CHAPTER 9

MARRIED TO A BREWERY

Richard’s first wife Marian Rait labels a bottle of London Porter. In the early years of the brewery family members did all the manual labour – from labelling to bottling to delivering beer.

I was naïve and didn’t have much chance to have relationships with women because of my lack of communication. I couldn’t ask for a phone number, it was a bloody nuisance. I couldn’t ring up a girl — if I did, I would have had to get someone to do it for me. It was difficult unless I could talk to them face to face — I really had no privacy and that made it quite hard, so, really I never had any luck with dates.

I did manage a date or two when I was in London because I was with people on a daily basis in the operating theatre. Apart from that it was rare to have a relationship. When I came back from the UK in 1990, my sister Helen had a friend, Marian, and she gave me the signals she was interested in me which was a surprise — I wasn’t used to women being interested in me.

We started going out. She was quite shy, but she was happy to help me in the brewery in the early days. We used the company van to go on our honeymoon — we put a mattress in the back and went up the West Coast. As life went on, things changed — we had different views on life.

Richard Emerson is not the first brewer to see the demands of the business take its toll on relationships. The long hours, the low pay, the unrelenting demands of feeding a constantly hungry beast conspire to deliver an unbearable amount of stress.

Equally, Richard’s fledgling business may not have survived those early years without the input and support of his first wife, Marian Rait.

The marriage ended unhappily, for all the reasons many marriages break down — loss of trust, miscommunication, financial stress, work stress — but it also started the way most relationships do: happily.

Marian, who was studying to be a teacher, had taken music papers at Otago University where she met Helen Emerson. At the time, Richard was overseas on his beer-discovery journey. When he returned home, Richard moved back into his parents’ house where Marian visited — to see Helen.

Before long, Richard became the reason to visit. With Helen’s connection to Marian, a solution to Richard’s usual inability to call to arrange a date presented itself — he could trust Helen with his privacy and she played the go-between role, ringing her friend to arrange dates with her brother.

‘In those days, Richard was young and fun and full of enthusiasm,’ Marian said. ‘He’d just come back from overseas and had the taste of the beer in Europe. He was highly driven and had this really cool idea to start a brewery.’

Marian remembered a ‘socially awkward’ young man who could be a bit immature. ‘But that was to do with his deafness and not being able to read social situations that well. He was also self-conscious of his hearing aids in those days — he wanted to cut his hair but was worried about his hearing aids showing. And I said go for it.’

Marian witnessed first-hand how tough it was for Richard in the early years.

As time went on, she also discovered Richard’s energy and passion for his brewery could make him too focused on himself and often unaware of what other people did to help him. ‘Being so enthusiastic, he often came across as overly self-focused and he did forget important things to do with other people, such as birthdays.’

Richard and Marian had a long and often happy relationship. They lived together for a while in a flat Richard shared with his old friend Grant Hanan — a period when Marian witnessed first-hand the success of the pilot plant in Ravensbourne. ‘I remember going around on the back of the motorbike to the garage in Ravensbourne and writing the numbers on the bottle caps for which brew it was. Then they’d go out to his friends for feedback and London Porter was always a good one.’

Friends from that time remembered a couple who worked well together, though there was some scepticism when Richard announced they would be getting married in January 1995.

Marian was Richard’s first serious girlfriend and some of his friends believed he rushed into the marriage, with one believing Richard had struggled to build relationships because of his disability and therefore jumped at the first chance he got. ‘Richard always had an eye for the girls and was fascinated by them, but it was hard for him — and he was a handsome guy, but he didn’t have much luck with women.’

Others worried about Richard and Marian’s quite distinctive personalities. Richard loved being with outgoing, expressive and upbeat people with whom he could easily communicate and who brought fun and laughs, while Marian tended to be shy and introverted.

On the flip side, others worried Richard’s riveted devotion to the brewery made him a difficult person to be around.

According to Rob Smillie, ‘Richard can get so focused on what he’s doing, he can forget other people in his life. The early years of marriage would have been hard on Marian — he was so busy with the business and she felt isolated. When they eventually split up I thought it was good for both of them because they were both unhappy in that marriage.’

David Stedman agreed. ‘Marian was a complicated person. They would often have arguments that would leave Richard distraught and in tears. But Richard can also be very focused — single-minded and tunnel-visioned — and sometimes he doesn’t think about the consequences to his nearest and dearest. He survived that marriage by denial. After my own marriage ended, he was determined, saying, “That’s not going to happen to me.”’

Marian saw more than anyone — more than George and Ingrid — how much of a toll the first five years of the business took and how much love and support Richard required from his family in order to survive.

Richard had set himself a goal of making it past the first five years in business because he’d been told that 95 per cent of start-up businesses didn’t make it that far. Whether that’s true or merely a truism designed to motivate young businesses to keep ploughing on is neither here nor there, as for Richard — and for George — those first five years became a mountain they needed to climb in order to see how far they might go.

