OnTap Magazine

B ased in the quiet country town of Devizes, Wadworth & Co. is as traditional a British brewery as you can get. It brews mostly cask- conditioned ale, runs its own estate of pubs and even has a team of shire horses that deliver beer around the town. It would be understandable therefore if Rob Jacobson had suffered a little from culture shock when he arrived here as head brewer in 2018. Rob joined Wadworth from SAB’s Newlands Brewery in Cape Town, having previously worked at the Rosslyn Brewery in Pretoria. From a world of mostly huge-volume lager produced in a giant brewhouse, he now sits in the small head brewer's office high in a rambling, red- brick brewery built in 1885. The value of his appointment to Wadworth, which has an eye on the rapidly-changing beer scene in the UK, is clear. “It was important for us not just to get a technically-qualified brewer but somebody who gets the consumer bit and understands that what we brew has got to be sold and be relevant to the market,” says chief executive Chris Welham. But what was the lure for Rob? “I had been with SAB for a number of years and was nearing a point where I would take on a brewing manager's role within a big brewery,” he explains. “Having been through a number of different roles, from technical through to management, I was quite keen on taking a broader spectrum of work – raw materials right the way through to packaging. With the way roles are specialised in SAB, that wouldn't have been possible at the time.” It seemed a good time to broaden horizons. “I was recently married and, between myself and my wife, we were very keen on the opportunity to travel and work abroad,” he says. OLD TECHNIQUES, NEW CHALLENGES They settled on the UK as the ideal destination and things then moved very quickly. “From a brewer's perspective, it's really exciting to have done large-scale commercial brewing but now to also be able to work in a completely different market space,” says Rob. “The UK’s independent regional brewers produce a different style of beer – cask ale – which you won't find as widespread anywhere else in the world. To be able take on a more senior role with a much wider scope of work, and seeing the change that Wadworth was going through, it just seemed like the right decision.” Brewing cask-conditioned ale, which contains live yeast and enjoys a secondary fermentation in the cask when it reaches the pub cellar, is certainly a different brewing experience to producing filtered, pressurised lagers, but Rob quickly adapted. “In principle, everything's very similar. For me it's around following a process and having systems is really important. There was obviously some learning but that was part of the excitement in the move. The team here is unbelievable. I was received with open arms and where I had gaps those have been filled really quickly.” So what changes has Rob brought to Wadworth? Well, a fresh eye on procedures for a start. “Something we've done over the last two years is look at all of our standard operating practices,” he says. “We would question if they are up to date. Could things be done better? How do we start challenging what we are doing? This is always against the backdrop of how can we do that without fundamentally changing what we are.” He's also pushing the innovation button with a continuous series of experimental brews