Ritchies Beaverdale Wine Kits - Does anyone know?

[Klaus Ludwig]

I have made half a dozen batches of Beaverdale wine (30 bottle kits) over recent years. The results were very good. My kits were made by Ritchie Products Ltd.

It appears that this company no longer exists and their original ritchieproducts web address now diverts to a company called Bevie.

I’m guessing that Ritchie Products Ltd may have got into financial difficulties and possibly was bought up or cleared out by Bevie?

• A company called Creative Wine Making Ltd are selling “Beaverdale” wine kits in boxes with very similar labeling to Ritchies Beaverdale. Are they selling the same product as Ritchie Products Ltd?
• Quote from the Love Brewing website: Richard Blackwell (the owner of Love Brewing) saw a gap in the market in the late '80s for a really good quality wine kit and launched a range called The House of Beaverdale. Throughout the next 15 years he developed this range with improvements in quality, varieties, and packaging, to solidify its position as the best-selling quality wine kit in the UK. Now available in 2 sizes.
• A website called Brew2Bottle is selling Beaverdale wine kits in “remanufactured packaging” whatever that means? Could it mean that the original packaging had "different" best-before dates?

Does anyone on the forum know any more about what happened to Ritchie Products Ltd and their excellent Beaverdale wine kits or anything about how this original product relates to the Beaverdale wine kits sold by (1) Creative Wine Making, (2) Love Brewing & (3) Brew2Bottle?

Thanks!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I bought a Ritchies FV a few years ago and its still airtight today (still use it regularly) i always used their super wine yeast compound, yeast nutrient. pectolase and stabiliser as our local health food shop stocked a few homebrew bits and bobs, it'll be a shame if they have gone out of business

I have asked forum sponsor @Brew2bottle Homebrew if they could have a look at the thread.

 

[Scottyburto]

As far as I'm aware Ritchie's has become Bevie. Creative wine making is just a homebrew shop in long Eaton. Brew2bottle are selling the rebranded versions of beaverdale wine kits. Beaverdale are made by some Canadian company who make about 3 different brands of wine kit. They've overhauled all their brands and the new versions have less grape concentrate and are reviewing poorer.

Theres an extensive thread about the changes and new kits not being as good some where if u have a browse through the wine kit reviews.

Hope this helps.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Thanks Scott I may be mistaken but think the Make Your Own kits at the Range stores are made by them.

 

[Scottyburto]

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/new-vine-co-wine-kits.87612/
I think this is the thread, there might've been more at the time.

 

[soupdragon]

Thanks Scott I may be mistaken but think the Make Your Own kits at the Range stores are made by them.

As are Mangrove Jack and Mad Millie products

Cheers Tom

 

[B2B]

I have made half a dozen batches of Beaverdale wine (30 bottle kits) over recent years. The results were very good. My kits were made by Ritchie Products Ltd.

It appears that this company no longer exists and their original ritchieproducts web address now diverts to a company called Bevie.

I’m guessing that Ritchie Products Ltd may have got into financial difficulties and possibly was bought up or cleared out by Bevie?

• A company called Creative Wine Making Ltd are selling “Beaverdale” wine kits in boxes with very similar labeling to Ritchies Beaverdale. Are they selling the same product as Ritchie Products Ltd?
• Quote from the Love Brewing website: Richard Blackwell (the owner of Love Brewing) saw a gap in the market in the late '80s for a really good quality wine kit and launched a range called The House of Beaverdale. Throughout the next 15 years he developed this range with improvements in quality, varieties, and packaging, to solidify its position as the best-selling quality wine kit in the UK. Now available in 2 sizes.
• A website called Brew2Bottle is selling Beaverdale wine kits in “remanufactured packaging” whatever that means? Could it mean that the original packaging had "different" best-before dates?

Does anyone on the forum know any more about what happened to Ritchie Products Ltd and their excellent Beaverdale wine kits or anything about how this original product relates to the Beaverdale wine kits sold by (1) Creative Wine Making, (2) Love Brewing & (3) Brew2Bottle?

Thanks!

Hey Klaus

Just to confirm some of what has already been posted.

Ritchies were bought out by Bevie around 15 months ago now and a new wholesale company formed called Bevie Handicraft. They're the guys behind a lot of the kits on the market now. The Beaverdale kits available online and in stores now are still sourced from the same manufacturer in Canada and then packaged in the UK by Bevie. Improvements in the manufacturing process though has meant they have been able to reduce the quantity of juice in the kits by around 25% down to approx 6ltrs. This is the same for some of the WinExpert and VineCo kits that come out of the same place. As far as I'm aware Ritchies weren't in financial difficulties, it was time for the owners to hang up their hats and retire so Bevie stepped in to purchase the business.