‘It was stressful, fun and exciting,’ Marian recalled, noting the feeling of camaraderie as she and Ingrid would work next to each other bottling beer on the three-head filling machine Richard had salvaged from the scrapyard, or hand-gluing labels onto plastic bottles. It took painstaking precision to paint on the glue with a tacky brush — ‘Oh, the joy of a new brush that wasn’t all tacky!’ — and then roll the label onto the bottle straight and in the right position.

Deliveries to make, festivals to attend, orders to process over the phone — the workflow was incessant. ‘I’d make business calls on his behalf because the landline wasn’t an option for him. There was lots of lifting — bottles, boxes, barrels — it was very labour intensive for us all; Richard, George, Ingrid, Helen and me.

‘I remember at Christmas delivering wooden barrels of beer to a backpackers in town — it was full of international travellers and to make them feel more at home we’d take a barrel and handpump around on Christmas Day and then head off to our own Christmas dinner.

‘And then there were beer festivals — jumping into a car on a Friday night after a full week of work and heading away to pour beer at things like Blues, Brews and BBQs.’

FOR RICHARD — AND FOR GEORGE — THOSE FIRST FIVE YEARS BECAME A MOUNTAIN THEY NEEDED TO CLIMB IN ORDER TO SEE HOW FAR THEY MIGHT GO.

One of the more fascinating tasks for Marian came on a trip to the United States where the couple visited 22 breweries in two weeks as Richard researched bottling machines. The trip culminated in a visit to a bottling-line manufacturer for a full day’s tutorial. Richard struggled with this kind of learning experience — where someone might be pointing to a piece of equipment and talking in the direction of the object rather than to him. ‘So, there I was taking notes on this bottling machine because Richard doesn’t pick up everything. I was his back-up — I learned a lot about bottling machines!’

While the family support for Richard delivered critical sustenance for the early survival of the brewery, it also came with huge amounts of tension. Watching the father–son relationship at a distance, Marian could see why George tried to keep a tight rein on the finances in order to build something for Richard’s future.

George had always feared for Richard, worried that his son’s disability would hinder his career, worried that he might not find the work required to see him through to retirement. He knew the brewery might be the one opportunity Richard had been waiting for in life. But to make that happen, he needed to take a financial risk — with his own money and the money of his friends and family.

‘The business was always a risk — and even to get it started, Richard had to convince George to bankroll it. But George didn’t have business in his background — he was from academia — he didn’t know how to set up a business or how to run a business.

‘He came from a frugal background to start with and it was a huge step for him to undertake the setting up of a business. He felt personally responsible for getting his friends into this situation with their money; banking on his son’s success. But as a son, Richard thought his dad was grumpy and conservative for keeping a tight rein on the money.

‘George and Richard did have differences of opinion and both of them had a fault of not listening to other people — I might have an idea or Ingrid would have an idea and they’d say, “No, no, no,” but two weeks later it was “Tick, tick, tick …” and they’d have the same idea.’

From a detached position, Marian believed the oversight provided by that first board of directors — George, Graeme Berry and Alastair Smillie — ensured the brewery made it through the teething years. ‘Those three guys were amazing and only ever wanted the best for the brewery. They wanted the business to make it past those first five years.’

The other thing that astonished and troubled Marian was Richard’s work ethic. Always a driven person, the physical energy and ultimate responsibility for making the brewery work fell squarely on his shoulders and sometimes the weight became too much to bear.

‘I can remember times when he’d come home in tears and say, “I’m giving it up.” And I’d be talking him through, saying keep going, keep going.

‘The first brew day alone was sixteen hours and after that it was relentless — continuous eleven- and twelve-hour days. And not just the physical aspect, it was all the decisions, the work that had to be done, the mistakes that might happen, the problems that needed to be solved — things would just stack up and suddenly he’s in tears saying, “I can’t do it any longer, I want to give it up” — it was heartbreaking to see and I don’t think he would have been like that in front of his mum and dad. But at six o’clock the next morning, he was back to work. His work ethic was extraordinary.’

This is where a crack started to appear in the relationship — Richard’s commitment to a business where demands pounded like an incessant drum and finances were tight as a guitar string, raised his own tension and that, in turn, made him more focused on proving himself. Marian did her best to support him — by working in the brewery, providing the hot meal he needed at the end of the day, pursuing her own career, helping provide financial stability — and she felt Richard didn’t appreciate that nor reciprocate it.

‘It started off great — of course it did — but both of us had full-time jobs. I had my career to think about as well, which was often forgotten. Despite the long hours and the stress, the brewery remained the number one priority for Richard. There was a lot of cool things about the business, but what I didn’t like was that it came first, over and above all else — it was brewery first and foremost and then his family, then me.’

Marian also started to resent the drinking culture associated with owning a brewery. ‘Let’s just say the brewer was never the sober driver. There also became a lot of hangers-on who came around for the free beer — Friday nights turned into a thing where a lot of the people there were not genuine. They were just there for free beer and took advantage — it was getting out of hand.’

Tastings, events, festivals, award dinners … their social life inevitably became overtaken by all things beer. In short, the business and the wider industry got in the way of the relationship — they were not what you’d call a normal married couple in that regard.

