Elizabeth Townsend: Welcome 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 over on Instagram. Throughout this series, I'll be meeting the creatives and creators behind the world's best beer, revisiting the very first pints and now navigating a successful career in the professional beer industry. This week, I'm joined by Catherine Webber and Lucy Stevens. who both left the corporate world to embark on award-winning careers in the world of beer. Catherine Webber works as the brand and business development manager for Attic Brewery in Birmingham and holds a place on the Women on Tap advisory board as well as making time for competition judging and completing WSET qualifications in beer. Catherine is the founder of Ladies Social Beer Group Brun Beer Babs and the organiser of the hugely popular beer festival Brun Brew Fest which takes place every year in venues around Birmingham.

Catherine: I've been a beer drinker for a long time. I started drinking beer, ⁓ well, when I was really quite young, friend's dad, he was really into beer, cask beer, ⁓ and he really got me kind of interested in ⁓ And we used to go to the Cropredy Folk so run by Fairport Convention in the summer.

Elizabeth Townsend: Lucy Stevens is the brewer and co-founder at Closet Brewing in Leith, Scotland. From founding a brewery in her conservatory to winning the Women in Beer Rising Star Award in 2025, she's always looking to brew interesting styles and experiment with new techniques. I first came across Lucy's incredible beers during a trip to Edinburgh in January 2023, and later met her as a fellow mentee on the Women in Beer Pilot Mentorship Scheme.

Catherine: and they used to have a Wadworth 6X available there. They used to bring it in by the tanker load, that's how much people used to drink over the weekend of the festival. So that's kind of how I got into it. I was just always really interested in beer used to go to a lot of like heavy metal nights and stuff like that, so everyone would be drinking like Newcastle Brown. ⁓ So there's no great of...

Elizabeth Townsend: If you find any of Closet Brewing's beers out and about, do yourself a favour and buy as many cans as you can physically fit in your bag. They're really something special. I caught up with Catherine and Lucy to find out more about their careers so far.

Catherine: sort of epiphany beer in those. and then the interest just grew out of that really, ⁓ as craft beer revolution, no one's calling it that, but ⁓ started here in UK. ⁓ That's when I started to get like really interested.

Lucy: So I think I had quite a similar story. grew up in Worcester, a very lovely area of the country for growing hops. And so ⁓ we walked the dog, there certain parts of the that you could smell the hops growing. I grew up cask and Hereford pale ale ⁓ at my local pub an age that I probably shouldn't say. ⁓ And it was really into kind of very traditional real ale. moved to Bristol when I was 18 ⁓ I went out for a really nice meal for my mum's birthday. And restaurant had paired beers with the food. And one of those was ⁓ Wild Beer's Modus Operandi, is a kind of Flanders red style beer. And for someone who had pretty much just drunk ⁓ your kind of normal range of cask bitters and pale ales. To that point, it was a complete shock to the palate of what beer could be. ⁓ ⁓ always credit that as kind of my starting point on everything that beer can be and all the flavors and styles. ⁓ I was kind of hooked from that.

Elizabeth Townsend: So you grew up around in areas of the country where you were being exposed to particularly cask ale.

Lucy: Yeah, it was just cheaper than macro keg beer. And when you're 16, 17, 18, that's quite an important point.

Catherine: ⁓ I started going out and drinking, wasn't the range of beers ⁓ that there are now. It pretty much cask or were drinking keg lager. And I really didn't like keg lagers. So, ⁓ for me, going out and having a pint of beer a bottle of Newcastle Brown was the best option.

Elizabeth Townsend: So you both came from non-beer backgrounds. You had an interest in beer from a point of view of going out and socializing. Can you tell me a bit about your previous career, shall we say, the things you did before you became professionally involved in the beer industry?

Catherine: I had almost 20 years in the corporate world. I did a degree in biochemistry. So I came out of university and worked for a pharmaceutical company. And then in 2000, I moved to Sheffield and started to work for Tribor Bassett, who became Cadbury Trebor Bassett, who then became Mondelez So I've had a ⁓ long career, I had a long career in confectionery, in a food safety and ⁓ quality and policy roles, using my kind of scientific background a bit to after factories here and across Europe ⁓ from a quality and food safety perspective.

