Elizabeth Townsend: That's all from First Draught this week, thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe on your chosen podcast platform for a brand new episode every Wednesday morning. to First Draught a podcast about beer and the people who make it. First Draught is presented by me, Elizabeth Townsend, co-founder of Kerroo Brewing Company in the Isle of Man, and Eliza Drinks Beer on Instagram. Throughout the series, I'll be meeting the creatives and creators behind the world's best beer, revisiting their very first pints and now navigating successful career in the professional beer industry.

Jen Noble: and I met ⁓ about 10 ago. Well, I moved from Canada to Belfast about 10 years ago. And at that time was ⁓ a new ⁓ small in Belfast had launched and it was a cooperative So ⁓ I had become a before moved over here because I it would be a great way to meet people. ⁓ And it turned out that Alastair was member of the same brewery. ⁓

Elizabeth Townsend: Today I'm joined by the co-founders of a new Northern Irish brewery, Treble Brewing, launching this summer. Jen Noble and Alastair Treliving are a couple launching a farmhouse-style nano-brewery from their garden in Belfast. Jen and Alastair connected shortly after Jen had moved from Canada over to Northern Ireland. They met through their involvement with a local microbrewery and were destined to one day take the plunge and start their own brewery. Having both owned their own businesses in other industries,

Jen Noble: same cooperative and as I got to know people in the brewery I got more involved with that brewery and got voted onto the board of directors of the cooperative there so ⁓ I used run different events for the members the cooperative. I'd run tasting evenings of the or the brewers come and do meet the brewer events and things like that. ⁓ And Alastair, as a member the cooperative, used to come to those events. So that's how we met. then we eventually started doing more for that brewery. Like we would represent the brewery ⁓ at different festivals. We would at Indie Man Manchester. ⁓

Elizabeth Townsend: they share an entrepreneurial spirit and a love of discovering beer culture in other parts of the world. Inspired by the rich agricultural history of the island of Ireland and the deep appreciation of the land they live on and those who loved it before them, and Alastair are creating traditional European style beers with modern touches. Using fruit, herbs and vegetables from their own garden, Treble beers highlight freshness and seasonality. We looked ahead to their imminent launch this summer.

Jen Noble: did ⁓ festivals and meet the brewers events in Italy ⁓ and did events in France. I also took the back to my home Toronto. Bellwood's had their beer festival, Wichstock, so took the beer there and poured it there. So ⁓ we got involved in the of the local microbrewery scene by working with this And again, it's very small.

Elizabeth Townsend: and how they navigate Northern Ireland's challenging licensing environment.

Jen Noble: very small industry here so it didn't take long to really get to know the people in the industry and the other brewers. But I think we both knew that we wanted to do something ourselves. Yeah, well as we, our relationship grew and initially we didn't particularly have plans for a brewery but kind of over time we're both from entrepreneurial backgrounds and I'm self-employed. we wanted to do something in the beer world. licensing would be different, maybe it might have just been like a bottle shop somewhere to share other people's, ⁓ more beers from elsewhere with other people here. But it's evolved, went, actually we'd like to make product ourselves. we've ended building back garden. ⁓ Yeah. We say looking around what we're sitting in now going, ⁓ neither one of us have any brewing experience. All of our experiences come from, working with small brewers and really to know different small producers on this island ⁓ further afield And I think ⁓ we love beer world. For me, when moved here, I came from a country where ⁓ craft and beer had a long ⁓ and very robust history. And when I came Northern Ireland, that was one of the things that I was a bit ⁓ shocked and a bit dismayed at first, that there were so few ⁓ outlets for independent beer and so few breweries. And then I, you know, as I got to understand the legislation, then that kind of made sense. But at the same time, you know, even though we have a lot of that go against ⁓ growth of the locally, ⁓ what is really to see is how enthusiastic and how determined small scene here is. ⁓ And, you know, there brewers here that aren't letting the constraints of the legislation stop them from ⁓ to build their breweries and trying to make their way in the industry. So I think we've been very inspired by that. And then Alastair said, we just that we wanted to do something in this space, a little bit different as the beer market here has evolved. We've always been a bit behind the other more established beer markets because the scene has been so ⁓ And I think that 10 ago, craft beer was very, very new to Northern Ireland. the beer market here has ⁓ ⁓ consumers have become more interested in independent over the number of years. So I think we hope that the consumers here are ready for ⁓ something a bit different in the beer world. And that's why we've decided to go the beers that we to drink ⁓ as our house styles. traveled a across Europe and We love the beer cultures that we've seen in other parts of the world, so we want to try to bring a little bit, the best parts we've seen in other cultures, bring that back here and share that with our local community. So that's what we hope to do.

