Meet The Brewer: Jim Robertson (Wells and Youngs)

What is your brewery capacity?
500,000 barrels

What is different about your brewery?
The diversity of beers and packages we produce

How long have you been brewing for?
Gainfully about 33 years

How did you get into brewing?
Doing a degree in it at Heriot Watt

What beers do you brew regularly?
Lots but my favourites are Bombardier, Eagle, Youngs, Kirin Ichiban and Courage Directors because all have special memories for me.

What special/seasonal beers do you brew?
Winter Warmer, Waggledance, Ram Rod and maybe something new!

Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
With those who care about beer, have a passion for it and drink it out of choice

What is you proudest moment in brewing?
Becoming a Liveryman Brewer of the Worshipful Company of Brewers in the city of London

Jim Robertson from Wells and Youngs

Do you have any brewing regrets?
No

What is your brewing ambition?
To share my passion for the finest drink on the planet

What was last beer you drank?
A pint of Eagle

What is your favourite hop?
Challenger

Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
My father in law : Roy Morewood

Which beer do you wish you had brewed?
Budweiser

Favourite hobby outside of brewing
Fishing

If you could have one superhero superpower what would it be?
To be patient

Do you have a website/twitter/blog?
I tweet as Headbrewerjim but our beers have Twitter pages – @bombardier_beer, @YoungsBeers and @WellsAndYoungs. We also have a Youtube account here

Anything else you want to tell us?
I can’t stand beer pundits who rant on about the provenance of beers because they are brewed in a geographical location. Good beer needs quality raw materials (especially water), yeast, equipment and brewers. I have tasted naff beer brewed in lovely places and lovely beer brewed in naff places!

Thanks to Jim for filling this in, I know he’ s a busy man so his time his appreciated!