Trendsetters and Trailblazers — 19 People Who Will Shape Beer, Wine, Cider and Food in 2023
Pellicle is made possible by the support of our Patreon subscribers and our sponsor Hop Burns & Black. In 2022 the average amount we spent per article published on this website was £670, with over 90% of that going directly to the writer and illustrator, or photographer, involved with that piece.
As such, we have been steadily making a loss since May. In 2023 our goal is to hit 500 paid subscribers and become profitable, so that we may invest further in our content, and our goals. If you read Pellicle and are able to afford to do so, please subscribe by visiting our Patreon page here.
***
Optimism has been a running theme throughout our seasonal content this year (as well as being the inspiration behind our recent collaboration with Manchester’s Track Brew Co.) Considering Pellicle’s intention is to produce joyful stories about our favourite drinks, and that those who make and sell those drinks are up against some of the greatest challenges their industry may ever face in our lifetimes, then yes, optimism feels like the right way to go.
Which brings us to our annual list of Trendsetters and Trailblazers—now in its fourth edition—a time for our editorial team of Lily Waite, Katie Mather, Jonny Hamilton and myself to look forward, not back. While there is plenty to celebrate about 2022, despite how tough it’s been for many within the worlds of beer, wine and cider, we feel this list gives us the perfect opportunity to explore the potential that lies in the year ahead. More importantly, it gives the chance to celebrate some of the individuals at the heart of this.
This year we’ve selected another 19 inspirational people, not only based on what they have achieved so far but for what we feel they can accomplish in the weeks, months and years ahead. Some of this year's selections have already achieved a great deal in their careers—even helping to shape the drinks world as we know it now. Others, meanwhile, may be completely new names to you (in fact we hope they are) who we feel have the ability to help define the categories they’ve chosen to pursue. All are deserving of their place because we feel their work makes the drinks industry a better, more inspiring, more delicious place.
Congratulations to those selected, you’re here because we think you’re excellent. We can’t wait to see what you’ll achieve, and how that steers the world of beer, wine, and cider, over the next year and beyond. These are our 2023 Trendsetters and Trailblazers.
***
Portraits by Tida Bradshaw
Anthony and Helena Adedipe — Eko Brewery, London
What does it mean to be a UK-based, Black-owned brewing company in 2023?
For Anthony and Helena Adedipe of Eko Brewery, it’s central to their brand's identity and every beer they produce. Taking its title from the original name for Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, Eko creates beers inspired by Anthony’s family's roots, who originally hail from the West African nation. This is immediately obvious when you pick up any of their bottles or cans, where the outline of Africa is front and centre, grounding you in what inspires this brewery.
What’s not immediately obvious is how they take popular Western recipes, from American-style IPAs, to lagers with a distinctive European influence, and then put their own spin on them. Take Eko Gold Lager, for example, which uses coconut palm sugar in homage to the popular African beverage palm wine, adding body and a touch of sweetness to the beer. Then there’s my personal favourite, Eko IPA, which includes an addition of cassava along with South African hop varieties, giving the beer intense flavours of tropical fruit, but with a dry, moreish finish.
While it’s unfortunately still possible to count the number of Black-owned British breweries on one hand, I believe that thanks to Anthony and Helena’s inspiring work—and their delicious beers—this number being so small is just a temporary blip.
—Matthew Curtis
Tom Plant and Noah Torn — Torn Plant Cider, Delamere
New cider producers don’t come along as often as new breweries. Despite tax incentives to make small amounts of cider, and the relatively inexpensive equipment required to make it, the gap between the farmers/growers and the producers makes the move into cider production a bit more involved than brewing.
Unlike brewing where raw materials can be bought in easily, the production of cider requires a more personal connection with growers. This leaves aspiring cider producers with a few options: start an orchard from scratch, requiring knowledge of farming, and time to tend to the fruit, buy fruit from other farmers/producers who have excess fruit, or use apple juices or concentrates.
Torn Plan Cider, based in the North-West of England, are Tom Plant, a brewer at Brew York and co-host of the Beernomicon Podcast, and Noah Torn, also a brewer, at Cheshire’s Chapter Brewing. Tom and Noah released their first ciders in 2022, and have had us instantly interested in their brewer's approach to making cider since trying their wares at Beak Brewery’s These Hills Festival in June. Their first four releases, each utilised the bittersweet varieties Dabinett & Chisel Jersey from North Down Farm in the West Country but differed in their approach to the fermentation, barrel choice, and overall flavour.
