JUBEL was the name of a song (this banger) played at the height of après, the place we discovered the dangerously refreshing beer pêche - a pint of lager with a peach top. People who loved beer loved it, and people who didn’t love beer loved it - an idea was born.
Pints of pêche flowing, sun shining, music pumping, full slopeside send in session. JUBEL means “a feeling of extreme joy” - the idea had a name and we exist to bring this experience to everyone.
Unsurprisingly the idea came after a few beers. Us goons were in an après-ski bar drinking beer pêche -a pint of lager with a peach top. I (big forehead, far right) was known for dodging beers, and it was the only beer my mates could actually get me to drink.
I hated my 9-5 and thought beer pêche could be my ticket out of the corporate world, so I spent my evenings, weekends and holidays trying to brew the perfect peach lager. How someone who didn’t even get a GCSE in Chemistry learned how to brew, we still do not know.
The first time JUBEL was released into the wild - four hay bales, two planks of wood, and one new style of beer. The beer was better than the bar and it flew wherever I took it, so after a weekend of many beers and little sleep I quit my job to try and make a proper go of it.
This is not a government detention centre. This was my salary-less lifestyle in the warehouse whilst trying to figure out how to actually start a real business. Some people thought putting peach in a beer was a joke, so officially launching JUBEL on 1st April wasn’t ideal timing.
Sainsbury’s phoned up and wanted to put JUBEL in 250 supermarkets. Once I realised it wasn’t a prank call, I had a low budget marketing idea to visit them all towing an advertising trailer. Store visits from 7am to 11pm, two weeks sleeping in the van, and an offensive number of Sainsbury’s meal deals.
When the wheels almost came off. Covid kicked off, pubs closed, 75% of our revenue dried up, our brewery booted us out, and I roped in my family to hand label 32,000 bottles to avoid being out of stock for our Waitrose launch. We weren’t exactly thriving but we were surviving.
The year of running on fumes. Long weeks in the office and even longer weekends at festivals - the low point being 12hrs spent pulling these 22 pallets across gravel. We were all hanging on by a thread, but with Covid in the rear view business started booming and sales doubled.
The team doubled, sales doubled again, the JAFTAs were introduced (the Jubel Annual Flipping Talented Awards), we became a B Corp, and little old JUBEL followed the foot steps of Budweiser, Carling, Thatcher’s and Doombar by winning Drinks Brand of the Year in The Grocer Gold Awards.
5yrs after delivering the first cases of JUBEL to pubs in this beat up Golf, we finally made it into Tesco. We launched in 500 stores, which almost tripled within six months. There were now 32 in the team, sales doubled again, and it started to feel like putting peach in a beer was actually working.
We sponsored Snowboxx in Avoriaz, took 100 customers on a chartered flight with a DJ, and 9yrs after my first beer pêche in Folie Douce it was pretty surreal being back there watching 3000 cans of JUBEL fly out each day.
Are you of legal drinking age in the UK?
By clicking yes you are agreeing to our cookies policy
Are you of legal drinking age in the UK?
By clicking yes you are agreeing to our cookies policy
You must be 18+ to enjoy our dangerously refreshing beer
