Stanislav Bernard, Rodinný pivovar Bernard – Příběh pivovaru, který se nebál jít proti proudu

It was the same one. The walls were paneled with mahogany, black furniture, and I had it opposite. Like with you now — you sit by the window. I sat by the window, and I was in that setup for some years, because there wasn't money to renovate. Mainly. And then after a while I started feeling quite tired. So I had the energy zones remeasured, and then I flipped the whole thing around. We threw out all that mahogany from the walls and turned it into, let's say, an office. And otherwise, in the beginning I also slept there a few times, like every startup entrepreneur.

I don't know how to say it exactly, but there was something in the subconscious that we really wanted to make a brand out of it — like a lovely brand, something cultish, a cult following. And yet we had a total wreck and debt on our hands. Obviously, we bought it for more than five times the book value. I don't know. I think somehow we were all subconsciously heading toward something, and that it wasn't just about surviving, even though it was there every day. Every day — whether we'd sell or not, especially in the winter.

Those weren't very nice situations. I also had this other feeling — I was commuting from Zájezd, near Opava, some 280 kilometers at the time. So every weekend I'd drive home and then back again. So I also had this interesting connection of emotions from the drives, because there was no highway back then. So we drove from Opava to Olomouc through Přerov, through Prostějov, and only then did the highway start. So it was quite adventurous. Many times we drove at night or in the early morning, unusual hours, and it was actually very nice. Really nice.

No, it was. It was. Something was bugging me, and I had this trait that when it was already early morning, I'd wake up and my mind would just start racing. And it was already going. And when you looked out the window at the brewery yard, there was one delivery truck, if that, for the entire day. And I knew that would be the end of us. So those situations — it wasn't very pleasant in the moment, but fortunately that wasn't the majority of the time. Those were just moments, I'm saying early mornings, probably in February. Winters were quite harsh back then with lots of snow, so when one delivery truck arrived, it was like 'Wow!' And who knows what tomorrow will bring.

As you said about salespeople and all that — we didn't have any of that at all.

When we bought it in October, that state enterprise had sold 26,000 hectoliters that year. And it was going downhill. The customers just didn't believe in it anymore. We tried to sell it. We took it to various markets in Jihlava, offered beer for one crown. Nobody wanted it anyway. So the beginning was that we didn't have those pubs because they'd dropped us. So I drove around pubs and offered it. It wasn't like you had some sales team — that came much later.

I don't know, the beginning, about half a year maybe, or more. But when I arrived at the pub — and these were real pubs. Not like today where two people sit and drink coffee, but actual pubs where groups of people sat and drank beer. I'd come in with samples, pour some for the publican, he'd taste it and say, 'That's good, we could have that on tap.' There were none of the bribes that fly around in pubs today.

A pure market. A pure market. And then he'd say to me, 'So where are you from?' And I'd say, 'From Humpolec.' And he'd say, 'Then take that and get the hell out.' It really had that bad of a reputation. To that I said, look, but realize that we bought it as new owners, and it makes no sense for us to brew some substandard beer. It makes sense for us to do it honestly. If you like this beer, take it. Those were pubs that tapped 800 hectoliters, 1,000 hectoliters. Today the average is about 60 hectoliters per year. So when I managed to get those pubs, it really took off. That was huge. That was until, I think, 1993, 1994, when Krušovice started bribing pubs.

Yeah, yeah, because they were throwing money around. And then the others had to follow, because suddenly Krušovice took a piece of their market. And suddenly it was everywhere, and I didn't enjoy it anymore. But we had to survive in that environment. So I criticized it, and I was on the presidency of the Great Union of Brewers and Maltsters. And some directors from Krušovice and I think Staropramen filed a motion to have me expelled from the presidency, claiming I was damaging their interests. And I said, 'Yes, I'm damaging you. You're throwing money around like crazy and buying the market. You're damaging the interests of the industry.' So of course they didn't expel me, but it was quite something.

Quite simply, we didn't have the space and we didn't have the money. I don't even know what a tunnel pasteurizer cost. It was some millions back then, but it was some length and we had nowhere to put it. So that wasn't the way. And we started looking at various microfiltration methods, Huntemann and the like. I remember when we had the first prototype of that Huntemann here. They were calibrating the filtration plates, the material, and we had some kind of contract. And my partner, when it had already been going about a year and they kept changing the formulations and still couldn't approach the values they'd guaranteed at the end of filtration... the technician was arguing with Pepa about something, saying things rapidly, and Pepa looked at me and said something about millions — we already gave them a million and they wanted another million. And that was that.

