Business profile: The Thornbridge Brewery
‘We hired brewers of the highest calibre’
Tuesday 03 March 2009
Related articles
Meeting at a National Temperance League summer school isn't how most ideas for a brewery start. But that's exactly how Jim Harrison and Alex Buchanan met aged 14 and now, 35 years later, the two friends are part of the team behind Thornbridge Brewery.
After moving to Thornbridge Hall in Derbyshire, Harrison decided that he wanted to apply his marketing skills to the sale of re-branded, high-quality beer bought in from an outside micro-brewery. "The market for beer is very fragmented and micro-breweries seem poor at marketing," explains Harrison. "This looked like a real opportunity."
Indeed the market is fragmented with 31 micro-breweries in Derbyshire alone and some 84 across the East Midlands. But despite the large number of micro-breweries, Harrison wasn't able to find one that could supply the high quality beer he wanted in sufficient volume.
And so in 2004, he decided to create a micro-brewery in a converted barn on his estate and brew his own. "Right from the start, we hired brewers of the highest calibre – this was never going to be a lifestyle business," he says. "We built a professional management team and grew the brewing capability under that."
The head brewer is Stefano Cossi from Italy who is supported by brewery manager Kelly Ryan from New Zealand, both highly-qualified and talented brewers. And both of whom fit well under the brewery's motto of, "Innovation, Passion and Knowledge." The quality of the beer produced by the Thornbridge team was recognised in September 2005 with a First place award at Sheffield Beer Festival. Since then, the team has collected an amazing 86 further awards. Little wonder that Oz Clarke rates their Jaipur beer as one of his favourites and visited Thornbridge Brewery with James May in the first episode of their Oz and James Drink to Britain BBC2 series.
Harrison believes that the key to success has been professional marketing coupled with brewing the highest-quality beers. Sales have grown from £50,000 in 2004 to a projected £650,000 this year and the business is set to expand into new premises that will allow them to triple their capacity per brew.
So what next for Harrison and the Thornbridge Brewery team? "We want to grow but stay green," says Harrison. "Spent hops go on our vegetable garden and we've found customers for spent grain – the Thornbridge herd of wild boars that is about to take occupancy of our woods."
Thornbridge Brewery (01629 641000; www.thornbridgebrewery.co.uk)
- 1 Massive stage collapse before Radiohead concert kills one
- 2 News in pictures
- 3 Leveson threatened to quit after public attack by Gove
- 4 In pictures: The bewildering face of China
- 5 Osborne: The people’s damning verdict
- 6 Ed Miliband: 'Cameron is the last gasp of the old guard'
- 7 Savers start a 'jog' on Europe's banks as Greece votes
- 8 For whom the bell tolls: £20m 'Memo' project takes shape on Dorset's Jurassic coast
- 9 Still standing: George Galloway reveals why his staunchly Leftist outlook is still invariably right
- 10 Aung San Suu Kyi: A lesson in the value of kindness
- 1 Massive stage collapse before Radiohead concert kills one
- 2 Patrick Cockburn: Greece's day of reckoning dawns in a climate of anger and uncertainty
- 3 The Blagger's Guide To: The best (and worst) fathers
- 4 We just click: How Lego keeps building on its success
- 5 Revealed: Harry Potter is the Antichrist!
- 6 The Leveson Inquiry: We're in this together!
- 7 Osborne: The people’s damning verdict
- 8 David Flatman: Over and out
- 9 Frank Zimmerman and me: The truth about the troll who tormented Louise Mensch
- 10 Aung San Suu Kyi: A lesson in the value of kindness

Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.

Win a sumptuous three-night stay in Austria
Get away from it all in the fresh mountain air at the four-star Hotel Edelweiss & Gurgl.

Win a five-star foodie weekend to Liège
Spend two nights in gourmet heaven at a top hotel in the capital of French-speaking Belgium.

A home to be proud of with Halifax
Download the Halifax's brilliant, free new Home Finder app, and take all the pain out of finding your dream home

Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.

Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.

Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page

Still standing: George Galloway

Daniel Radcliffe as drug-taking Beatnik poet

Objets czar: David Usborne’s collection of myriad objects

World's richest woman: Gina Rinehart

Comments