A new craft beer pub seems already well on the way to creating a community hub as it celebrates a hectic first few days of business.
The Beer Drop in Low Fell, Gateshead, is marking its first week of opening with another busy weekend for owners Charlie and Julie Gibbs. Customers have been packing out the micropub - converted the former Pattison’s Card Shop - and Charlie says: "It's been off the scale. It's literally smashed expectations."
The pair gutted and transformed the premises in Durham Road into a popular-culture theme drinking den which is full of conversation by day and takes on a buzzy vibe at night. They are the couple behind regional success story Steampunk Gin and previously ran Peyote Mexican Cantina restaurant - just opposite their new pub - both of which are now sold and Julie also runs nearby wine and beer shop The Rare Drop which inspired the name for their new venture.
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It was Julie who came up with the idea of creating another business, having developed from a non-beer drinker into a real fan of real ale while working at the shop, where she deals with local breweries and regularly changes her stock of canned ale and fine wines.
"Craft beer has really taken off - exploded - over the last few years," she says and her customers had long been telling her they wished there was a bar where they could buy craft beer. "I had that conversation with loads of customers, all saying the same thing, so I said to Charlie 'we should do it'.
"The big thing was - it had to be in Low Fell." She and Charlie love the area they have made their home for more than 35 years and having a business in the community where you live means you care so much more about it, says Julie.
Charlie has previous experience of running three other pubs, around Yorkshire, and both saw Low Fell as the ideal spot for a micropub. While there's a Gilbert & Smith pub - run by Whitley Bay Brew Co. - in Durham Road, The Beer Drop is adding something new to the mix, says Charlie, with what will be a regularly-changing choice of ales showcasing a range of North East breweries.
"We saw a niche," he says and is filling it with a draught selection of eight taps on offer including its own signature name, the specially-created brew The Beer Drop, a 4% American pale ale which is already proving a best seller.
While local craft keg beer is the pub's focus, it also sells a selection of top quality wine - another passion of Julie's - which also will regularly change, to offer something new "at an affordable price," she says. First customers are clearly liking what they find, with The Beer Drop - which is open Wednesday to Sundays - having already welcomed a wide mix of customers, including faces Julie knows from visitors to her shop and random drop-ins of people curious to try somewhere new.
What they find, says Charlie is a welcoming environment which soon has strangers engaging in conversation. The two-level lay-out features a mix of seating, including banquettes along the walls, and a bright environment of greys and blue with a stand-out purple fireplace - which Julie found left behind by the previous occupant and painted - in the small retro-looking upper level where walls are adorned with the likes of flying ducks and artwork including Tretchikoffe's 'blue lady' - once familiar sights in pretty much everyone's family living room.
The pop art theme extends into movie posters and quirky touches such as a tiny figure of superman hanging from the ceiling. And there's more to come, says Charlie.
The couple sourced all the materials for the pub in the North East and employed all-local traders to transform the space, working creatively together to create features, such as the oak-top bar whose offcuts were used to make the eight tap handles mounted on the wall. The beer itself is kept in a separate garage - now a "chill room" - out the back, with the running of the lines forming part of the major refit which took around two months.
Charlie and Julie are full of enthusiasm about their place in the community which recently has seen new additions to the food and drink scene, including new restaurants The Bonny Comet and, up the road at the end of Kells Lane, latest newcomer bistro and deli Ellison's of Low Fell.
They have been undeterred by the pandemic and the current cost of living crisis. Of the latter Charlie says people who like quality things, whatever they might be, tend to keep buying them: "Premium products don't seem to suffer so much during an economic downturn."
As for the pandemic, Julie has noticed a positive that emerged from it: in terms of a renewed appreciation for community and a keenness to support local businesses. "People started to value it," she says and now she thinks they don't want to lose it.
Tapping into the community bond, Charlie is planning to run the likes of golf trips from the premises and there a big plans for the future in store, with ideas to make use of the rooms they have upstairs for events such as wine tastings.
For now, new additions will be acoustic music nights, with a singer set to perform on Sunday evenings. Charlie notes that his own efforts to date, a play-list created for opening hours, soon becomes drowned out as conversation in the pub takes off. There's to be a quiz too, every other Wednesday, and there are plans for a Halloween-theme party on the Friday before Halloween, on October 28.
"It's all about community," says Julie. "I've lived here more than 35 years; it's my home and I've always felt a part of the community. It's a lovely, lovely feeling." And their new venture in the heart of Low Fell, she adds, captures that in a way.
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