Elizabeth Townsend: so I saw that your house style is gonna be a Saison. Why exactly have you chosen that style of beer to launch the brewery?

Jen Noble: Well, I guess that's my influence. It's my favorite style modern worlds, obviously hops have been ⁓ the predominant leading provider flavor with ⁓ the explosion what's available. But never me the same. I like the kind of like the maybe the more subtle nuance you get from playing with yeast. ⁓ that's just more delicate. It's always what I was drawn to, the interesting beers One of the things we love about the land we live on is, you know, we live on a very agricultural island and there's amazing independent producers here ⁓ are making, you know, delicious food ⁓ we that Saison is a style. ⁓ you know, as far as beer goes, it's probably one of the most well-matched beer styles for food. you know, the dryness, the, ⁓ little residual sweetness. We just find it goes so well with food. And ⁓ I guess the part of what we're doing, we're producing something from our own land. So of the reasons for building the brewery in the garden is because ⁓ especially has spent the last number years ⁓ cultivating really lovely garden on our property where we grow a lot of ⁓ our fruits and vegetables and herbs. And we wanted to incorporate those things into the beer that we're making. And I ⁓ saison as style ⁓ is very and very flexible. Like it lets us ⁓ use some what we're to showcase it, but it doesn't overwhelm the particular style a Saison beer. So we feel like those things kind of marry together quite well.

Elizabeth Townsend: I agree, I absolutely love a saison so I'm very pleased to hear that. you talk me through a bit about the setup? So your brewery is ⁓ custom made structure in your back garden, is that right?

Jen Noble: It is, yeah. when bought our house, ⁓ was an old chicken shed the garden, ⁓ which ⁓ we had romantic notions renovating and turning that into ⁓ a ⁓ home brewery of sorts. But an old asbestos roof and ⁓ literally just an earthen it never going to work. So that got torn down. ⁓ and this place we got ⁓ 500 square foot ⁓ built. The house side of that's two thirds of the From ⁓ the many we over the years, we kind of ⁓ tried to... forward plan as much as possible. there's a three meter drainage channel down the middle of the floor that has a slope so that, you know, we can splash water about and it's easy just to squeegee it into the drain. We've got, you micro version of a larger commercial brewery that we've, yeah, that's 20 meters from our back door.

Elizabeth Townsend: And how ⁓ big your brew kit?

Jen Noble: It's a one barrel kit. It's very small. Properly small. Our big brew kit is a small pilot kit for most breweries. But one of the with ⁓ the brewery on our property was we didn't have three phase ⁓ we just have domestic ⁓ power. So we couldn't get a kit that needed a bigger, you know. Yeah, part draw. Yeah. So did limit us somewhat. But at the same time, we feel we're really looking at this as ⁓ one, kind of our proof of concept, we hope. So ⁓ we know that all going well, we're going to have to expand at some point. ⁓ we can use this as our way to kick off and see the market responds. We're under no illusions. know that Saison a lot of people say that, oh yeah, I love Saison, but we also know that it's not the most popular style of beer and certainly not in Northern Ireland in terms of craft beer. I'm sure a lot of people think we're a bit mad for launching ⁓ a brewery that is not hop focused and we're not making IPAs. being small can kind of control ⁓ the costs and can, you having that ⁓ controlled production, ⁓ we're hoping it allows to make the that we want to make without feeling like we're not making any progress. We're kind of European-led, so we've Wheat Beer. Bier de Garde Belgian Porter. A porter that's kind of, know, we have to have a dark beer. in Ireland, so there has to be something kind of sessionable and black in the glass. But with our spin on it with our take on it, is drawing influence from mainland Europe.