Elizabeth Townsend: At what point did you found Beer Babs? Was it before you joined the professional beer industry or was it during the time that you were in confectionery?

Catherine: so it was actually founded in 2017. we just had our birthday this weekend. And it was just formed by that point in 2017. I was like really, really very interested in beer and learning about beer. And, you know, obviously there were a lot more options then, know, craft beer was a thing then, here in the UK and there were options. locally where you could try really interesting beers from different breweries all around the country. And I was really interested in that. for me, ⁓ I wasn't involved in the industry at that time. And I thought, well, if I really like going out and having a pint, ⁓ sure that there are other women who would also want to go out or learn more about beer, but maybe don't necessarily have that kind of safe space. I'm quite lucky, I guess, ⁓ because I'm a bit older, I'm quite thick skinned now, so I don't mind going into a pub on my own or going to somewhere on my own. But I know for a lot of people, that's quite a challenging experience. So offering people a chance to come together and have a beer in a kind of safe space where they can talk about it and ask questions, really how we got started.

Elizabeth Townsend: So how did you originally reach those people? Did you put it out on social media? was the route to developing that community group?

Catherine: the route for that was very much using social media. I'd spoken to some friends before. I spoke to Julie, who runs Ladies That Beer, because they've been going for a lot longer than us, and kind of spoke to a few friends as well who maybe had come out for a few beers with me. And then I thought, well, we'll just give it a go. So I started a Facebook group and Twitter as it was then, and just said, look, you This is what I want to start. This is why I want to do it. This is going to be our first meetup. If you want to come along, come and have it, know, come and join us. know, no pressure to come ⁓ month. Just turn up, see if you like it, meet new people. And yeah, it just started from there.

Elizabeth Townsend: Amazing. Lucy, what about you?

Lucy: I started in Bristol doing a computer science degree that managed about a year and a half of before I dropped out. I then went and became an apprentice again in software engineering and that was kind of my career before the beer industry. I moved to Edinburgh in 2018 ⁓ ended up in software engineering for the video game industry. really small startup that was then bought by a big American company. a million miles away from beer, other than the quantities we used to drink ⁓ at ⁓ and I kind of and fell accidentally into the beer industry. by being a home brewer alongside my job. And then in 2022, I had a bit of a kind of epiphany about my life that I didn't want to do something that I wasn't proud of anymore. And I wanted to actually make something that brought people together. And that's when I decided to actually start Closet Brewing.

Elizabeth Townsend: How long did it take you? how long were you having to keep working in your previous role before you kind of thought we can make this brewery commercially viable?

Lucy: did it for about nine months where I was running the brewery as it was then in our house while working my job. From all financial kind of perspectives, I should have done it for a lot longer. But there was a point in March 2023 where I couldn't, there were other factors in the job that kind of gave me a reason to quit ⁓ and ⁓ try and make brewing work. It quite a bit longer ⁓ it was actually viable, but sometimes think you've just got to take that leap of faith.

Elizabeth Townsend: In both of your previous careers, do you find that it was particularly creative? I I think the brewing industry, beer, is a very creative space. ⁓ find that you were doing things previously that were allowing you to develop your creative side and that helped you in your current role?

Lucy: I think the creativity was one of the biggest things I was missing in my old role and it was one of the biggest reasons that I had to actually go and start the brewery I that creative to be able to do that.

Catherine: Yeah, I think for me, there's not a lot of creativity in quality policies, but it does pander to my brain. I'm sure everyone at the brewery would tell you that I'm probably the most organized person out of everybody. obviously the Brum Beer Babs was a way to bring people together and the Brum Brew Fest. which I started as well, was I guess a slightly creative thing, like thinking of beer festivals in a different way. So yeah, I think there's more freedom to express yourself, I guess, ⁓ in the world than there is in a more corporate landscape. so did start off working in the laboratories. So that was like kind of testing, know, managing the laboratories where we used to test all the products before they went out. ⁓ But the policies, the global policies are ways of working ⁓ for all of the Mondelez worldwide, which includes things like say pest control, for example, sanitation, ⁓ equipment maintenance, HACCP. ⁓ all of those kinds of things. So it's a very technical food safety orientated ⁓ role. So initially the role that I was in was supporting factories across Europe to implement those quality policies. So I would go to a lot of factories and kind of audit them and help them to put these things in place. And then I moved into a role where I was responsible for looking after updating them. So working with senior leaders globally to update the policies, you know, to make sure that they were still correct for any kind of legislation or were still workable or if we'd had feedback from audits saying, well, you know, this is really difficult for people or this doesn't really make sense. So yeah, it's more about the whole kind of manufacturing food safety process.

