After 10 years and 4 months (DrinkFresh Ltd T/A) Jolly Good Beer ceased trading in August 2024.
I have left this website up for now as it has some resources that may be of use to people. Especially the gas pressure charts, which I have been asked about specifically. (All user account data and order history has been removed from the database.)
In the form of Cellar Squid I may still be available to do dispense and related technical services work.
In April 2023 the wholesale business was taken on as a going concern by Drink Fresh Ltd, sadly despite huge efforts and investment they were unable to save it. The years of COVID and subsequent economic difficulties had taken too great a toll on the business, and the trading environment was against us all the way. We tried. I shall be eternally sorry we failed people.
Thanks
-Yvan
Note that Kingsbridge CS have were appointed as Insolvency Practitioners for Drink Fresh Limited to manage the insolvency process:
Kingsbridge Corporate Solutions Ltd
13 Dudley Street
Grimsby
DN31 2AW
Tel: 01472 344433
enquiries@kingsbridgecs.com
Press Release: JOLLY GOOD BEER TO JOIN HEDGES AND FARDEL GROUP OF COMPANIES
Jolly Good Beer has secured investment from the owners of chilled logistics operators Fardel Shipping Limited and Hedges Chilled Distribution Limited which will see their services brought together to expand JGB’s existing chilled wholesale distribution platform. Norfolk, Jan. 18th 2023 — Since our beginnings in Spring of 2014, Jolly Good Beer has worked hard to[…]
Cloudwater in Tesco
To: Jolly Good Beer CustomersFrom: Yvan, reviewed by the JGB team So… you’ve heard the Cloudwater-in-Tesco news, right? This was pretty much as much of a surprise to us as to everyone, though I think we sort of felt something was coming when they started messing around with the core beer range this year. Tesco was a[…]
Fur-lowe 3: Can, cannot
{Kat notes} This is the final version of the very first concept of a ‘furlough cat comic’ that I thought of once the light discussions were underway. I wanted there to be at least a vague reminder that we deal with beer and the usual reference that the humans are furloughed (so far, recording their[…]
Fur-lowe 2: Toss some tuna to your bard
{Kat notes} One thing about having 2 cats as the main characters was not only defining their characters but their personalities to contrast. Furball being the elder doesn’t strike me as a cat that will try to seek out attention unless it’s for something particular like food. Marlowe on the other hand is probably eager[…]
Fur-lowe 1: Take the world or set it on fire
{Kat notes} For what was a light-hearted idea to have ‘furlough diary entries’ but ‘in comic form’ can be blamed on me but it was further discussions in the internal messaging boards that started to set a basic premise: 2 cats being cats during a time when their owners humans are suddenly at home more[…]
Furlough Diaries: Kathlene Belista
Now …. back to our “Furlough Diaries”, with a FIFTH entry (last week’s was Lauren) – this time from the multi-talented Kathlene. Like myself Kat was a software engineer pre-JGB, and was working in software development up until the end of 2019 when it finally seemed viable to have her join the business in a[…]
Furlough Diaries: Lauren Hodges
This is the FOURTH (oh my, this does go on doesn’t it…) “Furlough Diaries” email… if you missed it, last week’s was: Peter, the Jolly Good Beer warehouse manager. Today started with trying to understand what the government had announced and changed over the weekend… to an end result of: nothing that affects my business really. And[…]
Furlough Diaries: Peter Webb
This is our third “Furlough Diaries” post… if you missed it, last week’s was: Hannah, the Jolly Good Beer procurement manager. This week meet Pete, the Jolly Good Beer warehouse manager. Peter is one of my earliest employees, the second in fact – starting in August 2016 as a delivery driver on a contract basis. That as[…]
Furlough Diaries: Hannah Davidson
This is our second “Furlough Diaries” email… if you missed it, last week’s was: Justin, our sales manager. This week meet Hannah, our procurement manager, I’ll let Hannah introduce herself… I’m Hannah and I joined JGB in October, shortly after trying all the barleywines at Indy Man (the two things are unrelated). I live up in[…]
Furlough Diaries: Justin Rivett
The first Furlough Diary comes from Justin, wrangler of the sales… it’s not particularly key to anything really, and this is perhaps all a bit whimsical on my part as something to fill the space of the weekly emails from back when we were able to sell beer. So take it, or leave it… don’t[…]
JGB SitRep
This here is my customer status update email content from 2020-04-17… I figured rather than just the static COVID-19 message I’d temporarilly replace the site with a blog-like series of updates, and here thus is the first post. Hello everyone, FarmCat holds fort for COVID-19 I thought I’d send around a status update from mothballed[…]
Loka Polly “Augment Range” Launch via Jolly Good Beer
LAUNCH DATE: Friday 8th March everywhere except Saturday 9th March for Kill The Cat in London. So… a few weeks ago our Welsh juice-bomb brewer friends Loka Polly got in touch to ask if we could help them get their Augment Range launch around to some awesome bars in our patch of the UK. What else[…]
