The Tuck Shop
The Beer Shop at Tuckers Maltings in Newton Abbot, Devon has taken the idea of souvenir store to a
whole new level. Richard Jones reports
You could say I have a sweet tooth. Like the proverbial stick of seaside rock, if you cut open my canines, molars and incisors (don’t, please), you’d find ‘Tate and Lyle’ imprinted in the core. So thoughts of the school tuck shop invariably bring back gluttonous memories of cola bottles, fizzy laces, fruit salad chews, Curly Wurlys; I could go on.
Yet recently, the idea of a tuck shop has taken on a whole new, yet equally, pleasurable meaning… “Tuckers Maltings was actually founded in 1900 (the company in 1831), but we only decided to start running tours in 1991,” begins Brian Gates, who goes by the name of ‘project manger’ at the company. “It’s a traditional floor maltings for the beer industry and given the number of visitors that come to Devon on holiday, we thought there’d be a market for people to see what we do.” Although it had a few bottled beers on sale as souvenirs from the early stages, it was only in 1995 that it decided to take its beer shop seriously. “A lot of people come to the area every year and while we’d love to think they’d like to see the maltings on successive visits, it isn’t very realistic,” Brian Gates explains. “The idea of the shop was to bring those tourists back again. To make the beer range interesting enough for them to come and see us regularly.
“We’re not the biggest beer shop in the country but we try to be selective in what we sell,” Brian reflects. As you would expect, that selection is particularly strong on Cornish and Devonshire beers.....
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By Richard Jones
Section : Spotlight
Page number : 57
