Moorhouse’s Casts Spell For Spooktacular Halloween
d sales manager Marshal Burke line up the beers for Halloween with Pendle Witch girls Leanne Megson and Sara Omar.
Moorhouse’s, the internationally acclaimed ‘Pendle Witches’ ales brewer, is set for a spell-binding Halloween as early seasonal sales go national to hit a record high.
For the first week of October the ‘North West’s newest regional brewer’ saw a sales surge of more than 100 percent on 2012 to 663 brewer’s-barrels (more than 190,000 pints)* for the new £4.2m brewery, launched in 2011.
With the 100 brewer’s-barrels-brew-length plant Moorhouse’s has ramped up production of seasonal specials and now Halloween is ‘busier than Christmas’ for the Burnley brewery.
In recent years sales have spiralled by more than 35 per cent during the weeks prior to October 31 as Moorhouse’s increasingly becomes known as THE Halloween brewer. Last year more than half-a-million pints were despatched. The internationally acclaimed brands pay tribute to the legend of the ill-fated witches who roamed Pendle Hill near Burnley in the early 17th century.
For this year’s witching season the brewers have been busy stirring the cauldron to produce a line-up of innovative ales in addition to its five core brands– Black Cat former Camra Champion Beer of Britain – Pride of Pendle (4.1%) – former Champion Cask Ale Brewing Industry International Awards – and premier Pendle Witches Brew (5.1%).
A choice of special brews includes golden wheat beer White Mist (4.2%abv), and fruity blonde style White Witch (3.9%abv) an easy drinking ale which is hugely popular and dark red Ruby Witch (4.6%abv), designed to match the season as a medium strength ‘dark ruby coloured full bodied ale with subtle roast flavours, hints of spice and tangerine notes from Crystal and Cascade hops’.
These are backed by five seasonal blended ales: Broomstick Bitter (4%abv), Black Witch (4.2%abv), Witches Cauldron (4.2%abv), Witchfinder General (4.4%abv) and Witch Hunt (4.8%). The brands are backed by promotional offers to publicans.
Launching this year’s brews David Grant, Moorhouse’s managing director, said: “Halloween just gets busier and busier each year – even more than Christmas – as our witch brands become more widely known to both publicans and drinkers alike.
“But, without a doubt this year looks set to be truly outstanding. Substantial orders have already gone out to leading pub companies Enterprise and Wetherspoon’s. We will support both pub company publicans and free traders who wish to give their customers great cask ale for some witches season fun to boost their sales, especially at a time when trading conditions are at their toughest ever.”
Earlier this year Moorhouse’s passed the five-million-pints-a-year milestone following on from hitting £4.5m turnover for the last financial year. The next target is £7m turnover en-route to reaching full production capacity for the 1000-barrels-a-week (288,000 pints) capacity brewery.
To achieve this key appointments have been made. Mark Boardman is now national accounts controller spearheading business development with pub companies across the UK. Marshall Burke (pictured launching Halloween beers) has now joined as sales manager to head up the sales development team. Both were formerly in senior sales posts with regional brewer Daniel Thwaites of Blackburn.