I already have experience from my previous career with Swingtop. I don't actually remember when Swingtop came along. We actually discussed it because someone asked when we started with the holiday lager. And we found out we've had it since 2002. But the holiday lager we'd been making since about 2015. Just that it was in regular bottles. Standard returnable bottles. And we were selling about 2,000 hectoliters a year of it. And as soon as we went to Swingtop, to the swing-top bottles, which was quite a daring move for us. Because it was Zdeněk Šípek who came up with it — whom you know well, our commercial director. At the time he was a salesman, and he came to a meeting saying that Avar, the old Hlučín brewery brand, had started filling into similar bottles and selling it in Tesco. And he started selling it, I think, for 14.90 at the time. That was around 2000-something. That was the same price as Pilsner. I said, 'You know what, but I've had this idea for a long time — it would be nice to do this.' And again, the money. Of course.

I said, 'You know what, Zdeněk? Watch how it develops. When in another three months it's still there and that beer is selling well at that high price, I said, let's go for it.' So, but we didn't do it manually, so we had to get a capping machine, that swing-top capping machine. We'd had one at Grolsch back then, actually. You were at Grolsch, so you know. Exactly. So we had to rebuild the entire bottling line, which cost 8 million CZK at the time. From today's perspective you'd laugh, but at the time it could have brought us down. If it didn't work, throwing away 8 million — that was wages for the whole company for about half a year. Sure. That wasn't a... And then eventually we went for it. I also thought of starting to make wooden crates. Ah. Yes. You remember those half-size ones. Yes. We found some carpentry workshop somewhere in Trutnov. They made them for us. Before Christmas, in the autumn, the women assembling them — you understand, Christmas is approaching, they needed to clean and bake and all that, and instead they were at the workshop making our crates. And we kept needing more and more. When we put it on the market — when I went to supermarkets, I had just a mockup, no beer, nothing, just a sticker. I said, 'Look, this is how it will look. Put it in, list it.' And they'd look at it, and then he'd say, 'Well look, you could see he liked it. The swing-top bottle, it's beautiful, and it was retro. And he said: 'Look, if it sells, we'll sell it too.' So we had an agreement. And he asked: 'And at what price?' I said 15.90, one crown more than Pilsner. And the deposit was 15 CZK. Which was five times more than a normal bottle. But the truth is, it started selling in such a way that the women in the carpentry workshop couldn't make the crates fast enough. We'd go there and pay them overtime. It was really... it was all very freewheeling. You got an idea and you went for it, with all the risk. It would work or it wouldn't. And in this specific case with the swing-top bottles, it was a win, because when we came to market, we were the only ones. Except maybe Pilsner made some gift sets, those were liter gift bottles. And maybe Avar Lučina, that was nothing. And when we suddenly put it in those networks, the people — because we got those swing-top bottles for 10 CZK and the deposit was 15 — people, when they got them home, often didn't return them. Because plum brandic, oils, juices, all sorts of things. And suddenly we had — the bottles from Germany couldn't arrive fast enough. And for every 200 bottles, for every hectoliter of bottles that didn't come back, we actually made 1,000 CZK in profit, which was five times more than from the beer. So it was actually a tiny win within a risky decision.

I think it was in me from the start. It carries over into business. But when I decided to go to the auction, I had a million and one doubts. Absolutely, you don't know. And I'm thinking, you don't know if you have enough ideas, experience, and whether you're suited for it. Once you fall into it, you just have to go. And suddenly I started enjoying it. A lot started to enjoy me — that it was a greenfield. It didn't have established patterns, established directions. There was always something new. We have to solve it. Immediate market reaction. We want to solve it. And you asked, yes, we want to solve it best in our own way, because when you're original, when the brand is original, that's the best for the brand. Or it's one of the paths. When you're always in the peloton, nobody notices you, but when you set the tone, people start to notice. So that was the whole idea.

Well, I think specifically production was handled by Pepa Vávra, who is a professional and a brewmaster. When we were deciding how the beer should taste, before we even started brewing, we weighed in on it, because it wasn't just a brewmaster's decision. We said, look, we're in southern Bohemia, which was like the showcase of southern Bohemia in the Vysočina region at the time, but Bohemian beers like Budvar and so on are sweet. And I'm not saying that's bad at all, but we agreed we wanted it more bitter. And at the same time we wanted it to be full-bodied in taste, so it wouldn't be a bland liquid, so it would be beer. That when you drink it, this is a ten-degree lager and yet it's incredibly full-bodied in taste. And on top of that comes the bitterness of the hops. And there just has to be harmony. That's everything. I have it at my cottage, so I know. And we basically discussed this with him in those days, and then it was more or less his thing. Of course we had some meetings, we'd discuss things. And the technical side was handled by Ruda Šmejkal, the third partner, who then left in 1999. And I had the rest — finances, sales, marketing, the commercial side. And I also weighed in with Pepa on investments and financial plans and so on.

