2022 The story so far…
Hey I’m Hugo. For people new to the cause I started LOAH just over two years ago.
And it’s been a hell of a ride.
If anyone remembers, TWO YEARS AGO we were locked down with nobody knowing what was going to happen. I’ll try to keep this part brief. But I spent most of it driving to Northern breweries to try and brew some beer. A few trips and many car sandwiches later, we had a first recipe.
I bottled it, put a sticker with a link to a Google survey on it, and posted it out to friends. Feedback was good, but needed something extra.
I live in Brixton so walking past fruit stalls in the market on those sunny days got me thinking – what if.. So I stuck some lime in the beer and gave it a crack. It was delicious.
Now it may not surprise you to find out, but most brands you see on the shelf didn’t start as they are now. And neither did their products.
Once I figured out how to get the lime into canned beer, it needed a look. This beer was all about sunshine and spreading love in a time of uncertainty. So we knocked up a Robert Indiana-inspired brand and called it LOAH because it’s Low Alcohol and it’s a nice word to say.
the first ever cans of loah and their inspiration
We brewed up 500 cans and sold them in 3 hours flat. Thank you to those legends who support small businesses, you are the true backbone of society.
After that small success my old friend Will joined me to drive the business on. If you’ve not met him, you’ll be surprised at how tall he is, and how much of a nice bloke he is. I don’t know if the two are related.
From there, many more cans and bottles were brewed and shared.
We did some really fun events.
We took loads of pictures.
We made some T shirts, which our parents loved.
We lovingly dealt with a load of boxes and pallets.
We moved into a small office.
We moved out of the small office because it was on the top floor with a dodgy lift I got stuck in and we were keeping a pallet of beer in there.
And into a new office in Shoreditch.
We drank a lot of drinks to test the market (not all of them non-alcoholic).
We got some slightly surreal shoutouts.
We took some beers up in a plane.
And we started working with some amazing trade customers – most of them we still work with today.
Meanwhile Will had a second baby, and I got a dog called Parsnip and got married. Family is super important to both of us and we couldn’t have got here without all you guys.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. Some of the beers we made last year exploded. Including an entire tank of beer whilst it was being transported. Yes that beer has blown through those thick steel bars.
Cue binning a lot of stock.
Back to the drawing board. It turns out I’m not actually a brewer. So we needed the help of a real one. And we found a very real, and seriously talented one. They just want to keep off camera, but I can assure you that they are real and at the peak of their profession. loah v.2 was born…
The approach to the beer changed. Rather than a beer with lime, we wanted to make the lime run right the way through the beer. So we carefully selected hops that would match the fruit throughout the brew. The aim being to really balance out and maximise the flavour.
Why stop at lime though? We’ve brought peach and blood orange into our core range and mango as a seasonal special.
This new beer needed a new brand. Enter Fred Trevor, the best designer I think I’ll ever work with.
He took the brand to new levels, introducing the concept of Blue Sky Drinking in a way that blew our minds. And we got to work with some amazing illustrators along the way.
New beers, new look. We got back on the horse this summer.
We sponsored Shoreditch Design Triangle for London Design Week.
We did a load more events.
We took more pics, including some on my honeymoon.
We hired Adrian, our London sales maestro.
We still lovingly move those boxes around.
We got a bar that we’ll be carting round Broadway Market from early next year.
We dropped some more merch.
We did some fun labels with some long-time partners.
We got a shoutout from Davina McCall.
Our beer ‘blew Michael Douglas’ mind’.
And we’re so excited to share with you everything that’s in store next year.
Whether ups or downs, sideways or round. There’s always a blue sky up there somewhere.
Happy New Year