The Brewery was an idea that Andy Jones and I dreamed up in a pub and bath and the two
of us who both have other business interests, myself being in the pub and Andy having a
music PR company. We both had an interest in setting up another business and doing something
together. It started out as a little bit of a challenge because we had gone out with some
friends and we were chatting, we'd had a couple of beers, so we'll start a microbrewery. The idea,
the kernel of the idea just sort of grew. I think after we met or after we had that night out,
Andy kind of emailed me and we started saying, you know, maybe there is something in this,
perhaps we should look at setting up a brewery. We both have an interest in Real Ale and we wanted
to sort of explore that and we thought well with his PR background and my pub background that there
might be a good way of us joining forces together and that's really how Double Fish Brewery was
born. It was born in a pub.
Whether I was still hungover the next day, within a week we'd found the kit that we're using now
and put a deposit on it so we could kind of swept on that really. We're trying to be different with
different kind of pump clips with different design with distinctive looking labels and we do use a
lot of hops and I think all of our beers are going to follow that model which is an American model
as well. They're all very hoppy, they're very distinctive. We just want to do something that
tastes good really and a little bit different.
The way we met Ian was at the pub that I run Seven Stars Wednesday. We were going for an
accreditation which is called Cascomark. As part of that accreditation process they sent out
people to assess the beers and I got chatting with the chapter came to see us and just so happened
to know Ian from his university days and I mentioned to this Cascomark accreditor I said
setting up Micro Brewery. I'm looking for somebody who might be able to offer technical advice and
you know expertise because at that time Andy and I were brewing but we were brewing on a home brew
scale. We were doing it in his garage and we were just really experimenting on a very small scale
but we needed somebody to track record and make a great beer.
I heard through the grapevine that two people were setting up a brewery at Wick Farm.
After much thought about what to do next I approached Evan and asked him if he needed
a hand with getting things pulled together. Over the last 30 years I've built a number of recipes
mostly now in my head that allow me to to create beers that will have certain flavours,
certain appearances and usually characteristics that I enjoy.
The main malt we use is a pale ale malt which is made from a vial called Marisota.
Added to that we'll use varying amounts of caragold, crystal malt,
and terrified wheat to provide specific characteristics within the beer.
In addition we use black malt to give both colour and like a roast character.
Hops in the beer give us both bitterness and hop aroma so we tend to use certain hops that
provide us with higher levels of bitterness and other hops that give us the specific aromas
we want in particular beers. So the first hops that go into the copper mostly for bitterness
have less of an impact, the variety has less of an impact. We use goldings, we use fuggles,
we also use some American Optical Cascade, Bramling Cross and Salaia which is a steering golden.
When Evan and Andy set up Devilfish the idea was not to produce
run of the mill beers but to produce beers that were distinctive and we'd like to have a go at
producing an American Pale Ale. We've got the hops ready for that and the idea will be that we're
producing that certainly in the next few months. Now that we are almost two years now into the
brewery I think the next thing is learning about how you promote beer and how you get it out there
because there are so many small breweries that have sprung up which is a great thing because
it's offered real ale drinkers a choice like they've never had before and also how we differentiate
ourselves from what else is out there. I think the plans really are just to do great distinctive
beers that are packed with flavour as simple as that. I still think there's room for
different ways of presenting beers, different tasting beers, matching beers with foods, making
beer more like a wine, a good wine and you know my wife said to me we wouldn't take a bottle of
beer to a dinner party well why not let's make it so you do take a bottle of beer to a dinner party.
There are a lot of players in the market and the beer market you know is a challenging one so I
think we've learned a lot about how to sell our beer, how to promote it and the importance of having
that real vision of where you want to take it and you know that comes with experience.