Well, it depended on what hour it was. When it was early morning in the winter, I was more focused on how to survive. So I can't say it was always the same, but when we were pushing forward, when we were inventing and searching for solutions, that's when it really appealed to me. And it triggered something in me, because the people who were supposed to implement it always had plenty of objections. I went through this 30-year story — more than 30 years. There were many milestones.

It happened continuously — there was no moment, no milestone. It just gradually changed as we did what we did, as we invented the Swingtop, as we created all the various advertisements and so on. There was no milestone. And when things came up that needed to be solved — we didn't have any salespeople back then, as I said — but then I'd say, we probably need to start building a sales team. So first one, then two, then three, and then none of those three remained here, but there were years when they were here briefly. And then gradually we started building the team. Then we had eight. And so today we have about 40 people in the sales team, also in Slovakia.

First of all, there was maybe an unspoken direction. You said it — it was somewhere in us. And I don't believe in coincidences anymore. It just was meant to be. That was the direction we were supposed to go. And actually the character traits that I have, that the company has today — how we didn't get along and then gradually started coming back together — there are many layers and many...

Here, you know, I never studied any marketing.

I truly believe that when someone studies it, they have that kind of thinking a bit more structured and they don't deviate as much. And that wasn't the case with me.

It was really always like that. Someone would come along — what's his name, damn? — the marketing director of Havas. Back then it was Euro RCG, and his name was... no, no, there was Fiala, and there was... now I probably can't remember. Someone who was the creative director of the entire multinational company.

But he came with — he came to offer us, unlike all the other advertising agencies, he didn't ask how much we spend on TV, how much we spend on radio and so on. But he came with an idea, and that started to be fun for us. Suddenly we weren't talking at all about how much for this and that, but we were saying, yes, we're going in the same direction.

And he came with — one of those ideas was: 'The world has gone mad, hang on.' And suddenly a whole range of legendary ads were being created. But none of those ads were about 'buy more Bernard.' It was always building the brand brick by brick.

And after some time people were saying, yes, you're doing interesting marketing. Yes, and well, I can confirm that.

And also, sorry, I just want to say that it was far from all from my own head. When we wanted to create a motif for 'the world has gone mad, hang on,' it was tied to the topic of the day. What was in the media? It wasn't like today. The topic of the day was maybe once a month.

Now we'd have twenty a day. Just let Lipánek appear on TV.

So when there really was a topic of the day that everyone was amazed by and everyone was scratching their heads saying the world has gone mad — so I said, let's put it on billboards. And I thought, I never came up with it alone. I always gathered a few people and said, let's express something, how absurd it is, where the moment is.

And people started brainstorming. There was no bad question. Everyone could say whatever they wanted, and suddenly it all came together and it was done.

Yes.

No, that was a few years later. At that time we were flying upward.

If we had bought a brewery back then with a capacity of, say, a million hectoliters, we would have been able to sell it all out, because the beer was really good. And we'd rather put money into advertising. So suddenly people saw us and said, that's good beer. And that went on until the bribery started.

Around '93, '94, '95. So at that time we were flying upward. And then it started and the problem became completely the opposite.

What I felt was that the people in those pubs, the owners, they weren't as corrupted as they are today. When you came with some idea for cooperation, they were grateful for it.

Exactly. And they valued quality.

No, no. Gastronomy was always first. When you look at our current ratio in kegs — and that's what I wanted to ask.

We have today a ratio — I'm not sure of the exact long-term average, but somewhere around 63, 64 percent in kegs. That's unique. And we don't do cans. So it's only returnable bottles.

Exactly, yes.

Because we've been devoting enormous attention to it the whole time — relationships with them, with the customers, and so on.

Nothing major, of course far from it. Every pub was lost — some went for the money, or not at that time yet, but later went for money. Or they were interesting people with big ideas. But in terms of our strategy, I'd say it went well, because it was built gradually. It wasn't like we followed some model for 100 years. There was always that direction toward quality, toward the relationship with the customer, toward the relationship with the person buying it in a supermarket and so on. But it was always about the love for it being worth it.

Yes, and I think it was a year later, or soon after, you went past 400,000. It was soon — by then you were already a bigger brewery. But it always felt like you had the same values, the same face. How did you manage that — how did you keep it, not lose your face?

Well, first of all, it's important to realize that it wasn't always like this. I don't know again which year, but I'm guessing it could have been 2015, 2016, 2017, when we had 100 employees. And at that time my son came with the idea that we should choose corporate values.

We talked about it for a while, and I said I think it's a good idea, because we were growing at that time and there were new people and so on. And it would be good to have some kind of set of commandments — some backbone that we'd all follow. And then it occurred to me that it shouldn't be us inventing it in the office, but that we should give our people the chance.

And that whole process of discussing the corporate values and corporate vision took about a year and a half.