In 2006, Richard and Marian discussed and agreed on a vital move for Marian to further her career. She enrolled in a year-long postgraduate teaching course at the University of Canterbury. In Christchurch, she boarded with her mother and she travelled back to Dunedin as many weekends and school break times as she could. While they lived apart, the marriage was still intact. However, looking back, Richard felt this time apart marked the beginning of the end of the relationship. They were officially divorced in 2009.

One of the things we did every week was have some drinks and a barbecue on Friday night. They were my advertising budget. That was how we did the marketing by word of mouth, and that was how we built up the brand credibility in Dunedin. It took a long time. People still have memories of the Friday-night sessions — in some ways it helped the brand, but it was also my way of letting off some steam and making people happy. It started off small but it did get out of control.

Ah, the Friday-night parties. Chris O’Leary, who would later move to Dunedin and join the Emerson’s team, once came down from Hawke’s Bay to visit Richard and arrived as one of the Friday-night sessions ramped up. ‘There was a brazier going, music playing, three handpumps set up and people helping themselves to beer. There were about thirty or forty people, and I said to Richard, “This is great, but you didn’t have to do this for me!” And he replied, “It’s not for you — this happens every Friday.”’

Richard loved the Friday nights — an end-of-week wind-down where he could share his passion with a new set of ‘appreciators’. He treated the lost revenue as the marketing budget he didn’t have. He believed that the more people loved the Emerson’s experience, the more they’d talk about it.

And the sessions became a way of saying thank you. It was a few beers for those who helped get him through another week, including the staff at Stewart’s Coffee across the road, who would do everything from answering phones to letting Richard use their forklift. Special gratitude extended to Mike Hormann. When he set up his business, Set Point Electronics, at 11 Grange Street, he took great pleasure in seeing his long-lost primary school friend, Richard Emerson, across the road. When Richard had gone to Logan Park, Mike had joined Rob Smillie at Otago Boys’ and he and Richard had lost touch, only to be reunited on Grange Street where Hormann happily answered telephone calls and did some electrical work for Richard; he later stored malt in a small shed on his premises when Richard ran out of room across the road. ‘I didn’t mind doing those things, he owned a brewery after all.’

Hormann even got a great present for some of his clients when Richard got distracted one day and put the wrong amount of malt into a batch of IPA. ‘He got a phone call in the middle of it, which meant he had to go away and get someone,’ Mike recalled. ‘He lost track of how much malt he was putting in and added too much. I said, “What will be wrong with it?” “Well, it won’t taste like the beer it’s supposed to be?” “Make it anyway,” I said, “I’ll buy it off you at cost.” I got some labels printed with Set Point IPA on them and we bought the lot to give away to our clients!’

When Hormann sold his business to German electronics giant Siemens, George noted his obvious business acumen and invited him to join the Emerson’s board of directors. In taking his seat on the other side of the business, he — along with the other directors — realised the Friday-night sessions had amplified to the extent that they’d taken a small toll on the business. ‘It was a way of saying thanks to people and it started as one beer and then home. But some of the guys weren’t having one. After a while, too many people were drinking too much and at no profit to the company. A lot of the stuff we drank was what they called sweepings — low-filled bottles, end-of-run beer, that sort of thing. But the fact was Emerson’s weren’t making enough beer — we were selling everything we made — so there wasn’t much to give away. I did get a little over those Friday nights because they did get a little bit out of hand — people just turned up to drink beer that had no connection to Emerson’s. And when no one’s paying for the beer, the directors start doing sums.’

Hormann also played a key role in Emerson’s first move — across the road to 9 Grange Street, the premises next door to Set Point Electronics. Mike knew the landlord and negotiated the lease for Richard.

The landmark move showed that not only had Emerson’s survived the critical first five years, they’d actually got a seven-year itch of sorts with the original brewery pushed to capacity and ready to burst.

‘The brewery was growing at 24 to 25 per cent a year and you just had to keep chucking more stainless steel at it and trying to find more space,’ Hormann said.

Richard’s transition from one side of Grange Street to the other started in 1999. It marked a massive turning point for the brewery, but a more severe crisis in Richard’s life waited up the road.

I would brew at 4 Grange Street and go over to 9 Grange Street at night to paint. I was trying to do everything to save money. Also, my father wasn’t terribly well at the time — he started to stumble and lose his balance, I remember him stumbling across the road — so he had less and less involvement at 9 Grange Street and I was doing more work on the accounts. Then we found Dad had cancer and that was a devastation. That was one of the toughest periods of my life.

George would say, ‘Don’t worry about me, keep working, keep brewing.’ He had a brain tumour the size of a ping-pong ball, but he kept pushing me to keep going. He had an operation, but then the cancer came back. But for me it was hard — I had to keep the business going, but when my father ended up in the hospice, I had mixed feelings — I regret not being able to spend more time with him, but I was a victim of circumstance. I had to keep the business going. To watch my father deteriorate wasn’t very nice.