Brewers Journal Podcast

Earlier this week, figures from across the brewing industry descended upon Minneapolis for the latest iteration of the Craft Brewers Conference and the 2022 World Beer Cup Awards. And closer to home, breweries in the UK and across Europe are making absolutely incredible beer. That comes as no surprise. The consumer has simply never had it better when it comes to the sheer variety of styles available to them. And access to excellent US beer, both in trade and direct to consumer, is improving all of the time, too. In recent years a number of beer fans have turned their hands to bringing over fresh beer from breweries that otherwise might not graced these shores. And one such individual is Andrew McPhillips, the founder of Beers of America. In this episode, he tells us about why he started the business, the styles that most resonate with customers and why US beers continue to remain popular with fans in the UK and further afield.

Founded in 2020 but a long time in the making, Sureshot was born out of lockdown. The Manchester-based business, headed up by a brewer that can make leading hop-forward beers in his sleep, is determined to make its mark with an excellent, high-quality product. And a mere four months on since their first brew, they’re doing just that. 

During one their first dates, enjoying pints of mild, a couple while away the evening in one of the UK’s most fashionable cities. But no, we’re not talking about 2022. Instead this is Liverpool in the late 1980s…. And although they were both working in hospitality back then, little did Julie and Les O’ Grady know that some 30 years on, they’d be running a different hospitality business of their own. For Julie and they’d meet at Dunny’s Sports & Social Club. They’d get married, and have two children, Les would run a successful aquatics company while Julie had a decorated career in the NHS. But after Les decide to call time on that venture, he’d hang up his fishing net and pick up his mash paddle, with Julie joining full time several years later.   And only last weekend Neptune Brewery, the business they co-founded, celebrated its 7th birthday. It’s a business that has grown and expanded since starting out in 2015, and one that looks set for its biggest year yet in 2022.

With the sunshine we head to California and learn that brewing, like any other profession, can take us on a journey we might not have planned for. When Dylan Mobley (pictured far right) left his role at Stone Brewing in Escondido, California, to improve his work/life balance, he already had his next role mapped out. Instead, he’d spend the best part of the next five years helping create and refine some of the most revered and sought after beers in the modern US scene at Bottle Logic Brewing. But now, the California native is focused on his new venture at Rad Beer Co. Due to open this spring, Rad Beer Co is a a brewery and tasting room concept that will allow Mobley to brew a range of lagers and clean German Pilsners that complement the team’s Rad Brat food offering. In this podcast, we speak to Mobley about his exciting plans for Rad Beer Co. We look back at his career to learn more about how he grew as a brewer during his four years at Bottle Logic Brewing. We discuss the level of quality control required when brewing and packaging the array of Bourbon Barrel-Aged Stouts that remain so sought after across the globe, and also the on-going popularity of hop-forward hazy Pale Ales and IPAs.

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… Download Bates’ accompanying presentation hereDownload

Most breweries will, hopefully, experience a growth curve during their business lives. But when you’re on that particular journey, it’s key to recognise that there’s more to it than just increasing capacity and your ability to produce more volume. And as someone heading up a brew team, Aaron McClure knows that all too well. Aaron is the head brewer at Sharp’s, based in Rock, Cornwall. After studying biology at the University of Exeter, Aaron would join Sharp’s in 2011, rising up the ranks from brewing team member to technical brewer before being promoted to the role of head brewer in 2019. Managing a team of 32 brewers, McClure is responsible for the production of a raft of beers including Atlantic, Offshore Pilsner and Doom Bar, which they brew in excess of one million pints of each week. In this latest episode, recorded at our Brewers Congress in December, Aaron explains how he goes about managing all of his different responsibilities at the Cornish brewery. During his time at Sharp’s, he has seen the brewery and the team grow. On the outside, he says, it’s sometimes easy to just look at a larger number of tanks or your ability to make more beer. But there’s more to it, much more. Whether that means HR policies and practices, quality controls and health and safety measures, you also need to make sure each and every part of your team feels valued and involved.

