Maddie
And now we move on to our final Five Minutes with Faram of 2024

Join me, Maddie as I sit down with Alice Batham, head brewer at Batham’s Brewery, we’ll talk about her decision to join the family business and how she balances the challenges of tradition and innovation.

Alice Batham
So I’m Alice Batham. I’m the head brewer here at Batham’s Brewery in Brierley Hill, now a sixth generation brewery, so me and my sister have come up into work with my dad and my uncle. I sort of started out my career at Brewster’s in Grantham, and then worked at Thornbridge as well. But yeah, now I’m back here. Came back during the pandemic, so I’ve been in here about four years now.

Maddie
What made you want to do that change when you come back to the family business?

Alice Batham
I think a lot of it was COVID, because all of the pubs shut down, and it was just a really difficult time for my family. It was actually the first time that we’ve ever had to close the brewery. So even during the First and Second World Wars, our family stayed in, remained in and carried on brewing. And it just felt like such a hard time. My dad actually said, we need you back here. And also just for me, like I was living on my own in Sheffield, and I just, I struggled to sort of settle a little bit just because I was working, and I loved working at Thornbridge, but I think a lot of people’s priorities were kind of thrown into question during that time, and it was always going to be here, yeah,

Maddie
Was there always a plan for you to come back then?

Alice Batham
I think in your mind, when I So, when I started my masters in brewing, that was the end goal. But I never, sort of had any idea of when I would, or how I would. So I actually, I did a undergrad in English, so I never thought I would go into the business.

Maddie
I really at that point, you were like, not for me.

Alice Batham
Yeah I went to Leeds, did a English degree, and then I sort of had a big turnaround, and realised that I didn’t want to be sat doing sort of office jobs for the rest of my life. Then I realised, actually, when I went to Australia and I witnessed, like, pub culture and the beer culture there, it really made me realise what an incredible heritage we have here.

Maddie
As in out there, it wasn’t very good?

Alice Batham
Yeah, a lot of people sort of drinking hotels, and there’s a few bars, but it’s, it’s really different. And obviously they have a craft beer scene that’s big, but it’s just so different to traditional pubs. And I’ve sort of, like, grown up in in pubs, and it was a huge shock for me, yeah, yeah.

Maddie
So you felt that, like, passionately about it, that you wanted to come back?

Alice Batham
Yeah.

Maddie
She came back from Australia, and then you did your masters in brewing?

Alice Batham
yeah. So I finished my English degree, and then went into my masters at Nottingham. So that was just one year, and it was really good. All of the lecturers were incredible. A lot of them worked at Bass and, you know, sort of like older companies that have had practical experience, so you’re getting the academic side, but also the hands on side. And that, for me, was, like, really important.

Maddie
Yes, you learn on the job, don’t you?

Alice Batham
Yeah,

Maddie
If you had to pick one hot Friday for the rest of your brewing career, what are you picking?

Alice Batham
It would have to be Goldings. But if I was to sort of choose something else, I’ve really enjoyed brewing with Olicana® over the years, I think it works really well in sort of pale ale cask beers. And I just like the fact, again, that it’s a UK hop that’s important to us to use UK grown varieties. I think it’s part of your it was part of your programme, wasn’t it?

Maddie
Yeah, part of the hop development program.

Alice Batham
Yeah, I just like how it’s still quite subtle, and it’s not, it doesn’t have ridiculously high alphas, but you can make sort of a nice, sort of juicier pale out like whoa. What we doing? I use it actually last year in a special that I did, that you guys did with us, and it was the first time that we’d ever had like, a different hop in the brewery, everyone was freaking out.

Maddie
What is your current favourite beer?

Alice Batham
Current favorite beer has to be bathers first bitter, because I just drink so much of it. I know it’s really boring to say your own

Maddie
No, not at all

Alice Batham
If I was to choose another one, um, I really love, obviously, I worked at Thornbridgefor a bit. I really love their lager Lucas, when we were on shift, like a lot of the Brewers used to drink that it’s just really refreshing, and easy drinking. Yeah. And I think as well, like, what I really loved about making lagers is, like, and I had this at Brewster’s, is testing it when it’s brewing. I actually, I brewed our Christmas beer on Monday, and it’s still going at the moment, but I’ve been tasting it a little bit, and it’s just quite nice, actually, to sort of see where it’s at.

Maddie
Yeah, see the evolution if it of it, favourite beer festival? Do you have one? Have you been to many?

