Teaming up with Robinsons brewery might have seemed an unlikely partnership for Bruce Dickinson and his Iron Maiden band mates, but after being initially approached to create an Iron Maiden wine, the seed of inspiration was sown and a business idea started to grow.
Beer rather than red wine, was closer to Bruce’s heart, featuring on the band’s rider whenever they toured.
“I try and insist on local beers wherever we are. They say ‘what beers do you want backstage?’ and I say ‘well, just go out and try and find half a dozen beers which are local and that just look interesting’. And I have a mini beer festival backstage. Obviously I don’t drink all of them or I’d be flat on my back”.
So why not turn this passion for high quality handcrafted ale into something tangible?
“It came about because we didn’t want to make wine. Somebody said why don’t you do a red wine and we were like ‘why would we want to do that?’. And that sort of gave us the idea. We went ‘why don’t we do beer instead?’ And I said, ‘well I’m very fond of beer’, and they said ‘well you go and help them make it then’. So it was as simple as that.”
“The key thing about choosing Robinsons is that they wanted to make sure we were serious about it. Not just slapping a label on the bottle. And I said ‘no, no, no, no. We really want to work with you to design our own beer. Something really interesting. Something that will tickle the taste buds of fans of real ale’.”
Bruce turned brewer and together with Robinsons, created a session ale named after Iron Maiden’s 1983 single, The Trooper. The resulting golden ale blended bobec, goldings and cascade hops to produce a high strength session ale. By brewing a stronger beer (4.7%) they opened up opportunities for export, a wise decision as international sales now account for around half of all Trooper sales.
From a successful launch on 9 May 2013, the popularity of Trooper has gone from strength to strength winning fans not just in the UK, but in Canada, South Africa, Australia, Taiwan and USA as well as most of Europe.
The Trooper Story…
March 2013 – Trooper created in collaboration with Robinsons (a long established Stockport brewer who have been making beer at the Unicorn Brewery since 1838).
22 April 2013 – Robinsons announced that Trooper is available to pre-order online
3 May 2013 – Virtual sales soared to 300,000 and Robinsons reported brewing three batches a day for the first time in 175 years in order to keep up with demand for the beer.
9 May 2013 – Trooper trade launch at Robinsons brewery with reception attended by Bruce Dickinson and over 100 influential brewing trade representatives from both the UK and Internationally. By now more than 180 countries were expressing an interest in Trooper.
3 June 2013 – Morrisons supermarket stock Trooper in over 450 of their stores, leading to sales topping the one million pint mark in July.
4 July 2013 – Robinsons Brewery announced the production of the one millionth pint of Iron Maiden’s Trooper beer, just eight weeks after it was launched.
10 October 2013 – Robinsons announced that over one million pints of Trooper have been exported around the world, taking the total number of Trooper pints sold globally to over 2 million.
18 November 2013 – Trooper becomes available in almost 300 of Sainsbury’s stores across the UK.
11 August 2014 – Trooper wins its first beer award with gold in the British Bottlers’ Institute Competition 2014 (BBI).
15 July 2015 – Trooper broke the 10 million pint barrier in just over 2 years and celebrated with the announcement of new limited edition bottled brew “Trooper 666”.
18 August 2015 – Strong demand for Trooper prompted Robinsons to produce it as their first ever keg ale.
1 September 2016 – Bruce teamed up with Robinsons head brewer Martyn Weeks to swell Trooper ranks with the limited edition “Red n’ Black Porter”.
18 January 2017 – Selling over 15 million pints worldwide since its launch, Trooper received a brand new packaging design.
What does this tell us about Bruce? That he loves beer? Or that if you follow your passions, believe in what you are producing and have the support of a great team behind you, you can turn it into a profitable business?
Bruce inspires audiences with how he turned his passion for flying, beer and music into successful ventures during his keynote speeches at conferences and events. To enquire about booking him for yours please contact Dave Daniel at CSA Speakers: dave@speakers.co.uk or +44 1628 601 411.