On The Road To Coldchain
In my 2018 wrap-up “State of the Jolly Good Nation” post I briefly touched upon the subject of coldchain and stated “I hope that 2019 sees us setting up our first 100% coldchain connections for UK beer.” Well, here we are on the 1st of March 2019 and I’m sat in the passenger seat of[…]
State of the Jolly Good Nation – 2019
Well, we’ve called time on the “festive season”, kicked out the stragglers, locked the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Yeah, I’m not really into it. Can you tell? It is the time of year for reflection and resolutions, so I’ll go with the flow on that… It has been a big year, a[…]
10,000 metres of beer pipe…
Why? Why would I buy 10 kilometres of beer line? Specifically 5km of 5/16 and 5km of 3/8 beer line? That’s one big old pallet of beer line! Well … it’s simply because 5km is the minimum order size. Simple? But why not buy smaller amounts from an intermediary? Because in the UK nobody stocks[…]
How a KeyKeg Works – Graphic For Free Use
Kat and myself (Yvan) made this diagramme back in 2015 to explain KeyKeg to folk. It’s first use was when we ran a KeyKeg bar at Stevenage Beer Festival. It seems to have been quite popular having been ripped off many times now by CAMRA and even a couple of commercial organisations. It’s a little[…]
Willingham Beer & Cider Festival
We’re getting involved in my (Yvan’s) village’s new beer festival. This shall mainly be a fun beer event for Willingham locals – with a great range of drinks available, live music, and a summer BBQ. But we’ll have some special stuff on the draught system too… Presently looking at, hoping to justify, about 20 different[…]
The Adventures of Colin – Leeds International Beer Festival
It’s the second time we’ve been invited to serve the awesomely fresh (az, bro!) beers from the New Zealand beer collective but there’s been an aspect of Jolly Good Beer that’s not really been documented. Until now. Colin the colossal (shhh) squid has been freeloading at Jolly Good Beer headquarters since before it existed due[…]
Push Fit Beer Cleanliness
I once had a brewer grimace at the jubilee-clipped host-to-barb connections on my “beer wall” gas system. The problem – I was instructed – being that in the pinch-join between the pipe and barb there is a minute nook where beasties can gather and be hard for cleaning to get to. (This was on the[…]
Meet Hardknott @ Thirsty
Our friends from Hardknott brewery are hitting Cambridge this weekend and Thirsty will be hosting them for a meet-the-brewer on Sunday from 15.30 in the afternoon. When: from 15.30 Sunday 22nd May Where: Thirsty, Cambridge (register your interest on the FaceBook thingy.) What: BEER! This is a casual beery get-together, with draught and bottled beers from[…]
Putting the KEG into CAMRA
Wow… what a difference a few years makes. I joined CAMRA about 8 years ago – becoming an active member in the North Hertfordshire branch, and eventually branch cellarman for our beer festivals. Despite moving away to Cambridge I have still filled this technical role for the branch over the last few years. I was[…]
Jolly Golden Pints 2015
Here’s a thing I’ve not done before… “Golden Pints“… in previous bloggy incarnations I’ve always avoided this sort of thing. And in my current incarnation I probably should “doubly so”. I have many biases, I am in “the industry”, and I have favourites – people, beers, breweries… our perception of anything is tainted by all[…]
Pressure Gauges – A Chat with Atlantic
So – I had a call from Atlantic. They’d had a read of my previous post. (Go on, go read it.) Atlantic are a major installer of cellar kit in the south east and are responsible for some of the installs I’ve been having a grumble about. I had a conversation with a chap there[…]
Keg Beer Pressure in the UK
[This post originally written 2015-08-23 … has been refreshed 2018-09-16. Content has been edited without notes sometimes, other times comments have been inserted in [square brackets] or using this grey text colour where I think the historic content counterpoint adds value. Audience note: Jolly Good Beer is a “craft beer” business and as such this content[…]
Objective Definition of Craft Beer
Don’t try to define craft beer, that way madness lies… [Added 3/8/15 21:41: Please don’t read this as me insisting there ought to be some sort of an enforced definition… nor that I think I am laying down a One True Definition of Craft… it’s just a thought exercise. I do still think the concept[…]
Summer of Fob
Keg… in summer… in the UK… it is a fucking pain in the backside. Currently I am having a “summer of fob”. (“Fobbing” is what happens when a beer is too foamy to serve, “foam on beer”, there are several ways fobbing can occur – carb level, temp, flow rate…) Keg is quickly becoming core to[…]
Kiwi Beer At Birmingham Beer Bash
Gidday folks… so, we’re helping out the awesome people up at Birmingham Beer Bash get some Kiwi action happening. We will be hosting 2 Kiwi beer tastings as part of the Bash “fringe” – one Friday evening at 7pm and the second Saturday evening at 7.45pm. Given the plethora of beers available to us we[…]
What Keg?
