In a few short years, full circle brew co has become one of the most celebrated breweries in the north east. Founded by Ben Cleary and under the guidance of head brewer Alex Redpath, the business is focused on making full-bodied, full-flavoured beers that everyone

Recognise that view? There’s a strong chance many reading this will. The UK is blessed by some truly brilliant pubs. Places that might be on our doorstep, or those we’d venture hours to visit. Why? Because the experience those public houses provide is worth the time spent travelling.

One such example is The Free Trade Inn, based on St Lawrence Road, Byker. Under the guidance of landlord Mick Potts, The Free Trade Inn is one of Newcastle’s oldest and best loved real and craft beer pubs.

It is a local favourite, championing brilliant local produce, it also serves great beer from the North East as well as further afield. 

Not only that, it has one of the best views such an establishment can provide in the UK. But in Byker, if you’re in the market for superb beer, you have an embarrassment of riches on offer. 

Walk some five minutes up Walker Road and voilà, you have Full Circle Brew Co. And for founder Ben Cleary, the consumer having such a wealth of options shouldn’t come as a surprise. 

“Newcastle is known for great craft beer – just probably not necessarily outside of London, though,” he smiles. “I mean, a lot of people don’t even know Newcastle has craft beer. I recall the first festival we did in done in the capital a few years ago, people couldn’t believe we hailed from here.

“Unfortunately I think we do get overlooked to a degree. I feel the biggest thing is that there’s so many great breweries locally, but many of them don’t want to grow outside of the local area. As a result, they don’t get as much visibility as their peers,” says Cleary. “Of course Leeds and Manchester are popular havens for fantastic beer and fantastic breweries. But the North, not so much. I don’t consider those places the North for some reason!”

Cleary is proud and bullish about brewing in the North East and he’s equally proud of the brewery he founded in 2020 – Full Circle Brew Co. But while that outfit is producing excellent and regarded beers, his own story stems from the wine world.

“I was working in the wine trade some 10 years prior to this. I loved it, I did all my exams, and was working for a major wine retailer in Majestic Wines,” he says. “But after some time, I decided to return to our independent family wine business and set up a bottleshop and e-commerce firm selling fine wines, spirits and beers. And in those first two years, craft beer was really booming.”

Running this business would allow Cleary to try fantastic beer from a wealth of breweries and in his own words he “fell in love with it”.

“I don’t want to say I fell out of love with the wine trade, but I do not drink much wine anymore. I realised beer was something that I always wanted to be involved in. From the family business we had expertise on the sales side, we also had expertise on the beer side so we thought ‘let’s go for it’. 

“And as you can see we’ve kind of gone way too big. Well, at the time, we thought we had gone way too big!”

That expertise on the brewing side came from Alex Redpath. With Cleary running The Pip Stop, the would-be head brewer used to drop in to provide samples of his latest creations. Redpath was enjoying success in the world of homebrewing, regularly being acknowledged and rewarded in competitions held by BrewDog Newcastle, often placing 1st.

“When it came to the beers Alex brought me, I genuinely felt they were better than most of the beers I was pouring in the shop. They were wonderful and from day one, I knew that he was the person to lead this brewery. And with that, it aligned us perfectly to really start this project,” recalls Cleary.

Although he had training from Sunderland-based training provider Brewlab, Redpath had yet to have any experience working in a commercial brewery. 

At Full Circle, he’d start his professional journey working from a modest warehouse in Stanley, Durham, with a 140L 1 barrel brewing kit. It’s here he would start working on the brewery’s core range and with him brewing, Cleary would sell them through The Pip Stop. What was understandably valuable here was the ongoing feedback the customers could provide. Armed with that intel, they further developed the range and settled on beer such as Repeater Session IPA, Hoop American Pale Ale, Rotator DDH Pale and Looper IPA.

That sense of alignment extended to the duo’s views on a core range, too. “I think we both had similar views on this,” says Cleary. “We wanted to create four beers that were always going to be Pales. We’ve created one that’s more of a gateway beer – Hoop – a gluten-free American Pale Ale, which is a really good gateway beer to get into it. And it’s actually what we nearly sell the most of right now. 

“Many breweries just go seasonal. But we wanted to sit at that middle point between commercial and craft, if you will. That was where we wanted to go. We went very heavily into “craft” initially, but as of 2023, we’re trying to build a bigger audience where your brand, and ultimately, that commercial element, will always come through.”

To meet their collective ambitions to grow as a brewery, they would need a bigger premises and a bigger kit to brew on. And that involved the, in no way nerve-wracking task of moving from a 1 barrel 140L kit straight onto an 18.5 barrel 3000L kit. “I remember seeing some of the equipment coming in on that sunny September day and thinking ‘what have we done?!” laughs Cleary.

