Harveys head brewer Miles Jenner is proud of the company's heritage and its standing as a successful local brewery. Phil Mellows reports
Another day's brew done, Harveys stands quiet by the banks of the River Ouse. But wait… is that a song accompanying the gentle bubble of fermenting ale? Are there feet lightly tripping across the boards of the bottle store? Best leave it be. That'll be head brewer Miles Jenner, rehearsing.
Jenner is playing Noël Coward this autumn in the Lewes Little Theatre production of the musical review Noël & Gertie.
And for the first time in a couple of years there's space at the brewery for him to practise. While other brewery bosses might agonise over a dip in production, this one sees it as a chance to make some space for a bit of singing and dancing.
The past two years were the busiest in Harveys' 220-year history. To keep up with demand Jenner was brewing every Saturday from October until Christmas.
"We could have cut corners, but there was no way I would do that. We just had to touch wood we could get through, and we nearly didn't. The first Christmas we had one cask left in stock."
From those record levels there has been a fall this year. Plans to add an extra 25% to capacity are on hold and there's scaffolding up around one of the country's most picturesque breweries.
"I'm not being defeatist, but I'm looking on this as a respite," says Jenner. "It's a chance to do the maintenance we couldn't do while we were busy. This is an old brewery and you have to keep on top of that."
So the recession has finally caught up with Harveys. There are fewer pubs to sell its beer, although it's still picking up new customers.
Another factor is the burgeoning microbrewery sector. Jenner counts 22 small brewers around Lewes, "and that has to have an effect. Although it's only this year we've seen a levelling off".
One curious thing he has noticed is that pubs selling a range of cask beers are turning the Harveys pump-clip around when it runs out, rather than putting on a new cask straight away.
"It's so they can sell the other brands. They've got to get the throughput for the other pumps," he says with a shrug.
"You shouldn't be frightened by competition, though, you just have to make sure you're at least equal to it.
"You're only ever as good as your last pint, and it's very important that we keep a focus on that, on maintaining quality."
Competition
He respects what the younger generation of brewers has done, and Harveys has played a benevolent role among the Sussex brewing family, with Jenner happy to play consultant to the competition, which wouldn't happen in many trades.
"I wouldn't abandon any brewer that has a problem. It's one of the charming things about the brewing industry that we all help each other, talk about problems and help each other out."
Jenner was brought up in a brewery, the fifth generation of a south London brewing family that used to be known as "the Theatre Brewers". "Jenner's beer was in every theatre bar in the West End," he says proudly, and perhaps he's inherited something there in his enthusiasm for the boards. But his first passion is undoubtedly the day job.
His father Anthony became head brewer at Harveys after selling the family business, and the young Miles watched as he helped ensure the brewery, unlike so many others, survived the takeovers and closures of the 1950s and '60s, re-equipping it for the modern age.
"I developed a true fascination for, and a love of, brewing. I saw it as a craft industry. It's fashionable now to think that way, but for me it always had a romance about it. Brewing appeared to me to be a timeless process, going on in much the same way it had always done."
After leaving Edinburgh University with a degree in history he studied science at evening school in preparation for being trained as a brewer at Greene King in Suffolk. Then he got the chance to live his "childhood ambition" of brewing for Harveys.
"I was having a wonderful time at Greene King. I even named my son Edmund after Bury St Edmunds. But they were looking for a third brewer at Harveys and I would have been daft not to take that opportunity."
Harveys had prospered in the 1970s thanks to the Campaign for Real Ale-inspired resurgence of cask ale, but by the time Jenner arrived it had reach a plateau.
"We had only one brewing line, and one of the first things I did was commission a second line that allowed us to double capacity. It all had to be done in a sensitive way so the product didn't change.
"We've been brewing with the same yeast since 1957, for instance, and it's the Harveys brand fingerprint. I'm a custodian of that heritage."
Perhaps the most gentle-mannered man you could wish to meet, Jenner bristles ever so mildly at any suggestion of being old fashioned, though. For him, the Harveys heritage embodies change as much as continuity and consistency.
"We're not going to destroy what's valuable and become trendy for the sake of it, but we're always reviewing what we do. The important thing is never to stand still."
Evolving
So Harveys' award-winning Best Bitter, which accounts for 90% of production, has "evolved" since it, arguably, established the Best category on its introduction in 1935. Jenner also lays claim to pioneering golden ale when he launched Armada in 1988. "It was designed to wean people off lager, and we were at the forefront of that."
Following the Beer Orders and the guest-ale clause, Harveys was among the first to produce monthly seasonal beers for its tied estate. That's left it with an uncommonly broad range of brews, from the tasty 3% ABV mild Knots of May to the legendary 8% ABV Christmas Ale.
And now that business has quietened down, Jenner can finally start playing with his five-barrel in-house microbrewery.
"There will be some interesting beers coming out of that," he says. "We're going to do a rauchbier (smoked beer), and recreate some very old brews from recipes in the Lewes brewery journals we have here, to sell exclusively in the town's pubs. It's another aspect of heritage."
One thing that Harveys is not going to change is being a local brewer. All its beers are distributed within a 60-mile radius, taking in Brighton and Hove and south London. Like the taxi driver, Jenner won't go north of the river.
"There's no joy in coming back to Sussex if Harveys is everywhere. Ubiquity would make it meaningless and you're diminishing the product if you extend distribution too far.
"There's a tremendous sense of public ownership of the Harveys brand down here," he says, showing a sharp understanding that being the local brew is at the heart of the success of his brand.
It's a success that, from time to time, attracts the attention of would-be buyers for the brewery, an attention that is invariably but politely rejected.
"The Harvey family is still very much around," says Jenner. "Hamish Elder, my co-managing director, is seventh generation. Every AGM we reaffirm we're not for sale, which makes our life easy when we get the odd enquiry.
"And it's nice to know they are looking to buy the brand, not just the pubs. It's one of the things we can feel very proud about."
My kind of pub
"It would be somewhere that the public bar is predominant — Bennets Bar in Tollcross, Edinburgh, which I frequented as a student. The public bar is a great leveller, and Bennets is still a Victorian beer house with the woodwork, the tiles and the furniture. It has a great feeling of continuity. And I really do have fond memories of it."
Key dates
• 1787 — R&H Jenner's Brewery founded in south London
• 1790 — Harveys Brewery founded
• 1938 — Jenner's Brewery sold, Anthony Jenner, Miles's father, joins Harveys
• 1946 — Anthony Jenner promoted to head brewer
• 1952 — Miles Jenner born
• 1976 — Trains in brewing at Greene King
• 1980 — Joins Harveys
• 1986 — Becomes head brewer
• 1987 — Appointed director
• 2000 — Promoted to joint managing director
• 2001 — Named the All-