Elizabeth Townsend: That to me seems like quite easy kind of segue into the beer industry. What was the process from moving from that space into working at Attic where you're now the and business development manager?

Catherine: So yeah, it's a bit of a weird story, I suppose. by the time we'd got to kind of mid ⁓ 2010s, the beer was kind of happening and I was getting ⁓ more and more interested in beer outside of work spending a lot more of my time, organizing ⁓ events or going to breweries or... leading brewery tours and stuff like that. And then, yeah, a bit of a kind of big life change at the end of 2017. My dad died very suddenly and unexpectedly. And it was a bit of a wake up call really that I'd kind of got to the age where I was like, well, you know, if I don't change my career now, I'm gonna be here at Cadbury's until I retire. This is going to be my job. And I thought, well, a bit like Lucy said, actually, you sometimes you just have to take that leap. And so I started to look around for for jobs in the beer industry, which back at that time, there weren't a huge number. didn't particularly want to move away from Birmingham. My mother was living locally at the time, so I didn't really want to move away. I had a lot of friends here. So I joined a startup. ⁓ took me until 2019 to leave my role. So I had all of 2018 applying for jobs and stuff and looking around. 2019 I started with a startup company called Brewbroker who were facilitating contract brewing and white label and stuff like that and used to run the Craft Beer Rising Festival in London. I worked for them ⁓ for a year and then obviously the pandemic hit. and I was furloughed like so many people in the industry at that time. during that time I got offered a job. There's a local producer here called Aston Manor Cider. They make a lot of like big brand ciders, ⁓ but they'd put a new canning in during the pandemic. ⁓ And they were doing a lot contract packing for big brewers and ready to drink. ⁓ cocktails and soft drinks and stuff like that. So I joined them as an account manager. I sort of brought my beer-y knowledge ⁓ my kind of management skills together in that role. And then towards the end of 2021, ⁓ job came up at Attic. I'd known Sam and Ollie since the brewery opened in 2018. through various events and stuff like that. I remember going to the brewery on the day I opened, actually going to the tap room. that job up and I remember saying to my husband, ⁓ you know, what do you think? ⁓ It a business, purely business development. It was like a sales role. What do you think? And he was like, well, you know, you could give it a go. The guys know you. And so, yeah, that's how I came to join Attic. So that's been, ⁓ yeah, four years now.

Elizabeth Townsend: So Lucy, was it similar for you during Covid how did you find the beer scene up in Edinburgh?

Lucy: Bristol was good. Although I moved out of I was actually living kind of in the edge of the Cotswolds for the latter two years of my time there. And then moving up to Edinburgh was just a whole world apart from what I'd been used to. There were like three bottle shops within walking distance of the flat that I moved into. Campervan. brewery, I had kind of just opened its room, basically opposite my flat, and I was kind of thrust into this world of actually getting to go to breweries and there being an active home brew club and meeting other people either kind of actually involved in the beer industry or tangentially involved ⁓ just with an enthusiasm about it. ⁓ I think that really ignited this spark in me to learn how to brew myself even if at that point i didn't see it as a career goal but just as a hobby

Catherine: I think that's really interesting actually, I always think of Bristol as having like a really vibrant beer scene. And particularly now, it's really interesting that when you moved to Edinburgh, you had like all this stuff on your doorstep. I remember going to that Campervan taproom actually it was ace.

Lucy: think there was a much bigger beer scene ⁓ than was aware of in Bristol. But especially the time, was an apprentice earning £4.90 an hour. ⁓ So I was tight for cash. ⁓ And as I for the last couple of years, I lived outside the city. ⁓ So I think ⁓ moved in different to it. And my friends weren't particularly into beer. So was only when I moved to Edinburgh. that I kind of that opportunity to immerse myself in it.

