Q&A Alcohol
Gorgeous Brewery on bringing CBD to craft beer
CBD has made its way into a host of consumer products in the past year, including beer. Rosie Lintott speaks to Gorgeous Brewery co-founder Robert Laub about the product development of Grasshopper CBD pale ale and the future of CBD in the beer industry.
Rosie Lintott:
How are you positioning Gorgeous Brewery in the crowded London craft sector?
Robert Laub:
We are family run and fairly independent. It’s just my sister and I; we are the owners and operators of it and we take a lot of pride in that. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we’re not really trying to be too crazy, we like to do some fun and exciting stuff but our focus is really on the quality of the product rather than how ‘out there’ it is. We find a lot of people try and differentiate themselves in the market by coming up with something new but what we’re trying to do is just do the classics as well as we can. We do sort of expand out though, certainly when we do collaborations with other breweries.
Why did you decide to create a CBD beer?
With the CBD beer, obviously I knew just from reading that businesses were starting to get a lot of traction and I know someone who owns a company and a group of shops called CBD and You. We got talking about it and I knew he was one of the first pure based CBD shops and I was interested in going into business together. I was thinking about incorporating CBD into beer and that’s how it all started.
Do you think consumer interest in CBD products will grow further?
In general, as education and more information is more readily available to people, the demand has been driving across the board. I think it was a natural progression that eventually it would come into the brewer.
Have you found much competition in the market for CBD beer?
There are a couple of others out there that I know about, there is more in America. However, I think because of CBD and You, and we’ve got CBD experts and farmers, I think it is a bit more unique in that respect. So I don’t think we’ve got a great deal of competition at this point in time but that’s not to say that other people won’t come up with the idea.
Will you be expanding your CBD beer range?
As of now we’re really proud of Grasshopper and what it’s doing and we want to focus on that, but obviously there are things like different levels of strength of CBD. We do a number of gift packs in our range, so I wouldn’t rule out doing something along those lines encompassing CBD in the products, so as of now we’re not but you never know.
Do you think the CBD trend will grow or do you think it will phase out?
I would say it will grow, I certainly hope it will. I know it’s been around for a very long time, it got banned and then it’s been back recently and the more people that get educated about it the more people know about it. It’s all about awareness and regulating ourselves. Especially the world we’re in at the moment, where it’s a huge aspect of everyone’s lives, I would say that it’s here to stay.
What are your plans for Grasshopper and the brewery going forward?
We’re advertising the CBD a lot more and it’s also going to be on the Amazon store, and we’re hoping to get into some CBD seminars and events. For our business on a whole, just natural progression, a bit more traction, an increase in the demand of production. Hopefully to get a bigger location, open a few tap rooms and some stores and just make sure we can push on as a business and a brewery would be great.
Rosie Lintott:
How are you positioning Gorgeous Brewery in the crowded London craft sector?
Robert Laub:
We are family run and fairly independent. It’s just my sister and I; we are the owners and operators of it and we take a lot of pride in that. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we’re not really trying to be too crazy, we like to do some fun and exciting stuff but our focus is really on the quality of the product rather than how ‘out there’ it is. We find a lot of people try and differentiate themselves in the market by coming up with something new but what we’re trying to do is just do the classics as well as we can. We do sort of expand out though, certainly when we do collaborations with other breweries.
Why did you decide to create a CBD beer?
With the CBD beer, obviously I knew just from reading that businesses were starting to get a lot of traction and I know someone who owns a company and a group of shops called CBD and You. We got talking about it and I knew he was one of the first pure based CBD shops and I was interested in going into business together. I was thinking about incorporating CBD into beer and that’s how it all started.
Do you think consumer interest in CBD products will grow further?
In general, as education and more information is more readily available to people, the demand has been driving across the board. I think it was a natural progression that eventually it would come into the brewer.
Have you found much competition in the market for CBD beer?
There are a couple of others out there that I know about, there is more in America. However, I think because of CBD and You, and we’ve got CBD experts and farmers, I think it is a bit more unique in that respect. So I don’t think we’ve got a great deal of competition at this point in time but that’s not to say that other people won’t come up with the idea.
Will you be expanding your CBD beer range?
As of now we’re really proud of Grasshopper and what it’s doing and we want to focus on that, but obviously there are things like different levels of strength of CBD. We do a number of gift packs in our range, so I wouldn’t rule out doing something along those lines encompassing CBD in the products, so as of now we’re not but you never know.
Do you think the CBD trend will grow or do you think it will phase out?
I would say it will grow, I certainly hope it will. I know it’s been around for a very long time, it got banned and then it’s been back recently and the more people that get educated about it the more people know about it. It’s all about awareness and regulating ourselves. Especially the world we’re in at the moment, where it’s a huge aspect of everyone’s lives, I would say that it’s here to stay.
What are your plans for Grasshopper and the brewery going forward?
We’re advertising the CBD a lot more and it’s also going to be on the Amazon store, and we’re hoping to get into some CBD seminars and events. For our business on a whole, just natural progression, a bit more traction, an increase in the demand of production. Hopefully to get a bigger location, open a few tap rooms and some stores and just make sure we can push on as a business and a brewery would be great.
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