I’m learning.

Hello. My name’s Clark. I’m one of the founding directors of Hand Beer Company (Brewery and Pubs). I’m going to start blogging here on our website about our company, products, people and the industry in general. 

My business partners, Jen and Jack - and team members - will also contribute to these blogs. They are far more knowledgeable than I am about most things regarding beer, brewing and running pubs, but I’m learning. So as I learn, I’ll write.

A brief intro about me. In 2015, my wife, Jen, and I bought a very small pub in Brighton called the Hand in Hand (‘The Hand’ for short) - a pub we knew and loved for many years, and one that my wife had worked at on-and-off for many years. 

The Hand had a working tower brewery weaving its way through the floors. This is where Brighton Bier started and had been brewing for three years. Our plan was to work out a way to make our own beers and sell them in the pub. I even dared to read up on it, and flirted with the idea of quitting my corporate job and becoming a brewer. 

It was way above my head. I’m just not made for that sort of detail - chemistry, biology, maths, patience. So I stayed at my job and essentially remained a silent business partner.

Shortly after buying the Hand, we met Jack, who had been brewing at The Watchmakers Arms (an amazing micropub in Hove), and was looking for a slightly bigger kit. It was the perfect match - we created Hand Brew Co and Jack went to work fixing up the old tower brewery. 

It needed a lot of work to turn it into a kit that could produce the sort of craft beers that we wanted to make. I’ll write a blog about that at some point. But Jack got it all going and our first beer, Shaka, was made. It was a cask pale ale originally, but is now our top selling, multi-award-winning keg pale (and my go-to). We call it our Original Pale. It might come back in casks one day, watch this space - there are rumours.

We made many more beers after this and sold them to pubs all over the South Coast, but mainly in Brighton and Worthing. We sold so much, we had to start cuckoo brewing on other kits in Brighton to bring the volume up to meet the demand. 

Fast forward a few years. 

In 2020, we opened a 6000 square foot production site in Worthing. Worthing was buying nearly half the beer we made so it was an excellent place for us to set up. We were made to feel very welcome. Of course, as we did that the pandemic hit and breweries and pubs really struggled to keep going. However, Jack powered through and built the brewery and Jen found ingenious ways to keep our pub going. I remained at my corporate job.

After the pandemic, we were offered the opportunity to buy the lease for a pub in Worthing. What was The Castle Alehouse, became The Toad in the Hole, which Jen transformed into the sort of community pub that The Hand is famous for. And of course, it was fully stocked with Hand Brew Co beers, just like The Hand.

Fast forward a couple of years. 

I finally left the corporate world after twenty years of service, and became a slightly less silent business partner in our brewery and pubs businesses. Since then, I’ve been more involved in the brewery from a brand and marketing perspective, creating a new identity, programmes and partnerships (like our flagship Art You Can Drink programme, which kicked off with Toadlicker by Artist David Shrigley and recently, Wiener Dawg by Chef Ben Lippett - I’ll write more blogs about all that).

Anyway, the main point in this introduction about me is to tell you that I don’t know everything about beer. You might expect me to know more as the Founder and Brand and Marketing Director of a brewery and pubs company. But I never dreamt I’d own a brewery and pubs company. This is started for me as an investment into a small pub, and what a journey it’s been. I’m very proud of this business and of what Jack and Jen have created, and the incredible team we have, and I look forward to learning more about it all.

So these blogs will be a mish-mash of articles with no real direction or plan. Just my commentary on what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.