Brewery 'amazed' by response to plea for help

Ritchie Bosworth, who owns the Twisted Barrel Ale Brewey and Tap House, called the public response "overwhelming"

A brewery owner forced to put a plea out on social media after weeks of slow trade said he was "absolutely amazed" by the response.

Ritchie Bosworth, who owns the Twisted Barrel in FarGo Village, Coventry, put a call out on 1 November to encourage others to support his small business.

In a post on Facebook, he said October was the "single worst month" the brewery had seen in almost 10 years.

"We hit the first week of October and suddenly 15% of our business disappeared overnight. Five weeks later and it still hadn't picked up," he said.

Mr Bosworth told the BBC the business had slow sales for about four or five weeks before he made the decision to put the call out on social media.

"It's always a hard decision of whether to say something when business is bad because you don't know if that's going to make the situation better or worse really," he said.

"There were literally times in October where they were stood in an empty room for two or three hours and not a single customer was walking through the door."

Mr Bosworth praised the response to the post and said the support and generosity from the public had been "overwhelming."

"It's been lovely to see people kind of recognise the issue, and hopefully it will go some way to raising awareness of the difficulties that the sector's having at the moment," he explained.

Mr Bosworth said he wanted people to be aware of the situation at the brewery and that he had been contacted by other businesses who were facing the same problem.

"When other businesses started contacting us saying 'yeah that's the same situation we're in', we start to get a better understanding," he said.

"And then it's not just us."

Speaking of the government's recent Budget which includes changes to business rates relief, Mr Bosworth added the national insurance (NI) rise was going to "hurt."

To help small businesses with the NI rise, the chancellor said employment allowance would also rise from £5,000 to £10,500.

The government also intends to introduce permanently lower business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure sectors from 2026/27.