BEAR IN MIND THIS POST FROM JULY 2015 IS A BIT STALE! OK – so… I’ve been asked about four times by different brewers about what I think of the various sorts of kegs UK breweries are using. Each time my thoughts are expanded and now I have nearly 2000 2500 words worth of blather[…]
Yeastie Boys do Cambridge – Thu July 2nd
You better watch out You better not cry You better not pout I’m telling you why @yeastieboys is coming to town… #Cambridge #WatchThisSpace — Jolly Good Beer (@JollyGoodBeer) May 28, 2015 Some may have noticed it in Cambridge already… there’s been a Kiwi presence in some bars, with beers from New Zealand sneaking onto taps across the[…]
Meet The Brewer: Weird Beard @ The Blue Moon
Weird Beard is a London microbrewery founded by two beer lovers in 2013. In a short time they’ve taken the British craft beer scene by storm – brewing a range of fun beers spanning a multitude of styles. Co-founder, brewer, and faceless-spreadsheet-ninja Gregg Irwin will lead a tasting of a set of the brewery’s beers,[…]
Kiwi Invasion!
We’re only a week into February and it has been a crazy month already. We’re very excited to have got Beavertown out to customers for the first time this month, and also to be getting hold of the first cans from Weird Beard tomorrow. But in other really exciting news it is time again for[…]
Mill Road Winter Fair
Jolly Good Beer will be providing some craft beer joy at the Gwydir Street Car Park Food Fair for this year’s Mill Road Winter Fair. A complimentary beer offering to our pop-up out at Rhode Island in Cherry Hinton (we hope to see you at both!) It’ll be a simple affair with four keg options,[…]
Rhode Island’s 1st Birthday
December is going to kick off with a bit of a bang for Jolly Good Beer as we help Rhode Island in Cherry Hinton celebrate their first birthday – and also serve up some beers at the Mill Road Winter Fair. Jolly Good Beer hours at Rhode Island are: Thurs: 17:00 – 22.30 (Rhode Island[…]
London Vegan Beer Festival
I’m neither a vegan or a vegetarian – so it was with some trepidation that I decided “yes” to Jolly Good Beer being invited to the London Vegan Beer Festival. I respect people who choose the option to forgo meat in their diet, doubly so if it is meat and all other animal products as vegans do.[…]
Spring Beer Festivals
I love a good beer festival – they’re excellent ways to explore a greater range of beers than are normally available. Part of the inspiration behind Jolly Good Beer is to help beer festivals out – in both expanding their range, supplying special requests where possible, and for those new to festivals we can also[…]
What is "craft"?
We use the term “craft” – be it “craft beer”, “craft brewery”, and sometimes “craft bar”. But what does it mean? That’s a very emotive & much-debated question in the British beer scene. The simple fact is that, whilst many have been proposed, we simply do not have a definition. Most arguments seem to boil[…]
Getting the ball rolling…
I’ve been talking about doing a little bit of beer distribution in my area for several months now. Talking isn’t a hell of a lot of use though – so I’ve bought a van. I’ve made some lists… February 2014: it starts! First stage is contacting the first breweries I’m keen to work with. Many[…]