Rob's Brewing Journey
The seasonals are coming thick and fast at the moment – since our last blog we’ve released Archer, a single hop 3.4% pale ale showcasing beautiful but subtle apricot and lime flavours that can be overshadowed when used alongside punchier hops; and coming soon is Headless Chicken, a rebrew of a seasonal we did last year which was very well received (see https://thehopshed.co.uk/hop-breeding-and-provenance/ for a little more detail on that).
A question I’m often asked by people when they come into the tap room and see me working is: how did I get into brewing? Prior to being in this field, even though I drank beer multiple times a week I never really considered who made it, and it’s certainly not something I’ve ever heard mentioned by a career’s advisor (maybe because you generally get career advice before you hit the legal drinking age!). In fact, it was completely by chance I was introduced to the concept of brewing as a job, but now I’m in it, I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.
In 2018 I was working for a bank as a mortgage advisor. This was interesting up to a point but essentially came down to keying in information for the computer to make a decision. It was quite stressful when I wasn’t able to help people and not especially fulfilling when I was, so I decided to leave the company and reassess what I wanted to do with my life. As I was interested in craft beer, I looked for a job in a bar while I worked out my next steps – the first place I applied to was Brewhouse & Kitchen in Gloucester, and fortunately they were looking for enthusiasm and knowledge rather than experience!
The USP of B&K is that they brew their own beer on site, which quickly caught my attention. Talking to the brewer about the beers turned into conversations about brewing, and by the end of 2019 I had done my first couple of home brews (with mixed results!). About that time the company was looking to hire some brewing apprentices, and so on 1st January 2020 – at the age of 30 and having completed a master’s degree nearly a decade earlier – I started my apprenticeship.
To begin with I worked alongside the brewer in Gloucester while also attending workshops at the Brewing Sciences department at the University of Nottingham, and after a year (interrupted by two rounds of furlough…) I transferred to the Bristol pub as the sole brewer. An environment like that is both a great and difficult place to learn – as opposed to a large brewery where you may only be involved in one part of the process, as a lone brewer you have to do everything which is a brilliant learning opportunity; however there’s no-one to tell you when you’re doing something wrong, so it’s also a steep learning curve!
After two and a half years of brewing with B&K I had completed my apprenticeship, passed the General Certificate in Brewing and had a bronze SIBA award under my belt. I was looking for a new challenge at a bigger brewery and so started at The Hop Shed at the end of 2022 – since then I’ve been busy honing the core recipes, creating Pale as well as regular seasonals, and helped us win a few more awards! Besides the physical nature of the work (it suits me much better than sitting behind a desk), the thing I love about brewing is the experimentation with recipes and the fact that you have an actual product at the end of the day that you can see people enjoying. It’s endlessly interesting and rewarding, so if I’ve sparked your interest, I’d definitely recommend looking into it further – and as a former 30-year-old apprentice, I think you’re never too old for a change!
