Life has a funny way of working out, even if you weren’t sure what you were looking for in the first place.
For Miranda Hudson and her co-founder and husband Bates, a chance encounter at a wedding a decade ago would eventually lead them to up sticks, start a new life in the country and open Duration Brewing – a farmhouse brewery making beers that belong.
Duration Brewing secured planning consent to put their brewery on a scheduled monument site in a grade II* building back in September 2017.
Early on, they worked with partners such Manchester’s Cloudwater and Oslo’s Amundsen to produce beers nomadically. That’s in addition to an array of collaborations with UK breweries including Deya, Verdant and Burning Sky.
But fast-forward and the Norfolk brewery would cap a successful 2021 with a sleuth of awards.
This included being recognised with two of the highest accolades in UK Brewing as Best New Brewery and Best New Beer for flagship American Pale Turtles All The Way Down at our own Brewers Choice Awards.
Collecting those awards marked the start of a busy few days for the Duration duo with co-founder Bates stepping away from the brew kit to deliver one of the opening talks at our annual Brewers Congress.
A rare public speaker, Bates gave an impassioned and rousing talk on how in building the business he has worked in structures and processes to make beers that belong with a deep respect of their impact.
As well as discussing circular waste practices he also talked of his ambition to not grow exponentially and perhaps instead do less with more to stay creative while also putting mechanisms in place to allow for owner-operators with staff equity.
And we’re sharing that very talk as this week’s Brewers Journal Podcast…