Oubliettes was a 7.2% cider fermented with wine yeast and conditioned in Bourbon barrels. Confelicity and Dysania were both fermented with wine yeasts, Belgian saison yeasts, and local wild yeasts and bacteria, with Confelicity being finished and matured in an ex-white wine barrel for 6 additional months. Their final release, Suspire, which we poured at our Pellicle x Peg event in London this summer, takes elements of the first three ciders, fermenting with cider barrels and ageing in bourbon barrels, and brings them together in perfect harmony to create a balanced, fruit-froward cider with subtle funky undertones and vanilla notes from the barrel-ageing. We can’t wait to see what Tom and Noah have planned for their releases in 2023.
—Jonny Hamilton
Ren Navarro — Beer.Diversity, Canada
Where to start with someone like Ren Navarro?
I finally got the chance to spend some time with her this summer when she came over for London Craft Beer Festival, and she truly is as wonderful, kind, huge-hearted, funny, and hard-as-fuckin’-nails as she comes across online. I’ve long admired her patience, tenacity, and compassion in the work she does with Beer.Diversity: advocating for a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and just industry—and world—whilst consulting for breweries and other businesses working to be more of the above.
She’s not on this list because she’s one of my very favourite people in this industry, but for her work with her consulting firm Beer.Diversity, mentorship programme Do Better. Be Better, and global collaboration initiative Brave Noise, and because she works tirelessly (as exhausting as her line of work is) to make it a better place for all. And also because I love her dearly.
—Lily Waite
Topher Boehm — Wildflower Brewing and Blending, Sydney
When I first met Topher, it was over email. He sent the most wonderfully polite and engaging letter, and I wanted to be his friend immediately. That’s the kind of guy he is: humble, interesting, and genuine. But you’re interested in what he does, right?
Topher’s brewery, Wildflower Brewing and Blending, is in Marrickville near Sydney, on Gadigal-Wangal land. To Topher, it’s vital that the indigenous people of New South Wales are recognised and included in the beer he makes. Even the name Wildflower comes from an acknowledgement that wild ales such as his and the many, many varieties of fermented beverages made before the land was colonised, were started with wild yeasts found on wildflowers from the region.
This locality and resonance with traditional methods speak to the brewery’s entire ethos of working with the land and indigenous people with respect. Talking with Topher, you learn that his keenness to look at every step of the beer-making process, from sourcing raw ingredients to the water used in the brewery, to better suit the climate and agriculture of his local landscape is more than an act of simple goodwill. He means it with every serious blink of his darkly-lashed eyes.
Barrel-aged and full of elegance, nuance and attention to detail, Wildflower’s beers were some of the only beers in 2022 that turned my head away from wine. Their table beer especially was a treat from down under—a 2.7% dry and crispy Brett-fest. Village, a beer “brewed in friendship” with Mountain Culture Beer Co. is a beer brewed in faithfully-followed Lambic style in the open air of the Katoomba Blue Mountains World Heritage Site. Bright Side were their series of beers made with whole-bunch smoke-tainted grapes—otherwise ruined by wildfires—to produce beer with an exquisitely complex smoky character.
It was a pleasure and, frankly, an honour to have Wildflower come to my bar in the summer and share their beers with our locals, and my heart fills with love every time I think of that perfect day. May their 2023 be everything they want it to be—filled with happiness, rest, and success in whichever way they measure it.
—Katie Mather
Pip Young — The Coven Brewsters, Leeds
In a British beer industry that is rapidly trying to make itself more welcoming for those outside its core white, male demographic, Pip Young is at the forefront of this change. With their project, The Coven Brewsters, Pip is directly engaging with beer festivals and making them safer, more welcoming, and most importantly: more enjoyable spaces for attendees outside of this particular group of individuals.