Alice Batham
I’ve been to quite a few. We have one in a couple of weeks here, the Dudley winter Ales festival. And that is a lot of fun because it’s a lot of sort of wintry stout sporters, those type of beers. Yes, and it’s just nice to sort of. See the local community come together, and people that you know that will like go to some of the pubs, and, yeah, it’s just, it’s just quite sort of low key, but wholesome.

Maddie
What’s one item in the brewery that you couldn’t live without?

Alice Batham
This is gonna sound really boring, but I really couldn’t live without post it notes. I think I did pick this up from Thornbridge. We used to write down what we needed to do in the day on a post it note, and have a pocket. And I’ve sort of now got about 10 post what it’s really bad because I put my I put my stuff in the wash all the time. I find, like, bits of yellow post it note.

Maddie
That’s a really important idea. I’m going to write that down. Yeah, and you put it in your pocket,

Alice Batham
I can’t live without them, like, especially because I’m not really in the office. I’m always looking around. I need, yeah, I need to be sort of saying I’ll need to that later.

Maddie
yeah, that’s true. I do like post it notes. So I would live by a post it note. That’s a good one. What would be your favorite song, album, music, artist, anything like that, to play during a brew day.

Alice Batham
That’s the tough one. YWe normally have the radio on, so we sort of tend to flick between Absolute radio. The guy is quite like, like classic rock, yeah, I sometimes put Absolute 90s on, which is quite fun, yeah? But yeah, I really like, I really like the Black Keys the band, and I think that they’re sort of quite upbeat. So I quite like getting going, Yeah, from putting like an album on occasionally, if I’m in on the weekend on my own, I’ll put like, Beyonce on or

Maddie
all the single ladies,

Alice Batham
That’s the best thing about weekend. You just come in and like, blast, blast your own music.

Maddie
How do you approach hop selection for different beer styles, if we’re doing specials or anything like that? Because obviously, like you said, with your traditional you’ve obviously got very set recipe for that. But for any new specials you do, how would you approach hop selection? What factors do you personally find influences your choice?

Alice Batham
One of the main things for us is that they need to be whole leaf, just because of the kit that we’ve got here, we use a hop back, so we’re not really using any pellets in the brewery. So I need to sort of think about how that works in terms of the vessel size, because we have to create, like, a certain depth with the hops for the hop bed to clarify the wort during the brew process. So that is actually sort of something quite process driven, that drives hop selection. Again, we sort of don’t tend to make super high IBU beers here. So that would also come into it, what the alphas are.

Maddie
Do you go for the sort of lower end alpha?

Alice Batham
yeah, definitely.

Maddie
You came round up the fields and harvest didn’t you? Did you find anything interesting?

Alice Batham
Yeah it’s just amazing to hear the farmers talk about what they go through. And I think there’s so much disconnect with that, from what the farmers are having to deal with to then, sort of obviously the brewing industry has its own issues, and then the pubs and hospitality has its own issue. So actually, just going and chatting to them about all of the things that they’re facing and realising, like, where all of these ingredients come from to create this one product that is sat in a pub like this. You know, it’s such a huge journey, and I’ve really enjoyed going out to the farms, I think it’s, like, really important.

Maddie
Hopefully the weather was all right?

Alice Batham
Yeah was good. I did see a video of a tent flying around.

Maddie
Can you share a challenging situation that you’ve encountered in your brewing career and how you overcame it?

Alice Batham
I think a lot of stuff sort of happened at Brewster’s that I had to overcome quite quickly just because I sort of like a one man team for quite a while. I remember once, when I was first at a training I was doing like dry hopping, and I was recirculating it, but without thinking, I put it through the spray ball in top of the tank, so it really, it just, it just like, clogged up the spray ball. And it’s just sort of like overcoming things like that, yeah, little bits like that where I’m like, how, where was my head at?

Maddie
I mean, it happened in every job, doesn’t it? Who is your biggest inspiration in brewing?

Alice Batham
Like, being part of the family that I’m in. It’s just incredible to sort of think back, especially having my dad around at the moment and just sort of working with him and hearing stories from his career, and then thinking back to my granddad and all of our sort of great granddads, and that it’s it’s just such an incredible thing to be part of. And I feel really, really proud and really lucky to be part of it. Sarah at Brewsters, who first trained me and hired me, it was also like a big inspiration. And I think going into a female led brewery at that point, when I just finished my masters, it was a really good decision for me. And I think actually it might have, I might have entered the industry in a very different way. Had I not been employed by a female Brewer and a female led and owned brewery. She’s done so much throughout her career. And yeah, definitely working with her was a really good starting point for me. I think the craft scene done a really good job at highlighting issues and you sort of having groups now, like, you know, Crafty Beer Girls and Birmingham has their own Brum Beer Babs, those are really important groups for women to meet up. But, it’s really tricky in production to find women who want to work in IT courage, especially with Brum Beer Babs, like, encourage men and women to come. You know, like, it’s not about just women coming to these things. It’s about having those conversations. But actually, when you sort of like, look at the stats, we actually do need to shout about it. Yeah, we’ve got, we’ve got to improve representation. And until it reaches 5050, right? We need to, sort of, yeah, be pushing and helping, helping people out. That’s why I try and encourage so younger females, only females, to come and come and do, like a day with me at the brewery. I recently, well, a couple of years ago now, probably now, I had a young woman come who now works at Wye Valley, and she just did a day with me here. And it’s, yeah, it’s important to me to exchange the opportunities that we wouldn’t necessarily know could be presented to them, right?

Maddie
Yeah, I was gonna say, Did you always want to follow in your family’s footsteps? But you already talked about that a little bit earlier. But again, you and your sister. Was it something your sister always wanted to do as well?

Alice Batham
No, no, not. Not really. I think my parents were quite adamant. They didn’t want to put that pressure on us. They wanted us to sort of come back to the business in our own way, and if we wanted to. I’ve got an another sister, Ruth, who doesn’t work in the business, and she knows that that was the right decision for her, and there’s no sort of guilt in that, or anything like that. My sister Claire, she actually ran one of our pubs for a fair number of years, so she went into it that through that route, and has sort of done the on trade side of it, and that’s really good for her. And yeah, it actually just works so nicely. Yeah, yeah.

Maddie
Do you ever butt heads of anything. Me and my sister could not work with

Speaker 4
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s good actually. I guess having sort of her in the pub side of me in the production, it means that we sort of have our own strengths and weaknesses, and yeah, it just means we can help each other.

Maddie
You can appreciate you’re good at that, I’m good at this

Alice Batham
It’s great. She brings, like, food in for me sometimes as well. And I’m like, a little McDonald’s breakfast sometimes when I’m mashing in. Yeah, definitely.

Maddie
I do love that. If you weren’t in the brewing industry, what would you be doing? She obviously did English at uni. Do you think that’s you would have gone down that route?

Alice Batham
I don’t think I would have. I don’t, after having such a, like, active, manual job for most, like, all my career, I just, I don’t think I would have done that. I actually think I would have, I would have, like, loved to go into farming or something like that. I know it’s really difficult, but Yeah, something like that. Maybe.

Maddie
Yeah. Do you have any other interests or hobbies outside of brewing?

Alice Batham
Yes, and I try to make sure I, like stay on top of those things, because I think it can sometimes be, especially with being in, like a family business, it can be sort of all consuming.

Maddie
I was gunna say, it can become your life 24/7

Alice Batham
Which is not, you know, it’s not a bad thing. But everyone needs downtime, right? I really like swimming. I’m quite active, sort of outside work. I walk my dog whenever I can. I’ve got a Cocker Spaniel, oh, she’s very cute

Maddie
hectic?

Alice Batham
Yeah, she is hectic. She comes to the brewery with me quite a bit, actually. And she, yeah, she really likes coming here and sort of seeing everyone, and we’re quite like a creative family as well. So I’m really into, like, drawing, making stuff, sewing, that type of thing. Oh, nice, cool.

Maddie
Like, what advice would you give to anyone wanting to enter the brewing industry?

Alice Batham
Work Experience! Do as much as you can, get around as many breweries as you can, because they’re all so different, having worked in sort of cask brews, and then Thornbridge, which was very like production driven everywhere, just has completely different kit. You know, it’s, it’s so many different sort of ways of making beer and producing it. It and, yeah, just, just try, if you can, try and get around as many as you can. And I think if you approach most breweries, they will, they would be happy for you to do that. Obviously, I know like doing unpaid work isn’t great long term, but, um, yeah, just, see what’s out there.

Maddie
I suppose it’s a lot of early mornings, isn’t it? So if you’re willing to sacrifice a few hours in the morning before the year of work. Then if it’s something you’re passionate about and you want to do that, I guess you can just go. Just got to put yourself out there.