Elizabeth Townsend: Can you talk me through the beer landscape in Northern Ireland? I've only been ⁓ once. Shamefully, I can literally Northern from outside my brewery, which is ridiculous, ⁓ but the transport links from the of Man are absolutely dreadful. ⁓ So yeah, very embarrassingly, I've only been once and it was a beautiful city. ⁓ are your sales opportunities? Are you of small pack bottles, cans?

Jen Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for us, that question is, you it would be answered very differently if we were in a different part of the United Kingdom. But we'll get to that later as far as the legislation goes. But as far as what we can see, first of all, will be doing small pack, we'll be doing bottle because the beer that we're making, we feel ⁓ served best in a bottle. the Saison, the ⁓ traditional styles of beer, we feel that they're best served in bottle. So we'll be bottling, we'll be doing some keg. But again, the marketplace for keg sales of Saison, you know, I'm not sure that there's going to be a huge demand for that. We have some local venues that will definitely support us with, you know, with keg. ⁓ But again, in Northern Ireland, probably similar to Isle of Man Elizabeth is we don't have don't have a range of of venues locally that can sell independent beer. So we will be the contacts that we have and the support that we have from our local market, but it's probably not going to be, you're not gonna be seeing our beer ⁓ ⁓ pub any means. The other avenue that have ⁓ researched and had some early success with is actually working with some restaurants. ⁓ Because again, Saison ⁓ pairing so with food ⁓ and with recent trend of consumers looking for lower alcohol, lower ABV beverages. We found some restaurants are quite interested in our beer as an alternative to a wine pairing with dining. So, one of core beers will be our table beer, which, you know, comes in from 2.2 to 2.8%, serving that in a ⁓ 750 ml bottle, like wine size in a restaurant as an alternative ⁓ if, you know, customers who are driving just looking to reduce their alcohol intake but want to still have a nice drink with their food, we have a few restaurants who are really excited about having that option. So I think that there's a way for us to really maximize those opportunities, which are just a bit different from the traditional on-trade pub sales that in the past breweries would have been going for. Eventually, we also want to able to sell D to C. ⁓ we launch, we won't be able to do that because, in Northern Ireland, you need another license to ⁓ able to sell direct to the public. So we won't have a web shop to start with. We'll have to go through another ⁓ license the costs associated with that ⁓ to the ability to sell direct to customer. so ⁓ at you know, the first certainly probably six months will be all wholesale because that's the only route to market that we'll have.

Elizabeth Townsend: So that brings us on to the big question, the licensing in Northern Ireland. I believe there's a process called the "surrender principle." Can you just explain what that is me bit about how you navigate that?

