Tucked away on the Wirral peninsula, Brimstage Brewery have been brewing a selection of characterful ales since 2006, when their founder Neil Young [no, not that one—ed] decided that he wanted to brew sessionable ales to appeal to anybody who appreciates good beer.

Sadly, Neil passed away in 2018. Thankfully, however, his sons Ben and Nathaniel have carried on the brewery’s legacy by sticking to his principles, while slowly introducing more quality beers to their range. Brimstage enjoys an enviable location, surrounded by unspoilt countryside and coastline; there are plenty of gorgeous country walks in nearby Thornton Hough, and the seaside town of West Kirby is only a short distance away.

The breweries of the Wirral are perhaps not quite as well known compared to some of their inner-city counterparts, for example, the popular Love Lane Brewery in Liverpool’s trendy Baltic Triangle. Nevertheless, Brimstage has long been carving out a name for itself thanks to beers which are—frankly—a treat to drink, and which have earned them a place as CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain finalists several times.

There is something for everyone in its range, from the rich Oyster Catcher oatmeal stout to the malty Rhode Island Red which has a distinctive hint of spice and a rich amber colour. Established in 2006, the first beer they brewed was Trappers Hat, a golden ale brewed with plenty of hops that provides a robust hit of citrus. It remains their most popular beer today.

When visiting Brimstage there's an undeniable air of harmony between the brewery and the area’s rural heritage. The brewery itself is housed in former farm buildings and the beers are conditioned in what was once a milking parlour. Even the address is pleasingly evocative: Brimstage Brewery, Home Farm.

Recently, I met with Brimstage’s sales and marketing Manager, Mark Baxter, who told me about the brewery’s history, and how its beers have become beloved among aficionados around the North West.

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Camille Allcroft: What challenges has the Covid-19 pandemic presented as a small brewery in the Wirral?

Mark Baxter: The end of March was such a strange time. Everyone has their own story of how their business or personal life was affected. For us it was chaos, we lost about 90% of our trade overnight as the pubs closed and everything ground to a halt because there was no indication of when lockdown would end. We’re a small team with two brewers: Tom our head brewer, and Chris our lead brewer, while I work on the business development side. We have one [person in] admin, Sue, and one part time driver. It’s a small operation.

We needed to quickly figure out how to generate enough revenue to continue brewing or we would have all been furloughed. Like many businesses we relied on our website, which was only built the year before by local [web design] company, The Farm Factory. Thankfully we were able to pivot overnight to online sales, which helped to save the business.

CA: Tell me about your Brew for Heroes project, which saw you brewing a beer to donate to key workers during the crisis. How did the idea for the project come about?

MB: Since we were able to carry on brewing and keep everything ticking over, we thought that we might as well brew a beer which would reward not only the NHS but also other key workers. That was the thought process behind Brew for Heroes and we made its development an interactive process by asking our social media followers to vote for which beer we should brew.

A Belgian-style pale ale won, which was quite a surprise as we haven’t brewed that before! It was then a long process from the initial concept, to designing the packaging, brewing the beer and working out the distribution. The project tied in nicely with the 2nd April, the birthday of our founder, Neil Young, who sadly passed away two years ago. We decided to pay tribute to him by launching Brew for Heroes on that day and giving something back to people.

The majority of the Brew for Heroes is being given away to key workers. We are also selling a small amount to generate funds, which we want to put towards setting up a Brimstage Brewery charitable foundation to benefit the local community. Before Covid we would not necessarily have imagined creating our own charitable foundation, but this situation has essentially opened our eyes and made us aware of how we can become even more involved in the community.

CA: How have recent events changed your business philosophy and your outlook on the way you operate?

MB: The uncertainty and the concern for ourselves and for all small independent businesses has been challenging, but since people weren’t able to shop in big supermarkets as often as usual, that meant we were able to help out by delivering beers to people locally. Both in Wirral and all over the country, local and independent businesses have become more important than ever recently and people have been incredibly supportive of businesses like ours.

““These are tough times, but we must focus on the positive and keep the beer quality at the highest level.””

— Mark Baxter, Brimstage Brewery

There was a mutual feeling of goodwill between ourselves and our customers. We promised to deliver orders the next day whenever possible and people were so happy to see us and to have the comfort of drinking great beer at home to take their minds off events. We have always been involved in the local community, but overnight the mood of the nation changed and looking out for neighbours, or for those who were self-isolating became crucial.

