World Traveller, Beer Tinkerer, Tiger TasterMeet The Brewer: Isaac Moore

For Isaac, beer is the second alcoholic beverage he’s had a hand in producing. When he joined Everards just over four years ago, he brought with him a wealth of experience he’d gained whilst working for wineries around the world.

Talking about how his career began, he says: “I wanted to go to New Zealand and through sheer co-incidence I found out I had a cousin who lived there. He was working at a winery which was looking for a general helper in the cellar.

“He sorted me out with an interview and I ended up getting the job. I originally got the job as a way to travel but I ended up really liking it, so I stuck with it. I left that company after that wine harvest had finished and then I went on to work for a load of other wineries, some in the US and one in the UK.”

After about two years, Isaac had to return to the UK, due to the Covid pandemic, and it was at that point that he began to reconsider his career options.

“I liked the culture of wine and work involved in making it, but I wanted to try something else. I started thinking about cider, because I’m from Dorset originally, but I’ve never been a big cider drinker. Then I started thinking about beer and began emailing local breweries near where I lived, but nobody was hiring.”

Having been told about a new brewing apprenticeship that was being launched, Isaac did an internet search and was taken to the Government website, where there was one listing – at Everards. Isaac successfully applied and soon relocated to Leicestershire to begin his career in beer.

“I loved it straight away. I did the apprenticeship, then worked for about a year and now I’m doing the brewing diploma, which is the next level up,” explains Isaac, who says he enjoys the fact that Everards’ brewery staff rotate on a regular basis.

“That’s something that makes this job more attractive compared to other breweries, and other wineries for that matter. A lot of the wineries I worked for, you would be assigned to a particular part of the winery – such as moving product from one tank to another tank. You get very good at that one thing, but you don’t really see what else goes on. Here, because it’s a small team, everybody has to be trained in everything, so it means you can do a broad range of things and I think it makes you a better brewer.”

Isaac regularly gets involved in coming up with new ideas for beers – something he says he really enjoys. “We often have brainstorming sessions, and specifically me, Scott and Elouise have started creating recipes, which is fun. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t, but it’s good to have that opportunity.”

When asked about his preferred beer style, Isaac says his bar order varies with the seasons.

“In winter I’ll drink mainly real ale. I like to stick to cask if I can, but I’m also quite partial to kegged lager. My favourite Everards beer is Tiger. It’s a really nice beer and it’s also a good standard. Because I make so much of it, I know exactly how it should taste, so I can go into an Everards pub and can gauge how well the landlord’s looked after the Tiger!”