Jen Noble: Yes. difficulty. The surrender principle dates back to pre-partition of Ireland, ⁓ the basis of the law ⁓ that a one-in-one-out system for pubs and off licenses. That is just ⁓ nowadays entirely but it means there's huge barrier to entry because there's a limited number of licenses, they're valuable. People hold onto them or they change hands for six figure sums. So be able to sell to the general public, you'd need one of those if you want to open up a pub or a bottle shop or any sort of venue, it's difficult because there's also no ⁓ electronic There's no way as a new entrant to the market ⁓ that can find out who owns ⁓ all the licenses on the market. Basically, you have to engage with specialist ⁓ solicitors who, you pay them, uncover ⁓ the details that you each license is very And certainly in Belfast, for us to able to buy a license, ⁓ we would be probably looking, ⁓ at least a quarter of a million pounds, which as a small independent brewery ⁓ is just not feasible. so with the restrictions that we have locally, obviously all of the breweries here have been struggling with this for years. the breweries that have come before us have done amazing work in lobbying the and raising awareness so that the understand ⁓ just how antiquated laws are and how there needs to be change. There's been some small and slow progress. Three years ago, a new type of license was introduced and that was a producer's license. So prior to that, breweries in Northern Ireland were not allowed to direct to consumer at all. Everything had to go through wholesale. But I think with COVID actually, that was one of the things that really highlighted the issue. Because as soon as lockdown happened, and breweries, all the breweries here were in the same boat, unable to sell their beer anywhere. government of realized at the time, we need to do something. So they did introduce a new type of license ⁓ called a producer's license, allows a brewery to sell ⁓ D to C. So can have a web shop. ⁓ That license also allows a brewery to have an on-site taproom, but the on that taproom is it's only allowed to open 12 hours a week and only between certain hours, and only 104 times a year. So a brewery would have to say at the start of the year, they'd have to designate every date that they were going to be open those. ⁓ you know, 12 hours a week max, and you're not allowed to change it. So you'd have to forecast a year in advance when you were going to open. And that was it. had to go to court to get that approved. the producers license itself, at least gives the ability to sell direct to customer. But there's obviously still a lot of. parts of that legislation that are suboptimal and really need to change. So the breweries here again are continuing the lobbying and there was an independent study, independent review done last year of the whole system in Northern Ireland, the surrender principle, the whole licensing system. So the University of Stirling headed out this ⁓ very comprehensive review delivered their recommendations and results to ⁓ Department of Communities here. no surprise to anyone here, like the ⁓ recommendations were surrender principle needs to be scrapped. ⁓ It's not for purpose. You know, it gives unfair advantage to large multinational players and the incumbents, but it prevents small independent ⁓ producers from gaining access to market and it also does nothing to help address the issues of health and alcohol ⁓ Most of the pubs in Northern Ireland that have closed down over the last 10 years, those licenses have been bought by off licenses. So we're losing pubs but gaining more off licenses so people can buy alcohol at the supermarket ⁓ cheaply and drink at home alone, which ⁓ as we all know, pubs are an integral part of communities and community spaces and really promote connection and community and, not promoting over consumption of alcohol. although it was great that that ⁓ was done and those recommendations support everything that the local industry is fighting for, unfortunately the government decided that they don't ⁓ agree any of these recommendations and they're at this point saying they're not going to make any changes. very complicated here that a lot of the politicians that are involved ⁓ either publicans themselves or have family members who are publicans. ⁓ we also have an industry body ⁓ ⁓ lobbying on behalf of the likes of Diageo and the big players, trying to stop competitiveness. You know, they have a closed market at the moment, so of course they don't want that to change. ⁓ we're that still going to be some changes, but we have to build our model based on how the legislation is today, but then be ready that if it changes... ⁓ we need to be ready to jump and change that as soon as we can. yeah, if we opened a brewery in any other part of the UK, talked about this a lot. We could have gone to Manchester, we could have gone ⁓ to London, could have gone to Scotland, we could have gone somewhere else if we wanted to, open a brewery. I'm sure you've had the same discussions, Elizabeth, you know, could have somewhere else and done this a lot easier, a lot quicker had much more route to But for us, really attached ⁓ the land that we live on and that's part of our inspiration. So we want to do this in our home. ⁓ want to highlight the that we love about this island. So ⁓ it be authentic if we went somewhere else and did it. Although sometimes I think ⁓ authenticity overrated. It would be so much easier to go somewhere else and do this. ⁓ So yeah, it's definitely a struggle and it just means that we have to be maybe a bit creative and things in a different way and keep and working for change.

Elizabeth Townsend: It's very commendable. mean, listening to you talk about it is you sometimes feel, especially if you're starting this as people who've never worked in the professional beer industry before, things feel impossible sometimes. I've had moments, Nick's had moments over the last few years where you come up against something like you've just described with the licensing and with these big players who are very close in the pocket with the government. And you kind of think, are things ever gonna change? But they do. mean, Belfast has some great independent breweries now. Bullhouse, you've got a Boundary Brew Co. I'm sure there's plenty more. How has the independent beer scene in Belfast, how have they embraced you? How have you found it?

