A South-East Londoner, Derek began his brewing career with Whitbread amid the hop fields of Kent, and went on to qualify as a Master Brewer in the 1990s. His sense of adventure led to an international career with Heineken, beginning in The Bahamas, via Holland and the Asia-Pacific region, and ending at the “other” Murphy’s, in Cork.
With family connections in Australia, his next stop was with Lion in Sydney, initially looking after the Toohey’s brewery and then leading Lion’s new product development programme. He returned to the UK in 2012, when his daughter Flo started her undergraduate studies at Bristol University, and re-joined Heineken, in Manchester.
The desire to do his own thing led him into a number of new adventures including helping out at Wiper & True (where Flo had become a brewer) and micro-brewery start-ups in Portugal and Switzerland, running a fruit liqueur company, and setting up a pub-brewing business in Bangalore, eventually leading to full-time brewing consultancy, more recently with Campden BRI.
He loves beer, food, and wine, has been a lifelong supporter of Charlton Athletic, and is still hopeful of seeing Bruce Springsteen play one last time. Anything to do with space exploration and astronomy fascinates him and he was lucky enough to meet Apollo astronaut Alan Bean at his home in Houston. He lives in Tunbridge Wells; just close enough to The Valley and his partner in Croydon.
