Head Brewer at The Mighty Oak Brewing Co

Mighty Oak is an award-winning brewery looking for a Head Brewer passionate about real ale, quality, and innovation.

Your key responsibilities as a Head Brewer:

The job of Head Brewer at Mighty Oak is very much hands-on.

Mighty Oak is a small brewery and the brewing process is not automated. Brewing requires the manual tipping of grist for the mash, digging out of the mash tun and copper. Racking is also a manual process. It is therefore essential that the brewer is fit enough to carry out these duties. There are currently 2 other staff in the brewery assisting the Head Brewer, one of whom is also able to brew. Weekend cover of the brewery is required and is shared between the three team members.

The Head Brewer is responsible for maintaining a brewing culture of creativity, innovation and continuous improvement by taking responsibility for recipe development, ensuring raw material availability, and for managing safety, and the brewing team.

This role requires close liaison with the Sales Team to ensure that appropriate beers are ready when needed.

Other responsibilities include:

• Managing the brewing programme
• Management of brewing team (currently we have a second brewer and brewery hand)
• Maintaining good order in the brewery; tidiness, stock rotation, cleanliness, repair schedule
• Planning and efficiency of the development of the brewery, staff efficiency, improve health & safety
• Public relations; brewery talks at tap takeovers and brewery tours, beer festivals and other events – adding a ‘feel good’ factor to make these events special for the attendees
• Finance; The Head Brewer, along with all the other managers within the company, has a responsibility to be aware of the costs of purchases being made, to ensure value for money is being obtained taking into account quality, reliability and service.

Your skills:

• Sound knowledge of brewing practices and beer styles and, ideally, a brewing qualification and 3+ years of commercial brewing experience
• Familiarity with the technical language of the brewing industry
• Problem solving skills – the ability to troubleshoot beer/brewing related issues.
• Creative skills, particularly for one off beer production
• General management, business awareness and decision-making skills
• Leadership skills; the ability to motivate a team and to maintain positive morale in the workplace; mentoring and coaching abilities
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• Planning and organisational skills
• IT skills; Excel/Word/email
• Good understanding of quality assurance/quality control

Your personal attributes:

• Be passionate about real ale, quality, and innovation
• Personable, approachable and pleasant demeanour
• Strong work ethic and the ability to multitask
• Able to work in a demanding physical environment

Start date ASAP

Interested?

Please apply by email with a CV and Cover Letter to Gill Crawford.