Jen Noble: Well, that's the thing about, sadly, there aren't plenty more. I mean, there are other breweries, but per capita we have Northern Ireland has the lowest number of breweries of anywhere in the UK. And that's because of the restrictions. it does mean it's knit industry. we're friends most the brewers around place ⁓ that are local to us. publicans that are receptive to beer. and there is a community. So yeah, like I was speaking to last week to Willie, the founder of Bullhouse and he was asking how we're going and he like, I'm excited to soon see your product out in the wild, because we're not that far off ourselves. locally are... looking forward to something else, something new coming in. ⁓ Because there definitely is the demand. Well, and I suppose the one advantage to being a smaller market is Northern Ireland never saw the kind of over saturation. We never had the craft beer boom really because the licensing has always been so restrictive. what that means, what we hope that means is that there's still opportunity for growth in the market here because it's not a case like, you you look over in North America where there's all this talk about, the craft beer boom was great, but then it also led to having more breweries than were really needed and breweries closing because market saturated. Well, that saturation couldn't happen here because the legislation wouldn't allow it. ⁓ So it means that there's still some space and some growth. The craft beer drinkers here to search further afield to find different beers because there hasn't been a local brewery offering different styles, the breadth of styles that you'd find ⁓ if were in London, for example. So we're hoping that that means there's space for us to our little tiny sliver of ⁓ a small pie. But nice thing, as said, is having a small community ⁓ where everyone been facing these struggles, ⁓ it does actually mean it does make us quite close-knit and very supportive of each other, which is nice. And you don't get that in a lot of other industries.

Elizabeth Townsend: And It's that sense of achievement as well, isn't it? If you know that you're a small player fighting these big companies who are dominant in the market, every little win you have feels good, ⁓ you for all hard work. What are your for export? Have you got any ideas of how to send your product to mainland UK?

Jen Noble: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. thought about it. know from, ⁓ like some of our relationships with venues and breweries on the mainland, the type of beer that we make, drinkers in the mainland would be more familiar with the styles of beer that we're making. ⁓ They'd be more familiar with it than probably most of the, you know, the market locally. ⁓ But I our ⁓ primary goal to really establish our local market. and really walk before we can run. our production scale is very small. And of course, we're both still working. We have to work, as you know. The brewery won't pay the bills. So, yeah. So I think our initial focus will definitely be on

Elizabeth Townsend: feel that, I feel that deeply. I'd love to never have to see a classroom again but it's not looking likely any time soon.

Jen Noble: selling locally and establishing those revenue streams with our local market. But ultimately, yes, we want to be able to export. The difficulty again with Northern Ireland and I'm not sure if it's the same with Isle of Man, but there are hurdles ⁓ to jump to move our beer across the Irish Sea. to... ⁓

Elizabeth Townsend: It's mainly the cost for us. I mean, I was pricing up this morning. got ⁓ private, it's kind of half government owned, half private. So they need to make a profit, ⁓ only ferry company. sending freight over, we get charged the same square footage Tesco. So in terms of the space that we take up on ferry, to do the tiny bit of shipping from the Isle of Man to England, it costs the same as sending it from north west of England to London so doubles our freight costs. is it logistically difficult for you in terms of the way that ⁓ the Irish shipping works now after Brexit or is it purely a cost thing?

Jen Noble: think it's more the Brexit hangover and paperwork and bureaucracy. But again, ⁓ where we be able to get some guidance the other local breweries who, you know Bull House exports a lot of their beer. Most of the larger craft in Northern ⁓ you know, they have to export because local market is so restricted, Like over 95 % of the taps here are tied. So it's extremely difficult to own beer on tap in Northern Ireland. So ⁓ is something that every brewery here has to do. ⁓ think for us, it's more our scale that is ⁓ issue. So ⁓ look to work with some of ⁓ other breweries and see if we can share some of the logistics, ⁓ if we group together to send pallets over, if we were sending a pallet of beer across the water, like we'd have nothing left for the market here. So, ⁓ it's definitely going to be challenge, but ⁓ we'll figure it out. ⁓ night. ⁓ Sometimes the night. ⁓

Elizabeth Townsend: You will, I believe in you.

