Lucy Pitts talks to Dot Joiner in Chief, MD and Co-Owner at Langham Brewery, Lesley Foulkes, about casks, conkers and continuums. Oh, and about beer!
Back in 2003, three friends were sitting round a pub table, when they came up with the idea of starting a brewery. You have to remember that back then, the Sussex landscape was very different. Wine makers had yet to spread their viney tendrils across her gentle slopes, the word sustainability didn’t feature in our lexicon and the craft beer explosion was still a long way in the future.
These days, that brewery is Langham Brewery, a multi award winning brewery producing cask-conditioned real ale and keg beers, with a gold South Downs Green Tourism accreditation. Turn off the main road from Petworth to Midhurst and you’ll find it tucked away in an 18th century granary barn with views of the South Downs.
Snakes and ladders
A sign for Rob’s well-rotted farmyard manure greets you at the door (the folk at Langham are very proud of this as it’s partly made with Langham waste malt), quickly followed by a brightly coloured wall of beer clips. It never ceases to amaze me how endlessly creative beer makers are when it comes to beer names and branding.
Head brewer, James, is up a ladder stirring the contents of Cathy the Copper (next to Martha the Mash Tun, of course), while assistant brewer Fran, who is sporting shorts and a fine pair of brewer’s wellies recounts a story of 1980s brewing. The brewery is small, rustic, eclectic and oozes that heady, bitter sweet smell of malt and hops.
Lesley Foulkes is one of the three founding members and I first met her, along with her dog Rambo, as part of a small group walking the Serpent Trail.
Bohemian, bubbly and ever so slightly bonkers
Back on that walk, I was instantly impressed by Lesley’s bohemian but endless energy and her interest in and enthusiasm about everything. She clearly has her finger on the pulse of all things South Downs National Park, and within the first few kilometres of our walk, we’d discussed how to make the South Downs more accessible and improve cycle paths, the Bloomsbury Set and different species of butterflies. She seemed to know a lot about everything but in a very quiet, modest way and her interest in championing the benefits as well as addressing the challenges of running a business based within the South Downs National Park clearly runs deep.
On the day of my visit to the brewery, Lesley’s excitement to show me around bubbles visibly. For a small space there is a lot going on and Lesley knows every inch of it. Before I know it, we’re stepping over pipes, navigating kegs and skirting round fermenting tanks as she talks me through the different hops, shows me their cellars, explains fermentation times and discusses vegan cleaning agents and heat exchangers. When we get to the canning machine that they bought with their bounce back loan, I am quite sure Lesley will burst with pride. They had to make a hole in the ceiling to fit it in!
Knowing that Lesley is a chartered accountant by trade, it feels like a bit of a disconnect and I’m curious to know how she ended up as Chief Dot Joiner at a brewery.
Accountant turned brewer?
“I was going out with James (the other co-owner) when we and his friend Steve had the idea of a brewery in 2003. Living in Wandsworth, I was aware of the big breweries but there really weren’t any small beer makers around. As soon as we mooted the idea amongst colleagues, a friendship group came together and a community formed that was and still is filled with camaraderie, support and passion. It is one of the best things about being in the beer business – the amazing brewing community – and many of our customers have been loyal to us since the start.
Once we found premises here on the Cowdray Estate and got off the ground, I quickly realised that you get a fantastic sense of pride and satisfaction when you see someone enjoying a pint of your beer and my involvement with Langham has given me a great sense of purpose. You just don’t get the same feeling as an accountant.”
As we talk, customers drift in to collect beer or stay for a pint in the taproom, and everyone seems very comfortable in each other’s skin. One customer is sipping a pint and remembers with fondness his Covid beer collection. Lesley proudly points out some of their green tourism accolades but as sustainability is a relatively new concept, I wanted to understand how it was that Langham have been sustainable from the outset.
Articulating the unarticulated
“We didn’t necessarily say we wanted to be sustainable at the start, but we were always very clear that we wanted to make the best beer in the best way we can with the community and for the community. We want to be forward looking but we also want to acknowledge that beer making is a continuum and tradition and heritage is a big part of that. Sustainability was almost a by-product of this approach and in 2017, when Langham Brewery was invited to be the first corporate partner of the South Downs National Park Trust and to become a sustainable and positive role model for others in the community, we jumped at the chance.
Sustainability should involve the community. We have an Inclusivity page on our website and I’m really proud of it. We want to be accessible to everyone. One of the things we’re doing at the moment is with working with the Book a Bus scheme but we’re also organising a Santa dash for the Northchapel school, we’re part of the Sussex Six, we have our annual Bonkers for Conkers event, a Mid-Winter Festival, our walks and our Live at Langham events. This is all part of who we are.
But it’s important to understand that sustainability must also make economic sense, given your size and we’re a small brewery with very limited resources. So we have to think laterally when we need to replace something, for example, our new tank is bigger and will enable us to re-use our hot water. Installing it also meant upgrading and improving our pipes so that they are better insulated. We’re also currently working to establish our base CO2 and working on a project with the University of Surrey to create a device that will capture, recycle and repurpose our waste CO2.”
Since you started, there has been a craft beer explosion. How have you survived?
“Of course, we’ve had to adapt a few times. Covid was a great example of that, when we created our own ‘BeerThru’. By doing that, we significantly increased our retail base and then we opened our taproom and created a brewery experience, whilst at the same time, showcasing the South Downs. Our organised walks run by Malinka of Rural Strides are another great example, as Malinka shares her enormous knowledge of the Western Weald and local countryside on the walks which finish with a pint or two at the brewery.”
And talking of beer…
“At Langham Brewery, we brew three or four times a week and produce about 2,500 hectolitres of beer a year. We’ve got our five main signature beers: Session Bitter, Hip Hop, Best, Arapaho and Session IPA and we cask condition our ale, which isn’t done by many breweries anymore. It’s a process that allows a secondary fermentation in the cask creating a beer that is naturally carbonated and is not filtered or pasteurized. This really helps develop the character of the beer.
We are also very collaborative. When we developed our Arapaho beer, I contacted their heritage society and we’re still friends on Facebook. We also got approached by What3Words to work with them so we developed some beers around our words: Hence.Mute.Lizards. More recently, we collaborated with an American brewer for D-Day and we’ve just collaborated with our hop supplier to create a beer called First Swallow.”
What’s the secret to Langham Brewery’s success and more importantly, what’s your favourite beer?
“I guess our real secret is that we’re very genuine and we consistently make good beer crafted with love for good people. I love the different flavours of beer and my favourite is probably Rocket Juice. It’s so juicy they say it’s one of your five a day.”
You can visit Langham Brewery for a brewery experience, tour and tasting, to visit their shop or for one of the many events they host at the brewery.
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