What happens when you combine a couple that have a love for travel, a passion for brewing excellent beers and the desire to create an inclusive brewery that boasts a taproom loved by locals and visitors alike? Reading’s own Double-Barrelled, of course! Having just celebrated that important third birthday, nominated for new brewery of the year at our Brewers Choice Awards, and with a capacity expansion under its belt already in 2022, the brewery is only looking one way – and that’s forward. In this podcast, we speak to brewery co-founders Luci and Mike Clayton-Jones about the origins of Double-Barrelled, striving for continuous improvement, the importance of inclusivity and the role the taproom plays in the community. 

“You have to be a manager, a coach and a referee all in one. And there’s probably a little bit of hope involved, too.” Greg Zeschuk knows a thing or two about running a team. Because before working in beer, the company he co-founded grew to employ 1500 at seven locations across the globe. Zeschuk was originally trained as a medical doctor, before starting the videogame company BioWare in 1995 in his hometown of Edmonton. BioWare created a number of successful games (Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Mass Effect) before being purchased by Electronic Arts (EA) in 2007. While a part of EA BioWare grew to employ over 1500 employees at seven studios across the world. Zeschuk left BioWare in 2012 and after a short hiatus started working in beer.  He went on to start The Beer Diaries, a YouTube channel focused on craft beer, and served as the first Executive Director of the Alberta Small Brewers Association in his home province. This led to Zeschuk starting a brewery in his hometown of Edmonton. To achieve his brewery goals Greg built two buildings – the award-winning Ritchie Market and the Monolith. The Ritchie Market is a multi-use building housing a brewery (Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company), a restaurant (Biera), a butcher, coffee shop, and a bakery. The Monolith was built as a barrel-focused brewery. Out of its Market brewery Blind Enthusiasm focuses on making lagers and runs a barrel-aging program. The Monolith was built to marry scientific method with tradition while making beer largely in wood. At the Monolith Blind Enthusiasm exclusively makes mixed fermentation and spontaneous beer.  And having worked in a variety of different professions across the world, Zeschuk says the key to heading up a team is to ensure you coach people rather than simply manage them, something he discusses in this latest episode. “It’s important that the right people are in the right positions,” he explains. “And as your team grows, you need to remember that it helps for people to have frameworks to work within.” Zeschuk adds: “I’ve let people run with roles because I have full confidence in them making it their own. But at times, people are more comfortable with having clear guidance of what’s expected of them. So it’s key to communicate and discover what works best with that individual.” At its peak, Zeschuk was responsible for managing 600 people at EA BioWare and says having a good team around you is imperative. “When you grow, you need management structure that works for you. But there’s no point it being too bloated because that can be disastrous,” he says. “You all need to work well together and, of course, there’s a little bit of hope that everyone pulls in the same direction.” And while working in beer Zeschuk is now used to working with smaller teams, he says that doesn’t mean there are fewer pressures or challenges. “Making video games was one thing and obviously delays happen. But the idea of telling a customer that we can’t deliver their beer that week? he laughs.That’s a whole different problem!”

In beer, and the wider world, what people love is for you to have the respect to show them what you love. And in doing so, they have an opportunity to walk through a little door and potentially find something they really enjoy. But if you don’t give people the chance, then they can’t respect you. Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, has hosted countless tastings. And he has seen that people can surprise you. With their knowledge, their taste, with their enthusiasm. At our Brewers Congress in London earlier this month, Garrett delivered the closing address which we present here as the latest episode of The Brewers Journal Podcast. He tells us that you should never assume that you know more than the person sitting in front of you. That we all should be more inclusive, and to have the courage to put ourselves in front of people who don’t look like us and maybe haven’t heard about our beer. And also, he says that if you want to have a really good time, get everybody in the room. Not just the people you know, but everybody because, put simply, everybody loves beer. Photo: Nic Crilly-Hargrave

Earlier this week we hosted our annual Brewers Congress and Brewers Choice Awards. During our Brewers Choice Awards, we gave out the inaugural Global Ambassador Award. This accolade is designed to acknowledge a true catalyst of innovation and invention in the wonderful world of beer.  And this inaugural winner is just that. He is a brewmaster at a venerable brewery, a decorated author, and the host of countless beer tastings and dinners across the globe. And more recently, he is the founding board chair of the Michael Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling. He is, of course, Garrett Oliver. So to celebrate the award, we are giving you another opportunity to listen to his excellent keynote talk at our Brewers Congress in 2018 in which Oliver tells us: “If you don’t have a religion, you can’t be a craft brewer.”