He adds: “We figured that we should invest in the long-term from the start and to be honest, it has been a great experience. We opted for a brewhouse from SSV Ltd as they were making waves in the market. They were wonderful, not just with the kit but with the aftercare. Making that jump was predictably scary, and I recall asking Alex ‘are you sure you can do this?’. But the company, especially their commissioning brewers like James Campbell at the time, made things easy.”

That shiny new equipment would be calling the district of Byker its home. Following a stint searching for the perfect spot for their brewery, the team happened upon an old train workshop in the heart of Byker and that was that. Complementing the kit from SSV Ltd was a CP-10 canning line from Microcan. 

The CP10 is a twin lane 10-head innovative counter pressure filling and seaming machine with the ability to change can size at the turn of a wheel and the flexibility to fill products of various carbonation levels the CP10 offers more versatility for the operator. “They were excellent and again, the aftercare is amazing. So those are the companies we are aligning ourselves with going forward, for sure,” explains Cleary.

While Cleary, Redpath and the team had their site secured, and had their kit installed, they were unable to affect the global pandemic that was about to take hold. Like many of their peers that opened in-and-around COVID-19, those early, formative years took a different journey than they expected…

“We learned to be agile because we had a small team. And because we were new to the industry  we could just do what we wanted. And it seems to have worked in the most part,” he recalls.

They managed to establish a route direct to selling in Europe and with that, the brewery was able to trade successfully in a challenging time. Strong Untapped ratings and acknowledgement on sites such as RateBeer gave European customers an appetite for their beers. About 70% of the brewery’s stock would be sent to Europe in that first year but then in year two, Brexit would present a new set of challenges. 

“That ruined our lives a little bit again, so we couldn’t sell into Europe for probably six months. But that’s flattened out and things are going really well on the export market still,” he says. 

“But while we enjoy that side, we realised we really needed to focus on the UK market, too. We’ve approached these early years slightly different than most, but thankfully it has worked out. And if anyone wants advice on selling overseas, they just need to ask.

“For me, the dialogue is craft beer against big beer. I don’t see our neighbours who are two miles away as competition because I prefer to work together.”

With those potentially-challenging first years navigated, Cleary is happy to be fully-focused on the quality of the brewery’s beers, and growing the name of Full Circle Brew Co on a more national level.

“The business has only existed in COVID times and with so much of our beer going overseas, we are still considered somewhat new by many,” he believes. Earlier this year distributor Cave Direct named Full Circle one of its Future Four, UK breweries that they believe have the potential to be the best in the game. 

“That sort of recognition helps put us on the map in bigger cities and with bigger accounts. We want Full Circle to be a household name and we are prepared to work to get there.”

And another area Cleary and the team are working heavily in is reducing the company’s impact on the environment, too. “I feel as if there are two two names for Full Circle. One is a family link, my parents were in the wine industry, and their parents were in the pub industry so we’ve kind of technically gone full circle,” he explains.

“But the main reason was a promise, and it was something we couldn’t do over the past three years, but we’ve really been pushing for this year. And it’s to hit Net Zero by 2030, which is pretty hairy goal. But ultimately, it forces you to do it and it’s super important to me.”

Cleary argues that while it’s important to him, it should also be important to everyone in the field, too. “It’s something that everyone needs to do,” he says. “We want to do it because it’s the right thing to do. The brewing industry is not the best from a sustainability angle. So if we can learn more and do more, then hopefully others can follow on and learn from that as well. We want to bring the beer industry into a much better place from a sustainability point of view.”

He adds: “And for those who aren’t interested in sustainability, there are parts of that journey that can save you money. We have a nitrogen generator that has reduced our CO2 usage by 90%. It’s saved us a fortune. But whilst it’s also saving us a fortune, it’s much better for the environment.”

The brewery has also established a partnership with Zevero, utilizing their expertise to assess the brewery’s emissions. 

“We take immense pride in being an active participant in their online auditing platform, which empowers us to continually gauge our monthly emissions. 

“This valuable tool brings us closer to comprehending the intricacies of our carbon footprint, identifying hotspots, and pinpointing areas where we can effectively curtail our environmental impact,” says Cleary.

“The investment in decarbonisation software brings multiple benefits to our brewery. It ensures compliance with strict climate change regulations and carbon reduction targets set by governments worldwide, helping us effectively track and manage emissions.”

With those ambitious sustainability targets to hit and further growth of the brewery, Cleary remains focused on the task at hand, and more besides. “I’m a Durham boy through and through,” he says. “We even looked at opening our brewery there but Newcastle made more sense. But who knows, to have a bar or similar in Durham would be fantastic. 

“Increasing our presence is always something I’ve wanted to do. But when it comes to the journey so far, it’s been a wonderful experience. It’s creative, it’s exciting, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”