Jen Noble: know, being a bit naive is probably good because if we knew now how difficult it's going to be in six months, you wouldn't able to sleep.

Elizabeth Townsend: been going for two years now, we've just passed our second birthday, ⁓ and we're still here. ⁓ And if we can do you can definitely do So I believe in you. thing, imagine that licensing was not an issue and you had unlimited What would your dream look like?

Jen Noble: I see lots of wooden panelling and red curtains and ⁓ drapes Soft furnishings. think a beer That's what we'd like. We've talked about it in the future when we hopefully have a venue. We want to try and not pints. have beer by the glass, be that, 175 or, you know, something by the schooner That's a nice size to drink. what we'd love to have is a tasting room a beer cafe, something that we've seen when we've traveled in Belgium and in Italy and France and everywhere else in Europe has these amazing spaces. we don't want a big cavernous space. we want something intimate, comfortable. where there's respect for the beer and also have some cheese charcuterie and things to go with it I think you know if was no object it would just be a case of still it would still be the same kind of scale that we want it just would be maybe better quality furnishings ⁓ and a really like eclectic beer list from ⁓ If we had the money and we could bring beer in from all over the world, that would be great. I think that our kind of North Star vision is just to have ⁓ a space we can make comfortable and that people can come to and enjoy tasting ⁓ and maybe a bit about different types of beer. as Alastair said, it's about drinking pints, which again, it's a that we live in, but it's time for to a choice and to not have to by the pint all the We have some of the best cheese in the world. We have some of the best dairy in the world. fruits and vegetables, like people making amazing jams and and there's all this amazing food that is being made here and that's celebrated. But beer is also an agricultural product and it should be celebrated the same way. So if we could have a venue that we could showcase all of that together, I think that would be great.

Elizabeth Townsend: you be looking at setting something up in ⁓ the centre or would you think somewhere like bar would work better?

Jen Noble: Definitely in neighbourhood, we really want to have a space ⁓ where feel like they don't have to go into the city centre to have a night out. One thing that's really successful in Belfast in the last few years is Boundary opened up a taproom beside their production facility in East Belfast and Bull House opened up a bar. just about five minute walk down the road. And this is about a mile outside of the city centre. lovely when you go into these spaces, when you go into Bull House, it's not just the craft beer people that you see there. In fact, it's rare that we see anyone from the craft beer world in there. ⁓ It's more you can tell it's people from the local community who are just excited to have somewhere on their doorstep that they can go to. They can bring their kids, they can bring their dog, they can have nice beer. ⁓ they can have a pizza and then they can walk home because it's down the road. So we'd love to do something like that, you know, in the neighbourhood to give people that option instead of having to go into the city centre, go into town ⁓ a night out, you know, ⁓ can do something and stay close to home.

Elizabeth Townsend: your ⁓ big launch gonna soon. Can you tell me your plans are and what you're hoping 2026 is gonna look like for you?

Jen Noble: hopefully we're going to have the HMRC out next week. ⁓ in that stage of getting our licensing finished, and hopefully that will all be approved smoothly. And then, yeah, hopefully the letters of intent we've got from people, they follow through with those orders. at then the beer becomes available the public and ⁓ we'll be shouting about and telling people where they can buy a bottle. ⁓ So I think we're to be able to commercially launch sometime in June. And then I think we'll look to maybe in September or October like a launch event at one of the local supportive bars where we can have a proper kickoff. We want to give ourselves a few months to make sure things are running as smoothly as they can and, start getting some orders out and then ⁓ later in the year do of a ⁓ more public launch. And then yeah, really for this year, it's just about getting up and running, getting some orders in, know, really establishing and cultivating those relationships and connections. And then we hope in 2027 being able to be out more on the festival circuit to ⁓ widen brand and name and network. We've had some invitations to do some collabs already with some breweries. We might be able to get some of those done this year, hopefully. And ⁓ just see where it takes us and really just try to survive.