A business and a relationship forged in Liverpool, Neptune brewery celebrated its 10th birthday this year. Here, co-founder Les O’ Grady discusses his early days in the world of beer and how he and his wife Julie went on to start a business that now employs a team of 15.

It was around 2010 when I was first introduced to something called ‘cask bitter’. I recall I was in the Ship & Mitre pub in Liverpool city centre, and there was such a wide selection of beers to choose from. Until then, my drink of choice would have been a mainstream lager or even Guinness (as the hangovers weren’t as bad…), but trying cask for the first time was a revelation.

What was this I was drinking? I can’t remember what the beer was, but it triggered something in me that has stayed ever since: FLAVOUR! Like many people who typically opted for lager, I had no idea what real ale was or what CAMRA stood for. But what I did know was, I liked this new drink and decided it required further research.

Soon enough, whenever myself and my wife, Julie, would be on a shopping trip in town, we’d end the day discovering a different real ale pub and sampling what they had on offer. It was a different world, and being a part of it quickly became ‘our thing’ and we liked it.

So cask beer was on the map thanks to the city’s old-school boozers, but craft beer was near non-existent in Liverpool at this time. This void was quickly filled thanks to the arrival of the 23 Club in 2012 – which saw another significant shift in how I viewed and enjoyed beer.

Tucked away downstairs underneath one of our favourite restaurants, this bar was a treasure trove of new fancy craft beer from not only across the UK, but also Europe and the USA. Cask, keg and bottles – the selection was vast.

From home-grown breweries such as Buxton, Thornbridge, Hawkshead and Magic Rock, alongside international tipples from Stone, Clown Shoes, Oskar Blues and Amager – there was always something new to try. I can vividly remember my first pint of Jaipur!

We quickly became a regular fixture at the bar, alongside likeminded beer nerds from the city and beyond. Liverpool’s own craft breweries then started to open, such as Liverpool Craft and Mad Hatter, and the city’s sub-culture of beer was born. We liked this new camaraderie. It wasn’t just social and fun, but I was also learning along the way about beer.

A turning point was becoming a regular attendee at the 23 Club’s monthly ‘meet the brewer’ events. They were fantastic evenings – six or so beers plus food and the actual brewer sharing their passion, lifting the curtain on processes and recipes, and simply being proud of what they made. No secrets, just loving beer. This, combined with a trip to Chicago in 2013, where the craft beer scene was in full swing, cemented my love of craft beer.

The decision to start my own brewery was the result of an afternoon in the pub with my mate Geoff. We’d had a few pints and I declared: “I could make beer better than this and want to start a brewery.” He agreed. I went home and told Julie my plans. Amazingly, she encouraged me, and the foundations of what would eventually become Neptune was born.

A trip to a local homebrew store, a rudimentary kit purchased and a couple of tins of ready-done syrupy stuff – I was ready to become a brewer. A few weeks later, I had 80-odd bottles of beer ready to be drunk. It was drinkable, but unremarkable. More tins ordered, extra hops added, and I had another 80-odd bottles. 

But this time, of not-so-drinkable beer. This is when I discovered that brewing is 90% cleaning! These initial failures only made me more determined to master the art of making beer. I knew, despite my ‘expert’ knowledge obtained at the meet the brewer events, I needed to educate myself and properly invest if I was going to give this a real shot.

We discovered The Malt Miller, bought a steel vessel kit and quality ingredients, and our journey progressed. I joined the 23 Club’s Liverpool Home Brewers Club, a monthly meet-up where advice was shared and beers offered up for honest critique. I still remember some of those beers drunk at the time could have been worthy of payment should they have been on the bar.

Winning their first blind tasting competition with a bitter – which has since evolved into one of Neptune’s core beers, Waterfront – was the moment we thought we might actually be able to do this. So we did.

Taking the leap to purchase a 200-litre kit, with 300-litre FV’s for double brews, was significant and in April 2015, Neptune Brewery was born. If it failed, at least we had a cracking homebrew kit. 

Six casks at a time, I brewed, packaged and delivered. Geoff handled the sales and paperwork, whilst Julie helped spread the word about our brand-new venture through social media and marketing.

It’s no surprise that our first delivery was to the 23 Club – a real full-circle moment for me. It was here that my love for craft beer was born, and now, it was officially on the bar.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve met many people in the industry who were our ‘heroes’ and are now our friends. We’ve been lucky to have brewed in collaboration with those breweries

that inspired us and continue to do so. It’s not been easy, and we’ve had to work through many challenges but also towards many moments of pride. Now, with a team of 15 across our brewery and bar, it’s humbling to think that it all came from that one pint of bitter in the Ship and Mitre.