T|E|H – Meet the Brewers – Amity Brew Co

Hello Fellow beer lovers,

Today we are having a quick chat with the co founders ( Russ Clarkes & Rich Degnan) and the head brewer (Greig Swanson) of a new up and coming Yorkshire brewery called Amity Brew Co.

As they are pretty much on my doorstop, I have already had quite a few of their beers, but I will tell you a little about those a bit later on. So lets get on with the interview!

Hello guys, thank you for joining us today, can you tell us a little about Amity Brew Co and how it came about?

We are a group of friends who met on the craft beer scene having worked in the UK’s best breweries. 

I (Russ) worked for BrewDog and North Brewing Co and met Rich at Beer Hawk. Greig, also worked at BrewDog, and Buxton, where he was lead brewer bringing home the Top 100 RateBeer award for the team!

We are inspired by the US model of brewpubs, making limited batch beer on-site and getting it into the hands of the community fresh and fast. Amity stands for community, friendship and good beer. We make fresh, modern interpretations of classic beer styles, as well as experimenting with what’s new!

We have named our core range after the mills that we will be based in which is steeped in Yorkshire history. The Sunny Bank Mills have a rich history in textiles and manufacturing, the owners are very keen to see the mill producing for the community again.

Given the variety of backgrounds in brewing that you all have, what is your favourite variety of Hops to work with, and why?

Greig Swanson – For me, Nelson Sauvin is the daddy. It’s one of the original hops used in both Jaipur and Punk IPA, but on it’s own it really and truly sings. I had a can of Other Half’s All Nelson Everything earlier this year and it truly blew my mind – extreme tropical juiciness, combined with a white wine note, and a little bit of green pepperiness – was truly wonderful. We’ve just managed to bag some freshly released 2020 crop of Nelson and are using it in an upcoming beer we’re really excited about…

Now 2020 was hard for a lot of breweries, and I imagine with you setting up shop it was even more so, what was the hardest hurdle you had to overcome?

Starting a business is difficult at the best of times, but then Covid-19 hit and all bets were off! 

It’s been a big challenge, like anyone in lockdown, the team had to work evenings, weekends and juggle childcare too. We’ve still never poured a pint to a customer which is a very strange feeling as according to untapped we are the number 1 brewpub in the UK!

The pandemic has been a brilliant opportunity to show our resilience, and try and share some good news. 

It’s either pretty damn brave, or very foolhardy to try and do something like this at a period of time like this – but it really was now or never – and incredibly, the response and feedback has been phenomenal both from the local community in which we’ll be based, as well as the beer community online.

In recent years we have seen a lot of brewery collabs gracing the shelves and casks of pubs, if you could have your pick, who would you like to do a collab beer with?

So far we’ve collabed with Thornbridge, Vocation, Round Corner, Full Circle and Sureshot and have quite a few others in the pipeline from high quality UK breweries. We’d love to work with Mikkeller or Other Half as a dream brewing scenario!

If there were a beer that you could brew with no regard to cost or production or sales, what would it be and why?

This question really got our brewer Greig thinking. 

He tends to think of future beers in terms of what is manageable on the kit we have so to ask him to imagine a dream beer has blown his mind. 

After much debate he’s gone for a Hoppy Belgian Quad simply because he’d love to drink it.

Hoppy Belgian Quad’s are an exceptional beer, not sure I could have many of those though, as id end up on the floor! But I do enjoy quite a few strong ales. If you could drink only one beer for the rest of your life what would it be?

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale – it’s the beer that got me into beer, started me on this crazy path, and still is so damn drinkable and consistent. Remarkable stuff.

What is your funniest/craziest beer or brewing related story?

I’m not really sure about funny or crazy really, but I probably consider my beer industry career as a bit mad – starting in sales at BrewDog, then moving to training, learning and development with them, heading up Trade (b2c & b2b) for Beer Hawk, then becoming a New Openings Project Manager for North Brew Co, then finally taking the leap to do my own thing – the whole past 6-7 years have been a crazy ride!

What would a typical day working at Amity Brew Co look like?

I know this sounds like a cop out but genuinely no day is the same. Currently we brew about twice a week so on a brew day it’s a 8am start, a few of us might come in to help Greig mash in. 

Then it will be catching up on emails, data analysis and planning. My role is general operations at the moment so i can be doing anything from taking our beer to get canned (we do this offsite) 

Where possible i also try not to get caught up in the daily activity so that i can keep an eye on future plans. Thats not always possible though, especially as a start up.

And finally, what can we expect to see next for Amity Brew Co

Opening! It’s only a slight joke, but it’s been obviously quite a turbulent year for everyone in the industry, but our whole purpose is centered around serving amazing fresh beer to the local community, so to be finally allowed to do this is going to be magical.

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And that brings todays chat to a close, thank you all ever so much for taking the time to speak to us today. It has been a pleasure, and I look forward to when you ‘officially open’, until then I will be frequenting your online store of a restock of my supplies!

If you would like to pick up some of Amity Brew co’s beers, you can visit their online store, if you are quick they currently have a limited edition Marshmallow Stout on sale, which I may or may not have put straight into my basket!