Graham is a well known UK master brewer with over 35 years experience in the brewing and process industries. He has worked closely with Murphy and Son and breweries of all sizes from the mid 1980’s, and has built up a close working relationship with the team at Murphy’s and other key industry suppliers.
He is an accomplished brewing professional, with a Masters degree in Malting and Brewing Science from the prestigious British Brewing School in Birmingham (1986), Master Brewer (IBD, London 1991), Masters in Business Administration (Hull 1997), as well as a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry (Sheffield 1983).
Graham gained a “golden ticket” position with Scottish and Newcastle Breweries Ltd (now Heineken). In this position Graham received in depth training and Management experience in all aspects of the brewing industry, taking secondments at many sites and in many different departments. He accepts he was very fortunate for the experience obtained. Areas covered included traditional brewhouses, automated breweries, Fermentation, Maturation, Filtration, Cask and Keg Packaging, Bottling, Canning, Logistics, Dispense; with further secondments in Malt, Hops, Laboratories, Engineering projects. Ales and Lagers. During the brutal rationalisation in the industry in the 1990’s Graham worked at Whitbread Boddington’s, where he remembers routine brewing of 1800 barrels per Shift, 10 shifts a week!
Graham is well experienced in project management work. He has completed several hundred assignments building breweries, large and small, all over the world. His MSc thesis was mixed gas dispense systems and his MBA thesis was in developing a national beer brand. His Mossbrew consultancy is an engineering and training business and he is also a stakeholder in the Ministry of Ale, a building he acquired as a derelict shell in 2000, refurbished and re-opened, still going 15 years later. Here the team operate a showroom brewery and an introductory brewing training course. Memories of installing a brewery in Barbados when it was hit by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, cause a humanitarian disaster, and also working with some lovely customers, and their families, in the brewing industry.
Graham’s tips for a successful brewery business
- Have good quality and professional looking point of sale material.
- Keep a close eye on the cash flow.
- Brew beer according to a quality system, make sure you understand which are the critical control points, “Quality by Simplicity”.
- Don’t be afraid to pay for an annual audit by an industry professional, this could save you money in terms of energy usage, hop usage, quality failures, safety and regulation lapses.
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