But I can say that the values that emerged from that — if I were to evaluate various investments and everything, this I see as the most important. That we managed to create something that makes sense, and that it was created by our people, because they can believe in it.

We just provided support. What was interesting was that the people at each specific workplace voted for what they felt was most lacking. And that makes sense.

And so the first five words emerged: openness, trust, cooperation, responsibility, and positivity.

That took a long time. We also gave our people the option to add to them or not. And then when COVID came, it occurred to me — by that time the company already meant something — and I felt that some of our people might start getting too comfortable, might start showing off.

So two more values occurred to me, and those were humility and courage. We gave people the opportunity to comment and give feedback. In the end it was accepted, because when we listed all the values, they were right at the top. So today we have those seven values.

And when we introduced them, we had 100 people. Today we have about 265. But all the new people were already selected according to these values.

Because when you select someone who starts tearing things down, it falls apart very easily. But today there's a kind of drive among the people to uphold them, because they feel good in it. That's the whole point.

And mainly when you say them all together, you can basically just say Bernard.

Again, the moment came — I don't want to say spontaneously or by chance, but it came. So again, every idea, every problem, everything had its time in that process.

We of course made some plans about what we wanted. We always had an abundance of ideas and no money, no time. But gradually it all got realized.

And now, in the period let's say 2015 to 2019, there always comes a phase in an entrepreneur's life about sharing the management of the company — how to set it up so the company doesn't depend only on you or on Josef.

Again, it was formed gradually. My son finished school and came to the company, and I said, look, it was around 2004 or so — we were joining the EU, and my wife was exhausted from everything, from implementing the new information system and all the legal changes at the same time. So I said, look, Kuba Fízl came along, he's an economist from school, and Tomáš Lipták, a marketer.

I said, come as quickly as possible so we can relieve her. So it all kind of came together, and suddenly marketing was being run, the finances after Helena. And gradually it developed. We always had meetings when needed, we'd agree and it kept developing.

Yes.

They know each other from school.

Well, as a disaster. But it was that period, you know? First of all, there were several layers. When we went for walks, I suddenly looked around. Suddenly no planes were flying, no cars driving, everything... so I said, this is interesting — I had a feeling nature was cleansing itself, and that was some kind of personal feeling.

As for the business, we lost sales in pubs — that 64 percent. So we tried to create some kind of business plan for how we'd manage selling mainly bottles.

So at that time our branded stores went up a lot and so on. The supermarkets went up. Of course the pubs stopped.

But we looked for ways to help the pub owners, because they were in a terrible mess. The brewery could still sell bottles to supermarkets, but the pub had to serve through a window. And not always.

It was just about surviving somehow until things turned around.

So we were thinking about how to help them. We supplied free yeast to microbreweries and so on. So there was help from our side to the microbreweries, there was help to the pub owners, where we told them, look, how to reduce, how to... we tried to be in coordination with them and help them.

Yes.

Yes, that all came naturally too. I remember you make bags from billboards, right? And things like that.

Yes. Many others don't do it. A lot of them do it only because some idiotic Brussels tells them to. Or they calculate — we'll do everything to be ecological, but don't ask us for reports and nonsense.

Yes, I had it in my head for about 25 years. Maybe 24 or 26. Even Jan Nevřívá, a structural engineer and head of a design firm, did the first project for us, right here in this space. This building was lower.

And then, despite opposition from people around me, I kept going that we'd build it. And 16 architectural study versions were created. My brother did the study. So we were coming up with various ways to do it, how to expand it.

And here, for example, if you look behind you, there's a historical staircase, like in a castle. That's how you go up on the tour. So it's all connected.

So as I said, there were many studies, many ideas. Originally there wasn't supposed to be a kitchen here. Then I went to Prague and said, we'll do it. I called my brother and said, we'll have to raise the whole thing.

In its own way, crazy. And then when it was born, we also engaged an interior architect, Barbara Bencová, who added the interior to the architectural study — those ribs above us, or all the materials used everywhere, wood, copper.

And suddenly it all started making sense. And for me, that it exists is first of all the fulfillment of a long-held dream. Because of course, when we were building it, COVID was happening, so the work extended by a year. But today, when it exists, when you look around, you say: wow, it's worth it.

And for me the most important thing is that the people who come here — many of them say on their own: 'You have a beautiful place and we root for you.'

I'd say a lot, because before, excursions and such were a bit random. Now we have daily tours, and mainly the people who see the film about our history, go through the tour, have a tasting, and experience the atmosphere of the center — they leave as different people.

Maybe June 2021, I think. In about a month or so.

Yes.

I'd say keep going in the same direction. Quality, heart, good relationships.

I'd most like to end at this stage. When I say it, a tear comes to my eye and I'd most like to just... I've set myself up so that I could already finish.

Heart. It has to be there.

Thank you too.

Bye.