I think our use of the word "re-manufactured" is a little misleading, I'll change that for something else shortly. Basically it's a new box size as there is less concentrate is what was supposed to mean :)

These are still the same Beaverdale kits you've been purchasing in the past though, with less juice, and it's the same item no matter where you buy it online or in store across the country. Some of the old Ritchies branded products still have the Ritchies logo's/details on the side of the box but I presume this is down to old stocks of packaging being used up before a re-design is implemented.

Hope this helps

Cheers

 

[B2B]

Thanks Scott I may be mistaken but think the Make Your Own kits at the Range stores are made by them.

The guys at Bevie are behind the Make Your Own kits also yep, plus Mangrove Jacks and Mad Millie and many more.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Thanks.

 

[VW911]

As stated above, John Ritchie sold the business on to Bevie.
Some of the old staff, (and some from another leading UK homebrew distributor) have stayed, thankfully.
The whole takeover has been somewhat shambolic from a retailers point of view, but hopefully things will settle down when they finally launch their UK website. At the moment, their trade catalogue is pretty much gibberish!

 

[soupdragon]

As stated above, John Ritchie sold the business on to Bevie.
Some of the old staff, (and some from another leading UK homebrew distributor) have stayed, thankfully.
The whole takeover has been somewhat shambolic from a retailers point of view, but hopefully things will settle down when they finally launch their UK website. At the moment, their trade catalogue is pretty much gibberish!

They do have a website
Home - Bevie
Or did you mean one for the general public to purchase from as that looks like it's for the trade rather than a wider audience?

Cheers Tom
.

 

[Klaus Ludwig]

Many thanks to “@Chippy_Tea” and to site sponsor “@Brew2Bottle Homebrew” and also to everyone else for the responses.

I now understand the following:-

As far as wine kits go, Ritchies were an importer rather than a manufacturer and have been bought out by Bevie.

The Beaverdale Wine Kits sold by Creative Wine Making Ltd, Love Brewing and Brew2Bottle (and presumably others) are imported by Bevie from the same Canadian owned Company that originally supplied Ritchies and are also packaged by Bevie, though now they now use less grape concentrate than the original kits (6L instead of 7.5L).

I must admit that I had originally wondered if the Beaverdale ‘trademark” was now being used by another Wine Kit manufacturer and was keen to find out if I could still trust this “name”.

I can now reasonably assume that any wine on the market that is labeled Beaverdale is sourced from Bevie and ultimately is from the same Canadian owned supplier.

 

[B2B]

As stated above, John Ritchie sold the business on to Bevie.
Some of the old staff, (and some from another leading UK homebrew distributor) have stayed, thankfully.
The whole takeover has been somewhat shambolic from a retailers point of view, but hopefully things will settle down when they finally launch their UK website. At the moment, their trade catalogue is pretty much gibberish!

To be fair to the guys at Bevie they had no idea a pandemic/lockdown was coming when the plans for the takeover were put in place :) There was no stock left in the country by the time we were a week into the lockdown anyway which had nothing to do with the takeover. Since then they've thrown a lot of money at getting extra stock on the shelves to support the resellers up and down the country and to ensure availability is good, not just in their own brands but the brands available via other wholesalers. The factory went to working pretty much 24/7 which it wasn't pre-pandemic, and goes to show just how much demand there was out there this time last year. It's impossible to scale up overnight when demand goes through the roof like that.

I agree though, the ordering portal is a big miss for us also but it's all do-able still and in many ways the same as ordering from any other wholesaler via traditional PO.

 

[Klaus Ludwig]

There is one thing related to my original post that I don't yet quite understand and that is that on the Love Brewing website it states the following:-

• Richard Blackwell (the owner of Love Brewing) saw a gap in the market in the late '80s for a really good quality wine kit and launched a range called The House of Beaverdale. Throughout the next 15 years he developed this range with improvements in quality, varieties, and packaging, to solidify its position as the best-selling quality wine kit in the UK. Now available in 2 sizes.

The above statement seems to indicate that Richard Blackwell of Love Brewing was responsible for launching and developing the Beaverdale wine kit range. So what was the relationship between Ritchie Products Ltd and Richard Blackwell of Love Brewing? I understand that Richard Blackwell of Love Brewing is still active and that Love Brewing is currently selling Beaverdale wine kits

 

[B2B]

Richard was one of the directors at Ritchies at the time but parted ways with them some time ago now.

Love Brewing is still going strong with Richard at the helm though. Love Brewing are a reseller like ourselves and buy all of their Beaverdale stock from Bevie.

I think you'll find the majority of stores around the country sell Beaverdale kits, they are one of the main brands for wine kits in the UK. There's no difference to the kits regardless of where you buy them from other than the Best Before date on the box depending on how quickly each store turns over their stock. The concentrate all come's from the same source in Canada and is brought over by boat and packaged into the Beaverdale boxes in the UK by Bevie who then distribute it to whichever store wants to stock them.

 

[Klaus Ludwig]

Richard was one of the directors at Ritchies at the time but parted ways with them some time ago now.

Very interesting.
Thanks!