decorative) Staropramen tanks via copper pipes.
The installation – which directly faces the Market Street entrance to Waverley Station – will change throughout the year to match the seasons, incorporating references to occasions such as the Festival.
Inside, Brewhemia has installed a further four Staropramen tanks and the brand features prominently on materials including beer and drip mats.
It’s the latest in a series of partnerships between Brewhemia and select drinks brands that have involved a takeover of the venue’s frontage. But in Staropramen, the team has found arguably its most fitting partner yet as – in Wylie’s words – ‘tank beer is a huge part of what we do’.
Wylie said the best brand partnerships – particularly those involving the venue’s frontage – are when the brand teams work closely with the team at Brewhemia to bring the partnership to life.
“It’s a mix of sometimes the brand having a very firm idea of what they would like to do, and then other brands have worked collaboratively with us, and I think those ones are the ones that tend to have the best and the greatest impact,” he said.
“And I think that’s what we’ve got with this one.
“I sat with James (Byrne, Molson Coors Beverage Company key account manager) a wee while back and he’d asked about doing the frontage, and I’d said ‘yep, but it’ll have to look pretty cool, so what could we do?’
“And that started the process of ‘how do you bring Prague to here? And how do we give the customers a sense of what’s going on inside, but also reinforcing those bits of the brand?’”
The resulting installation is not only eye-catching, but – for the first time in the seven years the venue has been working with brands – ties directly into Brewhemia’s tank beer specialism.
Molson Coors Beverage Company customer activation executive, Susan Younger, described Brewhemia as a ‘halo account’ for the company.
“We’ve worked with the guys here for many years now,” she said.
“And with where the brand sits, it’s absolutely where we want our brand to be. It’s a perfect fit.”
And Younger stressed the importance of the clock design as a way of tying Brewhemia to Staropramen’s native Prague.
“Anybody that’s been to Prague will recognise it,” she said.
“People travel to see it. So we wanted to bring that piece of Prague and replicate it and have our spin on it.”
Wylie agreed, describing the Prague clock as ‘a landmark’ in the European city.
For Castle Leisure Group and Brewhemia, the partnership underlines the venue’s commitment to serving the best beer it can – with both the team and the beer itself going the extra mile to provide the best pint.
“The Czechs make the best beer,” said Wylie.
“It (the tank beer) is the closest I can get you to the beer you would have if you took a trip to the Czech Republic.”