People who were not able to answer the door when we delivered their beer would give us a thumbs up through the window and they were clearly delighted to see us, which felt extremely rewarding. It was amazing that we were able to shift from one business model to another instantly. The saying “small enough to care and large enough to cope” rang true for us.

The demand for our beers was huge, but most people were very understanding if there was any kind of delay in delivery and recognised that we are a small business trying to do our best to keep afloat. We also continued supplying our beers to other local businesses such as Carr Farm, Claremont Farm, and Whitmore & White so they could keep up and running too.

CA: How would you say you differ from the bigger breweries in terms of the way you run the business, and can you give us an insight into your future plans?

MB: A lot of breweries have a hugely commercial focus and they are always keen to expand and supply pub [chains] like Wetherspoons. But our founder Neil’s ideals were simply to enjoy a really good pint in his favourite pub and that was his inspiration to set up the brewery in the first place. He never had grand plans for world domination, and we have remained a small business with a respect for the community.

We only deliver within a fifty mile radius of Merseyside and that’s always been the way we’ve operated. This helps us to deliver a unique selling point when we supply bars and restaurants, because our beers are not widely available. As for the future, we plan to continue in the same way and we are already receiving enquiries from pubs who have never stocked us before because their supply chains from some of the global providers ground to a halt [during the pandemic.]

We have also gained a new customer base of people who have ordered from us over the last few months and are now placing repeat orders—people who may have bought commercial beers or just gone to the pub in the past, so there have been some positive outcomes from this situation. We aim to be flexible and we listen to the needs of our customers, even though this is a strange time.

We need to keep it simple, prioritise what we brew and ensure we brew what people will want to drink so that supply and demand is in balance. These are tough times, but we must focus on the positive and keep the beer quality at the highest level—that’s one element we never compromise on.

CA: Do you ever feel frustrated that breweries in Liverpool or Wirral are overlooked in comparison to breweries in the bigger northern cities?

MB: It doesn’t frustrate me personally because it has never been our ambition to become one of the biggest breweries in the country. But it depends who you speak to and perhaps other small breweries do feel some frustration. There are some big breweries like North in Leeds and Cloudwater in Manchester, and some smaller breweries which are popping up now might aspire to become as big or as renowned as them. At Brimstage Brewery, we focus on what we do best and as a result of being smaller, we don’t have to get caught up in all the corporate reporting, which I know from previous jobs can lead to people getting tied up in knots and making decisions for political reasons!

As for the future, we will continue what we have done as a business for fourteen years and focus on brewing good beer, which people enjoy. The Covid crisis has made us more attuned to what customers want and [has] given us an opportunity to look at what we can do to deliver the best customer service possible. I joined the brewery two years ago and prior to that, there was nobody who was able to go out and speak to the customers, so it is gratifying now to have more of a personal touch and to continually develop to meet the needs of our clientele.

CA: You have such a good choice of beers—one of my personal favourites is your Oyster Catcher stout. You must be proud to have created such a diverse range.

MB: We like to think that we have something to suit everybody whether they are a novice beer drinker or a knowledgeable enthusiast who wants a good strong ale. Our Sandpiper for example is the ideal table beer to enjoy with a meal at only 3.6% and there is a market for that in restaurants too. We also go right up to 6% with our Brimstage IPA, which is more of an acquired taste and is usually only brewed once annually, which gives it some exclusivity and makes it a novelty when people can enjoy a few pints.

It is interesting how much tastes vary across different areas too. Some places prefer Oyster Catcher, others prefer our Sandpiper and some of the pubs we supply have big followings for certain beers. My personal favourite is also Oyster Catcher, which is always more popular in the winter, but I think that we will see the popularity of darker beers continue to grow over the next couple of years as people gradually wake up to better quality local beers, rather than mass-produced ones like Guinness.

This interview originally took place in Summer 2020. We caught up with Mark again in April 2021 and he was happy to say that the brewery is now back fully in operation and that the Brew For Heroes project raised £2500, which was donated to local charities Age UK (Wirral) and Wirral Foodbank, in recognition for the work those charities did for the local community throughout the last year.