Meet Kent's finest food and drink producers
Above: Eddie Gadd, Ramsgate Brewery
RAMSGATE BREWERY
WINNER: BEST BREWERY
Eddie Gadd
Tell us about your business.
We are a very small, busy brewery producing a broad range of draught and bottled beers for pubs and off-licenses in east Kent. Our focus is on using the fantastic locally grown hops to create a true taste of the area by brewing both innovative modern styles and recreating old classics. Brewing beer is tremendous fun.
How do you feel about winning?
We’re very pleased indeed to be recognised by such a fine organisation. To spend your working life doing something you thoroughly enjoy every day is a great privilege; to be paid for it is even better but to be given an award on top of all that is amazing. There are 10 breweries in Kent, all of them masters of the art in their own right and friendly competition between us all is great fun. This year it’s our turn to crow, just a little bit.
What do you think makes you a winner.
Commitment, skill, hard work and enthusiasm are all pre-requisites in a commercial brewery these days and all the Kent breweries possess these qualities in bagfuls so I suppose that just leaves a little bit of luck. We were lucky that when the time came to judge the finalists we had just finished producing our 2007 vintage pale ale and it is an especially good beer. I think the judges must have agreed with me!
How do you think you can keep on improving?
Having lived across the water in the lowlands we've been exposed to the brewing techniques of the Belgians and Dutch and continue to find inspiration from there to complement the skills we learn from our own brewing industry in the UK.
Brewing beer is tremendous fun
Innovation is the key and it happens to be great fun too.
I personally plan to travel more visiting fellow brewers and learning new methods. And there are some tremendous old texts around that show that some of the brewers of the past really knew a thing or two about flavour.
What are the plans for the future?
We’re looking to expand a little to give us a firmer base and share the workload a bit more. For the last few years the family holiday has been taken without dad, who is always in the brewery, so there is one aspect that will have to change. We will continue to develop great beer styles that really do complement food well and hope to increase the number of restaurants that will list beer alongside wine.
It is encouraging that against a backdrop of a decline in beer sales nationally, there is a marked increase in sales from small breweries highlighting the public's thirst for tastier, fresher, locally produced food and drink.
Let’s all keep it local, the rest will take care of itself.
More information
Ramsgate Brewery Ltd
1 Hornet Close
Isle of Thanet
CT10 2YD
Tel: 01843 868453