At its core, The Coven is supporting women-owned beer and breweries. What makes Pip’s work stand out is how they’re taking this support offline and into physical spaces like beer festivals, and working directly with organisers to make these often fraught spaces more inclusive. Pip is achieving this through the appointment and training of wellness officers: people who are able to handle difficult situations, while also protecting possible victims of aggression or abuse by ensuring the event they’re attending remains safe for them. But also people that anyone can approach, and find out how they can behave better in spaces that should always be safe for everyone.
In an industry that’s great at talking itself up, Pip is providing real, tangible action and resources, and their work stands out because of it.
—Matthew Curtis
Darcie Maher —The Palmerston and Lannan Bakery, Edinburgh
On cold winter mornings in Edinburgh, the smell of sweet malt from the North British Distillery in the West End can be detected across the whole city. Much like the malty aroma that wafts over the city, the name Darcie Maher, or simply Darcie Bakes, of the Palmerston restaurant and bakery, spread across Edinburgh, from their home in the West End, past the castle, and down as far as Leith and beyond.
When the Palmerston opened their doors in August 2021, there was much talk around town about the pedigree behind the restaurant. With chef Lloyd Morse on the hobs, and co-founder James Snowdon running service upfront, the public’s attention was initially on well-executed bistro-style dining, with quality ingredients from highly-regarded producers, in an un-stuffy environment. We heard there was going to be a bakery in the cellar, producing bread for the restaurant and some wholesale accounts. All of the above holds true today, and the Palmerston has established itself as one of the city’s best and most respected dining establishments in a short time.
A few weeks after opening rumours of world-class laminated pastries including a legendary Pain Suisse which racked up tens of thousands of likes on an Instagram account, coming from the basement of the Palmerston began to pass amongst Edinburgh food types. Not long after came the queues, the sell-outs on weekend mornings, and the well-deserved hype that Darcie and her team have earned.
Her pastries, the process behind which is documented on her Instagram (she is also a much sought-after pastry consultant) are truly something to behold, with shimmering lamination, inventive flavour combinations and a staggering dedication to perfection and quality. The focus on high-quality ingredients from great producers extends beyond the upstairs kitchen with Darcie using butter from Edinburgh Butter Company, dairy from Mossgiel, and flour from Wildfarmed and Shipton Mill.
Darcie will be leaving her position in the Palmerston next year to focus on their new joint venture Lannan Bakery, which will open in Stockbridge in early 2023. This space will not only allow the Palmerston to bring their attention back to making bread for their own restaurant and wholesale customers but also give Darcie the freedom to focus on viennoiserie, and producing some of her lesser-seen but much-lauded creations such as the Crème brûlée danish, as well as more savoury pastries.
2023 is the year of Darcie, and Edinburgh couldn’t be more ready for it.
—Jonny Hamilton
Connor Whitfield — Brood Meadery, Manchester
Pretty much every time I’ve seen Connor Whitfield this year, it’s been with a bottle in an outstretched hand, offering me a taste of a different, exquisite mead. I first tried his meads—as part of a side-project from Connor’s full-time brewing role at Sureshot Brewing in Manchester—at Beak Brewery’s These Hills festivals in June, and spent most of the rest of the festival drinking organic sour cherry and raspberry mead, and subsequently gently getting off my nut.
Brood’s meads are unlike anything I’ve had from a UK producer before: the choice and intensity of fruit and other additions, combined with the delicate balance with which they’re put together, put me in mind of meads from American producers that blew my mind and changed my perception of this often-misunderstood drink. Brood are currently on the hunt for a permanent space that would allow Connor and co. to expand production and take the project full-time. I can’t wait for when that moment comes.
—Lily Waite
James Horrocks and Will Harris — Balance Brewing and Blending, Manchester
This summer Jonny and I held an event at the (now sadly closed) East London wine bar, Peg. To have the chance to pour wild beers and low-intervention ciders for a crowd mostly composed of natural wine drinkers was a real treat. The true reward, however, was seeing just how into these beers and ciders they were.
What happened next bowled me over. With a sea of bottles from standout producers such as Burning Sky, Wildflower, and Little Pomona, one producer sold out ahead of all others, a brand new name out of Manchester: Balance Brewing and Blending. Founded in 2021 by James Horrocks (formerly of Squawk Brewing) and Will Harris (formerly of Track), Balance aims to set itself apart from the already diverse Manchester scene by focusing solely on producing mixed fermentation, barrel-aged, wild and sour ales.
