What’s yer name and where d’ya come from?
My name is James Atherton and I grew up in Leeds. I moved to London via Manchester and Edinburgh and for the past ten years I’ve lived in Harringay, North London with my wife, Bethany, and our cat Ozric.
What made you decide to become a brewer and how did you get to where you are now?
I first started making beer at university when I realised that homebrewing was cheaper than even student bar prices. I moved around a bit after graduating from my Biochemistry and Computer Science degree, and it wasn’t until we moved into our current house ten years ago that I had the space to homebrew again.
A few years later, I heard about UBREW, a homebrewing club that allowed me to brew on shared equipment in Bermondsey on a scale that wouldn’t be possible in our cellar. Friends and family told me that these beers were good and that I should consider setting up commercially. I had intended to do so on a commercial kit that UBREW were installing, but in the end we managed to get our current space in Edmonton before that came to fruition. Our kit came from a defunct brewery in Suffolk and we did our first brew in our own premises in October 2016.
Since then, the brewery has continued to grow – we hired our first staff in June 2018 and I was thrilled to welcome our new brewer, Michaela, in August this year.
What’s been the most challenging thing about establishing your brewing career?
This interview and overcoming intense apathy. Seriously, working out what I was doing it for. The whole point of setting up a brewery was that I enjoyed creating and brewing beers and I’m not hugely incentivised by making massive profits. I need to eat, of course, but money was never the driving force behind the brewery. That’s why, in 2017, Bethany and I decided to refocus the brewery as a social enterprise, concentrating on how we could make it do good in the world.
At the time, my cousin was trying to find a civilian job after a career in the army, so we decided to see if we could help people in a similar situation by hiring people coming out of the armed forces who were interested in a career in brewing; one of our first employees was ex-Royal Artillery. My professional background is in IT, so I also decided to give time and, when possible, money to charities that provide IT education.
What’s the best beer you’ve ever drunk and why?
There’s absolutely no way I can narrow this down to one beer, so here’s a selection of my favourites:
- Ohana Kumquat IPA – this is a perfectly-balanced beer with an amazing body and carbonation and it was totally unexpected. The best beer on a three week tour of Southern California breweries.
- Rodenbach Grand Cru – just amazing. A balance of sour and malt and subtle hop, mixed fermentation flavours…it just has everything.
- Cantillon 2013 Lou Pepe Kriek – easily the best kriek I’ve ever tasted. Subtle, soft, sour and the aftertaste was not like any other fruit sour because there were no edges to it.
- Beerblefish Bloodletter II aged 18 months – this was the forerunner to our 1892 IPA. It was good when it was first in the bottle, but slightly harsh on the bitterness; having mellowed for 18 months, it took on a slight hint of sour balanced with rounded bitterness and a strong malt profile – it drank like a 4% beer when it was actually 7.2%!
- Westvleteren 12 – heaven in a glass. Sweet but not cloyingly so, velvety, soft, great with food – the best beer you can have with monastic paté.
- Iron Fist Velvet Glove – this is the best stout I’ve had anywhere in the world. It does exactly what it says on the tin – it caresses you with a velvet glove then knocks you out with an Iron Fist.
And what about the best beer you’ve brewed?
A toss-up between 1892 IPA and 1820 Porter. I love the mixed fermentation character. Traditional British ale flavours are paired with the slight sour berry flavours from the brettanomyces, plus there’s a twist of modern hops on the aroma.
And the worst?
The first ever homebrew done in the cellar of our current house. It was horrific. I bittered with Columbus hops and the flavour hops were Cascade. It had a pale slightly golden colour, poured and looked great, crisp white head, nice carbonation out of the keg. It tasted of burnt, bitter onion peel or overcooked garlic. Disgusting. I’d used too much Columbus, there was far too much bitterness and, as I later discovered, I hate Columbus hops with a fiery passion. If they’re in a beer, I can now detect them at about 18 inches from my face and it is the work of Satan in hop form.
If you were only allowed to keep one beer style forever, what would it be?
Flanders red. Because it’s amazing.
Other than the obvious two (Covid and Brexit), what do you think are the biggest challenges facing the independent brewing industry right now?
Even though you said I couldn’t have Brexit, I’m still going to say Brexit as the biggest challenge. AI singularity or asteroid strike are next. After that, the Small Brewers’ Duty Relief Coalition. They want to penalise small brewers by pulling up the ladder that allowed them to get to where they are. While I don’t think that Small Brewers’ Relief on duty is perfect and I understand that the current cliff-edge in the taper system is unhelpful, the solution is not to make smaller breweries pay more duty while larger breweries pay less.
What are you most looking forward to for the future of Beerblefish?
Eventually moving the brewery to somewhere with enough space that we don’t have to stack the staff on top of the fermenters. Also, to one day have all 10 of our fermenters in operation (currently we’re at seven). This interview being over. Oh, and all the lovely beers we’ve got coming up – we’ll be doing a batch of our Viking Ale with Kveik yeast soon and, after a very successful pilot, we’ll be brewing a larger batch of our new gingery bitter, Gingerbeerble. And finally, I’m excited about tasting our hundredth brew, which is a Flanders red that we brewed this week in collaboration with our friends at Pope’s Yard Brewery.
Which Beerblefish beer is your favourite at the moment?
As we head into Autumn, it’s either our new Gingerbeerble or our fresh batch of lovely Cashmere. I also enjoyed the mini casks of our small batch Belgian Porter over the summer.
If you could brew any beer in any style, with no restrictions on price or quantity of ingredients, what would it be?
It would be an 8.6% version of 1892 IPA, aged for 18 months in a wooden foeder; I’d split the batch 50/50 and age half of it on cherries for 6 months and then blend it back with a fresh batch before bottling.
So, there you have it: all about James. Thanks, James, for doing this interview.
