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In his time Inspector Morse must have supped a few pints of Morrells famous ales as he glumly went about his business of tracking down murder suspects within the surprisingly violent environment of his fictional Oxford.
In the real Oxford, Morrells is the city's oldest independent producer of cask-conditioned ales with origins from 1454 when the monks of Osney Abbey built a brewhouse beside the city wall to be leased to a commercial brewer. A second brewhouse was added to the site in 1570 after the dissolution of the monasteries. This passed through many hands before the Morrell family acquired it in the late eighteenth century.
Charles Eld, its present managing director, is the sixth generation of the family to have been put in charge of producing 40,000 barrels a year of Varsity, College and Graduate—beers no doubt countless students have regretted the morning after. Eld takes his name from a Major Eld whom his mother, Emily Morrell, married.
Traditional though the brewery may be, Eld has decided to bring its transport operation bang up to date by dispensing with old-style flatbodied drays and replacing them with a modern vehicles from contract hire specialist Fraikin.
The new fleet is wholly Leyland Dafcomprising one 7.5-tormer 45150 and four 17tonne 50.160s. In addition, a Leyland Daf FAS 2500 26-tormer was bought by Fraikin from Mon-ells and leased back. These replace Leyland Daf flatbed Freighters with side gates providing very little scope for advertising.
Barrel sling
The new vehicles have crane hinges at the rear to accommodate a Lucas pillar-mounted warehouse crane with cranked hinges and a barrel sling to assist the movement of barrels and comply with new mechanical handling regulations.
The covered vehicles have the further advantage that the load is kept dry and subsequently safer to operate because the floor does not skid. The vehicles can also carry beer in cardboard packaging.
The 17-tonners have many of the other features of modern brewery vehicles—quickrelease sliding curtains, air suspension and lowprofile tyres which make unloading easier, plus they can be unloaded from either side. "What we wanted were vehicles that were multi-purpose," says Eld.
The contract lasts for six years and Eld believes it has given him the most efficient vehicles possible without capital cost. There is also the vision thing: "It's imperative to show confidence in the future—running around in the old fleet was giving the wrong image. The new lorries have provided a much needed morale booster at a time when business is challenging."
Fraikin takes care of all maintenance and repairs and supplies temporary vehicles if any of the trucks are off the road. This has enabled Morrells to save money by closing its workshop and redeploying its workshop foreman of 25 years as wines and spirits manager where, with true British grit, he is showing "amazing aptitude".
Eld laughs at the thought: "From grease to grapes, I suppose you could say."
Morrells vehicles do not have far to travel. Its own 138 tied houses are all within 30 miles of the brewery the free trade stretches to a 50-mile radius of Oxford and surrounding counties. "We are a local brewer rather than a regional brewer," says Eld.
A telesales operation takes orders from the pubs for Morrells own products as well as wines, spirits and minerals for delivery the following day. Deliveries start at 07:30hrs and in the afternoon the vehicles return to the warehouse to load up with the next day's deliveries. The 26tanner delivers to wholesalers and other brewers while the 7.5-tonner carries the wines and spirits for the pubs. There's plenty of variety: "Some of the drops are in Oxford colleges which are difficult to get into—you might be taking lorries down cobbled streets or rolling barrels down the pavement for a social club. The drop may include an idyllic Cotswold pub or a large pub on an estate."
The assets of the business makeS Eld a potentially very rich man—the 138 pubs are worth about £200,000 each and the brewery £5m. He has had no shortage of offers to sell out to one of the big six brewers that are succeeding in harmonising, and at the same time, arguably, harming beer and pubs across the country.
Fortunately for lovers of distinctive beer and village pubs, Eld has no intention of selling. "I could sell the brewery tomorrow but it would result in the closing down of production and the shutting of half the pubs," he says, "We want to keep the heritage of the brewery going because our sort of operation helps preserve the small tenanted pubs that are part of the fabric of the British way of life."
A complicated set of articles helps keep the business in the family or within its employees if the family is unable to continue. Eld describes the operation as vertically integrated: "We produce the product, we distribute it, we own the outlets."
He admits to having considered a third party transport operation but feels that Morrells own vehicles delivering its own goods enhances the rapport with its customers. Its "customers" are of course its employees in a way: "Just bemuse they have to have our beer we still insist in giving the best service".
Stillage
Each vehicle is double manned. As well as delivering they are responsible for putting
the new beer in the cellar and putting it on stillage. Eld considers them ambassadors for the company and many have served more than 20 years. "They are not officially salesmen but I like to think they will speak up for the company," Perks have changed though. Up to six years ago each drayman was entitled to two free pints a day. That has been replaced with a staff discount for each employee.
If anything is hurting, it is the tide of cheap beer coming in from the Continent—some of it illegally—since the Single Market lifted restrictions in 1993. It amounts to 4% of beer consumption in Britain, equivalent to the production of 20 breweries the size of Morrells. Since Single Market started 35 of Mon-ells pubs have run into financial difficulty but it is reluctant to close solus pubs in villages. "Duty on British beer needs to be halved to avoid this threat to jobs and pubs," believes Eld. We'd all drink to that.
El by Patric Cutmane