Page 16 - Community Living Magazine 32-3

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Success in at the Tuesday Night Club at Lewisham

Mencap. Many people were unemployed
a bottle yet were clearly employable so he decided
to help. The only question was how.
“you either say to Tesco’s and
Sainsbury’s: ‘Can you take some of our
guys?’ And that’s just going to go on
forever ... Or you take matters into your
own hands.” In the end, he says: “We just
decided we were going to brew.”
Nick had never brewed beer before and
does not even drink much of it. So, that’s
two brewer stereotypes disposed of right
there. However, his day job as an
economist meant he could easily identify
brewing as a self-starting business with
the potential for decent profit margins.
He points out that brewing is labour
intensive and involves a number of
straightforward, learnable tasks, such as
A London brewery is making a name for itself with new beers filling bottles or labelling them, which are
– while proving people with learning disabilities make great ideal for a team learning the trade.
As an example, he says “the process of
ale. Seán Kelly went to meet the team and drink to its health bottling the beer is very easy. Someone
gets the bottles out, someone washes
them, someone stacks them, someone
gnition is a flourishing new brewery in is admirably concise about what happens fills them, someone caps them.”
south London that employs a majority next: “you keep it somewhere dark. When
iof people with learning disabilities on next week comes, you can drink it.” Come and brew
its nine-person team. I ask how they chose the team members.
This has brought them some publicity Well oiled “We leafletted everybody at the Tuesday
but Nick O’Shea, who runs the company The brewery makes about 1,000 bottles of Club, a weekly Lewisham Mencap disco,
along with Will Evans, does not want this beer a week. They produce three beers: a and said ‘Do you want to come and
to be their unique selling point. pale ale they call South of the River, an brew?’ and, apart from one addition, the
“We struggle with this because, you India Pale Ale called Jump Start and a team we have now are those who said
know, should it really be news? People porter known as Well Oiled Machine. yes. So, they picked us.”
with learning disabilities get a job. Is that Purely in the interests of research, I The brewery has expanded and, after a
really a news story?” he muses. “Are our have tried all three and can happily report crowdfunding campaign, opened the
expectations that this is impossible?” they are great. More to the point, my son Taproom bar, where they sell beer directly
The important thing for the brewery is Liam – who is a serious craft beer fan – to the public.
that it produces really good beer – which also gave them a big thumbs up. For the crowdfunding, Nick and Will
it does. Nick says the original idea for the made a short film on a mobile phone.
“We don’t compete with charitable brewery came while he was volunteering They put it online on 3 may and, a month
products – we compete with the beer
market. Because you’re not going to buy a
charity beer. Well, you’ll buy it once, but
we genuinely believe it’s about people
buying a good product. Otherwise, we
would basically just sell beer at Christmas.”
Ignition is clearly a friendly place to
work and the team all insist on first
names. Tash and Chris show me around
the brewery.
Tash is the qualified brewer whose skills
are at the heart of the business and who
oversees the whole process of brewing and
directing the team members who help.
Chris enthusiastically explains how
things work. He shows me the mash tun,
which is almost as tall as him, and the Seán Kelly/www.seankellyphotos.com
large wooden paddle with which the
mash is stirred by hand.
He and Tash explain the process and the
ingredients involved in brewing beer. Chris Michaela (left) and Jill get the beer ready; top: Chris causes a stir at the mash tun

16 Vol 32 No 3 | Spring 2019 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk