‘We’re taking Meantime’s head brewer,’ says Hop Stuff boss

Founder James Yeomans is keen to capitalise on Dickson’s experience of lifting Meantime’s brews from four a week to seven a day, as well as his ability to upscale beer recipes for a bigger market, he told The Morning Advertiser​.

“He understands what we’re looking to do and gets the London craft market and, importantly, has had a lot of brewing and management experience,” Yeomans said.

Despite Dickson’s ability to produce beer at a large scale, Yeomans explained he did not have a particular production figure in mind for Hop Stuff, but it will be his ambition to push the brewery as far as possible in the years ahead.

New directors​

The Royal Arsenal-based brewer is also looking to hire a new finance director and commercial director.

Yeomans said: “We’re recruiting to make our management team stronger and have been interviewing people from breweries way bigger than ours as well as from the wider drinks industry.

“The guys who work for larger brewers want to work in a growing craft market, so we are interviewing a very good calibre of candidates.”

Hop Stuff, located in south-east London, recently announced its £1.5m investment​ plans, which will see a new 40 brewer’s barrels brewhouse installed and Taproom sites acquired, after 600 people invested in the company through crowdfunding.

The new brewery, which will be operational in a few months, will help Hop Stuff build its production volumes and potentially give it the capacity to brew enough beer to sell overseas, after interest from the likes of Scandinavia, Spain and Italy.

Ditch cask ale​

Meanwhile, commenting on Manchester brewery Cloudwater's​ recent announcement to ditch cask ale, Yeomans said: “I understand the logic, but it’s not something we will be doing because cask is really important to us.

“We are going to go after the growing craft market and focus on the people who are coming into the category too.”

The founder is also part of the Campaign for Real Ale’s revitalisation process and pointed out the organisation’s worry that more companies could be tempted to stop brewing cask in the future.

“It would be a shame if too many breweries moved away from it,” he added. “It’s important still for the UK and has been coming back in fashion over the past 20 years from where it was years before that.”