THE GIST
Cloudwater’s head brewer and co-founder, James Campbell, has left the brewery via mutual agreement, according to a statement published last week on the company’s website. Campbell helped to establish the Manchester brewery along with fellow founder, Paul Jones, which launched its first beers in March 2015. Under Campbell’s guidance, Cloudwater was named the “second best brewery in the world” by beer rating site RateBeer in January 2018.
“James was an incredible contributor, without him the brewery wouldn’t have started,” Jones tells GBH. Speaking of the decision to announce the departure publically via Cloudwater’s blog he noted that he “didn’t want him to leave through the back door.”
In his own words, the former head brewer chose to part ways with the brewery to achieve “greater autonomy” professionally. Campbell—who also previously worked for Manchester’s Marble Brewery—will return to brewing consultancy in the short term, with plans to eventually fund a brewing project of his own, according to the statement.
WHY IT MATTERS
The rise of Cloudwater to become one of the most recognizable brands amongst beer aficionados on both sides of the Atlantic has been one of the most repeated success stories in British brewing of the past few years. In the U.K, it’s been part of a relatively small phenomenon, but the story of an ascendant brewery in a short time can be traced in the U.S. through businesses like Other Half, The Veil, Monkish, and more, all in operation for less than five years. While still not unique by U.K. standards, the rapid success of Cloudwater, along with a handful of other breweries such as Verdant and Northern Monk, is indicative of market potential.
The departure of James Campbell perhaps points to the start of another phase of evolution in this business’ short history. And perhaps what’s most significant about this, is that Jones does not plan on employing a head brewer to replace Campbell. Cloudwater has been a brewery marked by a rapid evolution since its origin and Campbell was with Cloudwater from its very beginning. His absence now means the brewery will be without the person who helped to design and spec the brewhouse and was heavily involved in its recipe development process. It’s the start of a new chapter that may well define the brewery, as it leaves its startup phase behind, and faces challenges that increased production size, a larger team and increasing relevance bring with it.
“Cloudwater started as a project between friends, with a common interest of excellent beer. So it remains,” Campbell tells GBH. “I am indeed very proud of what I achieved there, long may the success continue.”
Jones, meanwhile, admits that the departure of Campbell is a loss for his brewery, but he also sees it as an opportunity.
“We’ve never been better staffed than we are now,” he tells GBH—the brewery now has an employee count of 32, up from 18 just a year ago. “We have a team of highly skilled wort producers with a lot of experience behind them, working towards sensory targets set by myself.”
There’s a commitment to invest in people within Jones’ rhetoric—and not just financially, but in a way that benefits Cloudwater and its staff. As an example, Jones cites brewing team member Jay Krause, who ran his own brewing company, Quantum, which was forced to close in 2016. Jones quickly hired him, seeing an opportunity for a talented, local brewer to impact his brewery and allowing Krause to continue to develop his technique. Jones has also invested in training for the brewing team via courses offered by the Institute of Brewing and Distilling. By Jones’ way of thinking, there’s no need to hire a new head brewer when the rest of his team already has everything covered through their existing training and experience.
Could breweries operating without a visible head brewer become the new norm? Jones seems to think so, and points towards Beavertown brewery as an example—the London brewery has operated without a head brewer since the departure of Jenn Merrick in January 2017. In a recent GBH Podcast, Heavy Seas’ brewmaster Chris Leonard also inferred his team of brewers is made up of “leads” instead of focusing on a hierarchy of titles. This could also be indicative of an increasing wealth of talent available at the entry point to the brewing industry. The flip side of this, however, is that there isn't enough top-tier talent and filling it in with more capable, warm bodies suffices.
As with Campbell’s Cloudwater departure, it’s yet another indicator of how the industry itself is continuing to change. Throughout his own career, Campbell has consulted with several breweries on their set up, including BeerCat in Catalonia, Spain and BrewSmith in Ramsbottom, around 15 miles north of Manchester. The next evolution in his story is to seek the kind of autonomy—as he puts it—that wasn’t available to him as head brewer at Cloudwater. He intends to achieve this by setting up his own brewery, something he describes as a “lifelong ambition.” Campbell chose not to answer when asked why he was unable to achieve this at Cloudwater.
“I'm aiming pretty high,” he tells GBH. “The beer market has moved on in quality and size since we founded Cloudwater, with some excellent projects starting up right now in the UK. I plan to be making a very positive contribution to that scene.”
—Matthew Curtis