It was their first-ever release, the aptly named Saison de Maison, that sold out ahead of the rest at Peg that afternoon. Not because Jonny or I were pushing it, but because people were so excited after every taste that bottles were being opened and shared with abandon. There was an extra-wide smile on my face knowing that they’re one of Manchester’s own and that after tasting subsequent releases, knowing the best of this young brewery is yet to come.
It’s no surprise we also named Balance our New Brewery of the Year in our annual beers of the year podcast. There’s even better news in that Balance’s taproom is due to open this coming spring on Sheffield Street, right behind Piccadilly Station.
—Matthew Curtis
Lucy Hine and Stephen Marshall — FUTTLE Brewery, St. Monans
There are few characters more fascinating in the Scottish beer scene than Stephen Marshall, who runs FUTTLE, a soil-association-certified organic brewery, based in the beautiful East Neuk of Fife along with his partner, brewer Lucy Hine. In my almost ten years in the industry, I’ve never met someone with so many fingers in so many pies. A former global marketing manager for Bacardi and ambassador for Dewars, Stephen helped the company take single malt whisky seriously, overseeing the launch of a new range of Aberfeldy malts in 2014.
Stephen launched FUTTLE, alongside Lucy, in 2019 with a focus on producing organic beers using local ingredients, with a minimal intervention approach to beer making. If Torn Plant are making ciders through the lens of a brewer, then FUTTLE are making beers in keeping with the ethos of the natural wine world. Outside of making beer, FUTTLE also releases records from some of the country's best underground musicians, regardless of genre, including the East Neuk’s own Kenny Anderson aka King Creosote.
They also host gigs and club nights at their bar/taproom space which has a shop selling one of the silliest selections of low-intervention wines and ciders outside of London, a record shop selling rare 7 inches and LPs, and a back bar filled with some of the world’s most desirable whiskies alongside FUTTLE beers. Stephen also hosts a podcast with Fife-based musician James Yorkston. Oh, and they make their own spiced rum, obviously. Stephen Marshall truly is Fife’s own Renaissance man.
Thankfully his partner Lucy, who is self-trained in brewing, has taken the lead on much of the production and with the installation of a custom copper coolship earlier this year, we can only expect more and more exciting releases in the future. Their beers tend to be mixed-fermentation, lower in alcohol, and utilise foraged botanicals and herbs from the local area. Recent releases have included a table beer with pineapple weed, a Gose with seaweed and a spelt grisette with blackcurrant leaves. Despite this, the beers are less esoteric than one would assume and have earned Stephen and Lucy a dedicated fanbase, especially in the natural wine bars of London, which is now their largest market.
Never one to be dull, we look forward to seeing what they come up with in 2023.
—Jonny Hamilton
Jordan Childs — Mash Gang, London
If you’ve met Jordan from Mash Gang, or even taken a quick peek at their Instagram, you’ll know the man is quite bonkers. Full of infectious energy and enthusiasm, he’s generous and forthcoming with his knowledge of no- and low-alcohol beer, which itself is far-reaching and boundless.
Discussing NOLO [No and Low-Alcohol] brewing techniques at IndyMan this year, a glass of Mash Gang’s old-school, IBU wars-inspired 0.5%er Stadium Craft in hand, blew my mind. And it’s clear I’m not the only one; Mash Gang have been collaborating with seemingly everyone this year from Norway’s Amundsen Bryggeri, Scotland’s Vault City Brewing and Fierce Beer, Croatia’s The Garden Brewery, and England’s Unbarred Brewing, Northern Monk Brew Co, Ridgeside Brewery, and Vocation Brewery.
They’re bloody everywhere, and it’s not hard to see why; their pale ale Chug left me speechless and may well be the best low-alcohol beer I’ve ever had. With rumours of a collaboration with a Premier League football team soon to be announced (what?) and any number of exciting developments heading our way, it’s clear that Mash Gang’s acceleratory (and a little absurd) rise has plenty more to go.
