Q: How long have you/the brewery been making beer for?
A: I’ve been brewing for about 10 years now.
Q: What got you into brewing?
A: I started brewing commercially a couple of years ago but i’ve been homebrewing for a lot longer. I first got into making wine with a friend back in 2008/2009. The wine i made was pretty awful and really just a means of getting cheap booze.
After finding out how much quicker it was to make beer i went along to my local homebrew shop, owned by none other than Scott Williams (one half of the Williams brothers), and got sorted out.
I was really keen to jump into all-grain brewing straight away but got talked out of it by Scott who, quite rightly, suggested I should at least start with using malt extract. The first beer I brewed was a smoked porter. I thought it was great! Kudos to Scott for setting me on my way. Also, the bar man Ronnie Anderson from the 3 Judges in Glasgow got me interested in a lot of new beers too!
My grandad had always homebrewed and I ended up with a lot of his old demijohns which I still use for experimenting in now. So it’s nice to keep up the tradition.
Q: When you’re not brewing what are your hobbies?
A: Brewing is pretty life consuming but when I’m not actively brewing or reading books about brewing I play bass and ukulele.
I got really into horror b-movies when I was living with a friend at uni so I try and fit one of those in when I can. Apart from that most of my time is spent trying to keep a wee person alive.
Q: What’s your favourite style of beer?
A: Smoked beers are by far my favourite although anything with brett in it will do too!
Q: If you could only have one of your brews for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? (I know it’s like picking a favourite child!)
A: Is it cheating if I name a homebrew? I’ve been brewing sour and brett beers at home for the last 3 to 4 years and I’ve got this mad 3 year old brett culture. So it would probably be one of my brett saisons using that culture.
*NB – I won’t say that’s cheating, great to hear such a personal story to that beer!*
Q: You are in a supermarket, in the Beer aisle of course, what would you buy? (your wonderful beer isn’t on sale unfortunately!)
A: Supermarkets have definitely come on with the likes of Stone Brewing and BrewDog being available. If I had to pick one, I’d probably go for Duvel, or Orval if they had it.
Q: What new flavour combination would you love to try/what new hops would you like to work with?
A: I do like anything with passionfruit in it! So probably going to pair that with as many things as possible as part of the DEATH series.
*Yes please, give me MORE*
There is a whole world of tea that I wasn’t aware of until I got chatting to the head brewer at 71brewings. He’s a real expert! So maybe I’ll try experimenting with some of the more unusual types.
Q: What brewery you would like to collaborate with and why?
A: That’s easy, 3 Fonteinen! Got to visit the place last year and meet Armand. Amazing experience!
Thank you so much to Chris Lewis (Brewer/Director) of Dead End Brew Machine. I recently had 2 litres worth of Death II NEIPA – hit up the link for its full review! I absolutely loved it and will be trying out more of his Death series in due course