Elizabeth Townsend: I had a similar experience actually, Lucy, when I went to, I did my teacher training in Bristol in 2014. And I was very similar to you in that I had extremely low income. mean, I was living off a government grant at the time, a proper student loan, but literally just like a couple of hundred quid a month kind of thing. I was really into beer at the time as well, but I don't remember there being a particularly well-developed beer scene there. I think it must've been when BrewDog had sort of started. appearing in a few places, but other than that, I think we just drank scrumpy from Wetherspoons because it was the most widely available drink at the time.

Lucy: Yep, an old Bristolian. moved to Bristol in 2014 as well, so we were there at the same time. ⁓

Elizabeth Townsend: probably both wandering around trying to find where all the nice beer was. So who, what kind of encouraged you? it was it your your wife Lucy who encouraged you to to brew professionally? Who was who was it that made kind of go, right, yes, we can do this now.

Lucy: think a lot of it was my friends. was home brewing before the pandemic ⁓ and just before the pandemic hit, we were incredibly lucky. We moved from our little kind of two bed flat in Leith to a three flat with a garage, like just outside of Leith. Didn't know the pandemic was going to hit. Then we were stuck inside and we were so glad that we had so much more space. The company, the small startup that I was working for got acquired by a massive American company. Lizzie had just finished her masters and got a job. And all of a sudden we had money that we had never had before in our lives and a garage and a whole lot of time and the inability to go out and do anything with it. I bought a whole load of ⁓ home brew kit ⁓ that's when I really started kind of diving into process and learning how to make things taste better rather than just brewing as means to an end to create cheap beer. And ⁓ that of COVID time, ⁓ lots of joined the company that I worked for. I couldn't see friends as much ⁓ and brewing a way to connect to those people. I kind of had a Google form ⁓ where I put on what I was brewing and people ordered it and I cycled around the city doing contactless drop-offs and meeting colleagues and catching it with friends over a few bottles of homebrew. And so it kind of went from beer being, this ⁓ fine, it's free beer in lockdown and a nice chat to actually, is ⁓ good. Friends and colleagues trying to pay me for it. ⁓ a few maybe under the table payments that we maybe can't talk about later. ⁓ we thought, okay, maybe there's There is something here beyond just a hobby.

Elizabeth Townsend: it goes without saying Lucy, you are an absolutely brewer. mean the first time I had one of your hazy pale ales in, I think it was ⁓ when Kerroo taproom first opened, I think we got some of your beer in cans, I think it was one of the first pale ales did is it vampire spa? Vampire Spa Day yeah and we we got it in and was just absolutely blown away by the quality of it, I couldn't believe it and it was ever since every time I have one of your beers.

Lucy: Vampire spa day, yep.

Elizabeth Townsend: We had some down at the Rake in Borough Market last summer ⁓ I will tell anyone who listens ⁓ incredible you are at making beer. So you very much deserved your rising star Women in Beer Award I think. So congratulations to you. ⁓ you're both involved in Women in Beer and the Women on Tap networks. How important is

Lucy: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Elizabeth Townsend: diversity do you think to the beer industry and things like bringing different skills and different life experiences

Lucy: I don't think it can be understated how important it is. gives ⁓ viewpoints ⁓ if you don't have ⁓ variety of people, be ⁓ of genders, of different backgrounds, ⁓ of races, looking at things ⁓ you miss things. Everyone has blind spots ⁓ and Beer is something that should bring people together. And I think you can only do that if you have a diverse range of people making it and being involved in it.

Catherine: Yeah, I 100 % agree. And Lucy said it brilliantly, actually. think, you know, having a range of opinions. And as you know, in women on tap, we, you know, there is data to back this up that companies that have women in senior roles, you know, are more successful people, you know, companies with a more diverse workforce are more successful. And I think if you don't people who look like you, however, however you may look, there's nothing for you to aspire to. You know, if every time you look at a picture of a brewery, it's ⁓ three white men, then you're going think, well, that's not a space for me. Whereas every time we see a brewery, know, and Lucy is ⁓ super brilliant as this as well ⁓ super brilliant at making beer. ⁓ being very visible and being, ⁓ your usual brewery owner. think that's really important that we show people that there is a space for everyone. Beer is for everybody. ⁓ And we need to be making we're including everyone and making it welcoming for everyone to have an opportunity to be part of it.

Lucy: Yeah, couldn't agree more.