—Lily Waite
Yen Tham and Zos Fulwell — Yes Lah, Manchester
How do I love seeing Zos Fulwell and Yen Tham succeed, and then succeed some more? Let me count the ways. When I first became aware of Mama Z, Zos’ street food alter-ego it was 2020, and it was lockdown. I fell in love with her bright Hot Zos labels and recipes for home-cooked Filipino food on Instagram—zingy colours, expressive flavours, and meaningful stories. The perfect escapism.
I became aware of Yen Tham’s own street food business through Zos. Woks Cluckin, potentially the best name for a street food vendor ever, was Yen’s way of cooking food she loves from Malaysia. Over the past couple of years since lockdown I’ve followed both Yen and Zos’ Instagram accounts intently, learning more about condiments than I ever thought I could. Then, earlier this year, the pair opened their own café in Didsbury called Yes Lah.
Yes Lah is more than a permanent spot for roving street food chefs, however. It’s a cosy place to eat some of the most delicious Filipino and Malay food in Manchester. There are ube donuts. There are house-made pickles, Yen’s sui mai, adobo and vegan pork belly invented by Zos. There are also cooking classes and events, making full use of the café as a local space for the community. They are smashing it, and I wish only good things for them and Yes Lah for 2023.
—Katie Mather
Matt Billing — Ascension Cider, Sussex
There is something about opening a nice big bottle of wine or cider that demands ceremony; and that ceremony often requires a few friends around you to share that moment with. But sometimes I can’t be arsed with any of that, especially when it comes to cider. Sometimes I just want a nice pint.
This, for me, is why Matt Billings’s Ascension Cider has stood out this year, and why it's my Cidermaker of the Year. The Sussex maker understands precisely that sometimes, you need a tall glass of something that occupies the peripheries, not the sightlines. Its flagship cider, Pilot, is the perfect summation of that understanding. Wholly, naturally fermented using fruit rejected from supermarkets, the magic of Pilot is its inconsistency, and yet how true it remains to Matt’s ideology.
Pilot is 100% juice. Easy to drink, insanely delicious, with enough going on to keep a hardcore cider lover interested, while not being too complex so as to intimidate the cider-curious. It’s not just Pilot, however, but everything Ascension produces that walks this ultra-fine line between intricacy and simplicity, and that’s why I feel it’s making the most exciting cider in the UK right now.
—Matthew Curtis
Francis Roberts and Tom Beattie — Cadet/Beattie & Roberts, London
Despite the world opening up a lot more this year, I was unable to travel as much around the UK as I had hoped. Fortunately, an opportunity to host an event with Peg in East London this August provided me with an excuse to re-visit old haunts from my time in London including a gluttonous lunch at St. John before the train back to Scotland, but also a visit to the newly opened Cadet in Newington Green.
This new wine bar and shop is a collaboration between Tom Beattie and Francis Roberts of Beattie & Roberts wine importers and charcutier George Jephson, focussing on offering glasses of wines from their own portfolio, alongside charcuterie and what they describe as a cave-à-manger style kitchen with chef Jamie Smart on the pass. In a world which can often feel saturated by wine bars selling low-intervention wines in 125ml pours with small plates of daily-changing dishes, Cadet feels necessary. Not only because of what they offer, which is clearly exceptional produce, but because of the level of care and love that this small team put into their work.
I first was made aware of Tom when I used to frequent the iconic wine bar P Franco in Clapton around 2017/18 when Tom was managing the bar, and when I had only a fleeting interest in natural wine. Thankfully, Tom with his Australian charm and hospitality made this potentially intimidating environment—where there was no wine list, but rather a bunch of bottles, ranging in price from £7-10 a glass, opened on a seemingly ad-hoc basis—anything but. I admired how he would wax lyrical about the wines from what he saw as under-appreciated grape-growing regions such as the Ardèche and the Jura.
Tom’s passion for the product was clear from those days but grew into an appreciation for other, similarly fermented products including cider, and mixed-fermentation beer. Crucially when Tom joined forces with the equally lovely Francis, to form their import company in 2019, they started to work with 3 Fonteinen and later, Andidoot demonstrating a genuine interest in the world of what some might previously have categorised simply as “sour beer.”
Cadet has only just opened and I was only able to share a couple of glasses there one beautiful evening this summer, but it’s clear that this establishment will be around for quite some time, under the careful watching eyes of this small but wonderful team.
—Jonny Hamilton
