HE is one of the country’s youngest brewery owners and now James Roberts has his sights set on cracking the craft beer scene.

The 26-year-old is the founder and master brewer at Mobberley Brewhouse and after being inspired by the likes of Cloudwater and BrewDog, James has installed a £100,000 canning line at the site as he looks to expand and pioneer new beer styles.

Fresh from Bangor University, the self-taught brewer set up the business in 2011 and originally just made traditional cask and bottled ale.

But the former Mobberley Primary School pupil became more and more inspired by the new wave of American and British hop-forward beers.

And when Manchester’s Cloudwater was, this year, named the second best brewery in the world by RateBeer, James described it as a game changer for the north west beer scene.

He said: “I think it’s absolutely huge. Cloudwater have been a massive inspiration. They came almost out of nowhere to produce some of the best beer this country has seen.

“Cloudwater had such a big impact on the industry because they started out with a very fixed idea of what they wanted to do in terms of fresh, seasonal beer and were selling big right from the start.

“That has encouraged so many people to get into this kind of beer because it is so accessible.

“So many craft beer bars started buying from further afield because they had to buy from this brewery in Manchester as they were making the best you can get.

“We’ve very quickly stolen the brewing capital title from London. This area is full of amazing beer producers. It gives us something to aspire to. You want to keep pushing yourself.”

Part of that push has seen James focus on modern beer styles like double IPAs including Pipe Dream, one of the most heavily hopped beers in the UK.

He added: “It was crazy. We used 75kg of hop pellets which is twice the amount we use in our most popular canned beer, Unnamed.”

This risk-taking approach also saw James add fruit to beer before it was cool.

James said: “One of the first arguably progressive beers we did was Boom Juice.

“We launched that as a concept beer using mango extract and people thought we were mad. Even the sales team were unsure.

"But the feedback was great and that rolls onto the next experimental thing you do – and then people back you because they trust that you’re making the right decision.”

The response to that led to Juice Stream, a New England-style beer made with whole oranges and orange juice in collaboration with Shrewsbury’s Salopian Brewery.

James added: “No matter what size brewery you collaborate with you always end up knocking heads together and discussing different brewing methods and one way or another you always learn from each other.

"Juice Stream has been one of our beers that has excited people the most. It’s the only beer we’ve brewed where we pre-sold the entire batch before we made it which was amazing

“We’re definitely going to do it again because you get a unique pithy flavour into the beer. Beer has evolved so much. There is almost no limit to what you can do and the ingredients you can use as long as it tastes good.”

Cask ale still represents 60 per cent of Mobberley Brewhouse’s business so James has to be conscious of his traditional customers. But his approach seems to be working as his beer is sold as far as Scotland

James said: “No one has ever said to us: ‘Please go out of your way to make really progressive beer styles and experimental stuff’. It’s just what we wanted to do and our customers have allowed us to do it.

"We’ve had to explain to a lot of people: ‘This is why we’re doing this, this is what it’ll taste like, just give it a go – we know that you’ll like it’.”

WHITE LABEL RANGE

MOBBERLEY Brewhouse is also introducing a ‘white label’ range as part of its new focus on craft beer. 

As well as the brewery’s rotating core range of tropical pale ales and full bodied stouts will be ‘barrel-aged beers and weird and wonderful stuff’.

It is a far cry from James’ early days when he just made a golden ale called Hedge Hopper in a tiny microbrewery which is now the company’s shop and taproom.

James now has a range of around 50 beers. In February alone he launched three session beers – Man’s Got Hop, Unchained and Shooting Fish – and James is about to unveil a collaboration beer with Manchester craft brewers Shindigger.

Things will only speed up for the business now the canning line is installed.

Beforehand the team produced an average of 5,000 cans a week through third party deals. Now at full capacity, their own line can ramp up production to a maximum of 25,000 cans a week. 

The white label range is expected to launch with a 10 per cent imperial IPA to mark the company’s 1000th brew at the end of April.

James said: “It will easily be the biggest beer we’ve made to date. It should be very good fun. That will potentially be the first white label beer.

"We might launch it side by side with another one which I’m sort of hijacking because I’m getting married at the start of May and I want to do one called Save the Date...”

  • Mobberley Brewhouse will be showcasing a range of their keg beers at Knutsford Beer Festival on April 20 and 21. Visit knutsfordbeerfestival.org.uk