Alice Batham
Yeah, definitely. And just sort of trying different beers, and sort of trying to understand where they’re coming from, what processes have been used, and getting to know that type of thing is, yeah, it’s good.

Maddie
How do you navigate the balance between tradition and innovation with developing your special recipes and compared to what you’ve got from your core range?

Alice Batham
It’s hard. Yeah, we’re obviously extremely old company. We’re coming up to our 150th anniversary.

Yeah. So we’re so proud of that we’re so we’re just so proud of the pubs, and I think maintaining that consistency and quality is pretty much what I spend most of my time on. I definitely wouldn’t ever change anything about the best bitter, or the mild Ale, or the triple x that we brew at Christmas that’s really important to us. And I think especially at the moment within the industry, it’s important to sort of see the value in that, and see the value in a consistent quality cask ale, or people just want to come into the pub know what they’re getting. And like I said, Yeah, I spend so much time making sure that the bitter especially, is just super consistent, so that’s important. But then the innovation side, it’s something that we sort of try to progress with, I guess it’s something that I’ve pushed a little bit more. But I also am sort of quite wary of the fact that I don’t want to just do a load of random beers just for the sake of it. We’re really lucky that our product is so is so well loved and so well followed, and we can’t sort of thank our, you know, like loyal customers enough for that, because they drive the product, they drive the throughput, which is so important for cask. But, yeah, maybe some of them are in the pipeline.

Maddie
You’ve got how many pubs now?

Alice Batham
So we’ve got 12 pubs. Wow, yeah. So they’re mostly in the Black Country. We’ve got a few stuff on the outskirts, but yeah, we like to keep it really local. And I think as like, with my head brewer hat on, it’s really important for cask that it’s not traveling too far, miles and miles.

Maddie
What is the last beer brewed? Slash are brewing that you sort of talk to us about your Christmas beer?

Alice Batham
Yes, the Triple X. That’s the Triple X. Yeah. So it’s around about six and a half percent amber ale that we need to use. Yeah, it’s basically very similar hopping to our Best Bitter, but with a few other tweaks, it’s just feels really Christmassy, and it feels really think when you know that it’s in the pubs, you know that Christmas is coming, and my grandma actually really likes drinking Triple X, so to try and get her to go and have half a pint with us every Christmas, I think I had one pint once, and then ended up just falling asleep on my parents floor.

We always get some stories from the pubs because I think people, um, sort of tend to think that it’s like the bitter and we’ll have pints of it, but you just can’t, you’ve got to be careful.

Maddie
Yeah, is there any particular food that you’d pair that with?

Alice Batham
Oh, probably some, like, cheese and crackers that type of, like, Christmasy maybe, like, yeah a bit of pickle. I quite like that. Like, a few sort of, yeah, like, you know, you only get a cheese board, yeah, it’s not just cheese and crackers, yeah, that sort of thing.

Maddie
Yeah, that’s my favorite.

Fuggles or Golding? But you’ve obviously said Golding. Do you ever use Fuggles? Yes, yeah, as well. Yeah, you’d pick Goldings. Would you?

Alice Batham
Would Yeah. So we actually use Goldings in cask, so we dry hop with them. They just smell incredible. It’s just a really, yeah, really, really, really nice.

Maddie
And then final question, what is next for you in the industry?

Alice Batham
Just sort of steering this ship, I guess through it, it’s taken me quite a while to sort of feel not comfortable but settled here. And I think because I moved back during COVID, everything was still quite uncertain, and the pubs were sort of doing that in and out thing of serving, but not serving and that, but yeah, it took a while.

So, as we’ve sort of talked about, I would love to hire a female if I could for the brewery, it would just kind of bring the apprentice, yeah? Like I said, like maintaining bathing quality is the biggest part of my job. Full friend, that was awesome. Yeah, great. Well, that’s all my question. Is there anything else you wanted to add? Or just that, like, farms has basically provided us with hops forever. So like, Yeah, I think the relationship that we have with you guys is really important to us as well, and also we do, like the hop selection with Paul and John farvin in, like, in the end of the year and around Christmas time, and it’s just, yeah, it’s really important to us. And I just sort of like thinking about the fact that our my ancestors were, like, going over to Malvern to get the harps, and yeah, now you are Yeah. It’s just great.

Maddie
It’s just, it’s a family, really, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah, family. Okay. Well, thank you very much.

Alice Batham
Thank you. Appreciate your time. Thanks for coming. Yeah,