Elizabeth Townsend: What skills have you brought into your current roles you're working in from your previous experience? Like what's been helpful to you? What's been most helpful from corporate lives, shall we say?

Catherine: me, I think ⁓ I touched this earlier that I have a, I have an organized kind of brain. I've always, I've always been like this. So, I like a list, I like a spreadsheet. and I think when you're managing multiple projects, particularly in my current role now at the brewery where I'm not only looking after the brand, kind of the outward facing kind of brand side of it. ⁓ and doing loads of events and organizing all our festival attendance. I'm also helping our head brewer, Harry, with stuff in the brewery, operationally around kind of health and safety. We're just about to put a new brew kit in. So ⁓ there's of kind of operational stuff that I can draw on my previous manufacturing experience ⁓ to the brewery with. And I think as well, having ⁓ managed quite big teams in the past and been involved in a lot of projects, know, really big projects when I was at Cadbury's. me to take a step back, I suppose, ⁓ you know, get maybe a bit less flustered because experienced a lot of different things. And so I think, ⁓ actually, do know what? We can figure this out even if it looks insurmountable to begin with. So I think experience of managing projects and managing teams and people has been really helpful.

Lucy: in terms of skills, I think the ability just problem solve and ⁓ kind of poke ⁓ don't work until you out why they don't work ⁓ and ⁓ put in fixes, if not the perfect fix. It's very different in software because entirely digital. ⁓ But I feel like when actually a brewery, There's a lot of kind of like, why is that leaking? How can I use the tools I have at my disposal right now to make this bit of the process better? How can I achieve these things without kind of buying new kit or loads of investment? What is best to just kind of like fix things or make things better on a budget? In terms of much more specific skills, I think it's kind of like design. ⁓ stuff, being able to use Adobe Illustrator and understand how to put together labels and keg badges properly so we can send them off to printers has been absolutely invaluable.

Elizabeth Townsend: What's your most useful bit of advice for somebody currently working in a non-beer industry if they were thinking of maybe moving into the beer space?

Catherine: I would say... get as much experience interacting in the beer space as you can. So before I worked in the industry, I volunteered relentlessly at festivals, particularly those where you've got people from breweries ⁓ or brewers attending. ⁓ They are invaluable spaces ⁓ you to learn about beer, ask questions, ⁓ a huge range of beers. I think that would be my next bit advice as well. Try as many beers as you can. have that kind of awakening moment like Lucy was talking about earlier, you where you try something and you think, I never knew beer could taste like this. that's one of the best things I ever find if I'm out with my Brum beer babs and we try something really unusual and people are like, I thought I didn't like beer, but this is actually really great. there's loads of really good books out there as well that not super technical, that are really ⁓ easy to read, really easy get into. Natalya Watson, ⁓ Melissa Cole, ⁓ these folks really, really books. Laura Hadland, they're all great beer writers. Actually, they all happen to be women as well. There's some great men beer writers as well. and they're really engaging and they're really good. There are obviously super technical books out there, but I think that would be it really. Like try and get involved in your local beer scene. If there's a nice welcoming, inclusive CAMRA group perhaps in your town or city, maybe see if you can join them. Or is there a ladies beer group maybe that you could join or another beer drinking group you could be part of, festivals, trying loads of beer and... kind of self-learning, I guess that's really how I did it.

Lucy: Yeah, I think that's all good advice. I think I'll approach for maybe like a specific brewing role perspective. Definitely try and do of the stuff like Cicerone or ⁓ WSET. Even if just the level one, it gets you an idea ⁓ of more of the side of tasting beer. I think most importantly, make you really love The industry is not a very well-paid industry and it's a lot of work and I wouldn't change a thing about what I do because it's such an amazing tight-knit friendly industry but I think you have to be really really passionate about beer to actually make a career in it without it grinding you down. ⁓ Not to sound pessimistic.

Catherine: Yeah, I think that that's a good point actually, Lucy, is you really need to love it. I think everyone thinks that, you know, working in the beer industry is just going to loads of festivals and hanging out with your mates and drinking loads of pints. ⁓ There is a of that, obviously, ⁓ but there is a lot of hard graft that goes on ⁓ in the brewing you know, in the background. So yeah, you've really got to want to do it.

Lucy: Exactly. Yeast doesn't wait for anyone.

Catherine: I need that on a t-shirt.

Lucy: You