Alex Smithies is a name that will long resonate with fans of Huddersfield Town A.F.C. The goalkeeper’s heroics ensured The Terriers were promoted to the the second tier of English football in the play-off final of 2012.

However it was scoring them, rather than attempting to prevent them, that carried Huddersfield past the finish line when they defeated Sheffield United 8-7 in a penalty shoot-out thanks to Smithies’ winning strike. It was the longest shoot-out ever to be contested in the League One play-offs.

The following July, Huddersfield were one month away from kicking off their second term in the Football League Championship under the guidance of manager Mark Robins. The same month, Russell Bisset launched a business he called Northern Monk.

Fast-forward four and half years and Northern Monk is one of the UK’s most respected breweries. It’s also making serious impressions on the global stage, becoming one of the Top 100 best new breweries in the world at the prestigious RateBeer Awards.

And for Brian Dickson, head brewer at the Leeds-based business, his beloved Huddersfield Town are doing pretty damn well, too. The team he is so passionate about are holding their own in The Premier League, the top tier of the English game

“I’d love to speak at your event, I just need to think to discuss other than Huddersfield!” he replied when yours truly asked asked if he’d deliver a talk at the recent Brewers Lectures event held in Leeds at Northern Monk’s very own venue, The Old Flax Store.

His love for football is real, very real. But for Dickson, so is his commitment and passion for making the best beer he possibly can.

“Being recognised by RateBeer was a huge delight and a shock. It matters a lot because we’ve put our heart and soul into this, but I don’t want it to stop there,” he explains. “We are in great company with UK breweries like Beavertown and Magic Rock in that Top 100 list. But sustained success would mean seeing Northern Monk beers in as many fridges and on as many taps as something like Gamma Ray or Highwire is on such a regular basis.

He adds: I’m under no illusions either, though. It’s up to us to ensure our beers have the quality and consistency to deserve those taps and shelf spaces. And I think we’re there, or at least very, very close to it.”

Dickson and the 30-strong team at Northern Monk are suitably proud of their output but despite the diverse range the brewery puts out, its with numbers like the 4.1% Session IPA Eternal and its 5.4% American Pale Ale, Faith, that you sense they are truly at ease.

“We are happy and proud with those beers. They’re the house beers on the brewery floor and they’re helping drive our canned growth, too,” he says.

Dickson glows when he explains that distributors such as James Clay and Cave Direct are bringing them into their core offering, while Eternal continues to enjoy great success through its sales in supermarkets such as Marks & Spencer and Morrisons.

“Working with supermarkets is a welcome part of what we do,” explains Russell Bisset. “Those accounts make up around 10-15% of what we do and we’ve turned down opportunities to work with others because we want to ensure we’ve putting out the best beer we can, and we have room to grow within those arrangements, too.”

Bisset states that Morrisons is the cheapest place to buy Northern Monk beer. And it’s something he holds as a badge of honour.

“We want our beer to be available. We want people to enjoy it and not find it prohibitive. If you can find it in a supermarket then that’s surely a good thing,” he adds. And there’s something to be said for a beer like Eternal being available in a four-pack, too. It is something you can enjoy several of. That’s not something you could say about our Strannik or Death stouts.”

Upcoming expansion is also on the cards for Northern Monk.

The brewery’s main facility, located on the same estate bang opposite Leeds Brewery, houses four 50hl and two 100hl fermenting vessels. Its 50hl brewhouse takes two turns to fill up one of the larger tanks but come October, that will responsible for double turns at least four days a week.

The brewery has lined up eight additional 100hl tanks, investment that will enable the brewery to output 12 double brews a week, producing four times the amount of beer in the process.

“We started by looking at the addition of two more tanks, then four more tanks, but we took a step back. We’ve been through it at the Old Flax Store and each time you make that decision, you have to break into your pipes again and also the drain the system, then its the flooring issue and more utilities,” says Dickson (above left). “Instead, we’ve taken the step to expand in a big way and grow into it. I don’t think we’ll fill the capacity off the cuff but we’re presently in a position where we are selling everything we make so the opportunity is obviously there.”

Dickson attributes the consistency Northern Monk has achieved with beers like Eternal, Heathen, New World IPA and Faith for the constant increase in demand. But he also pinpoints the feverish reaction for its Patrons Project line of beers as a key catalyst, too.

“They’ve gone off the scale. More than we expected they would and I feel we have a strong record on those, now. We still experiment, we play around and have lots of opportunities to try things out. And we’ll continue to do that, but we won’t compromise on quality when we do, either,” he adds.

65% of Northern Monk’s output is now in canned format. Something that will no doubt increase once a new canning line arrives later this year. While they can currently output 2,000 cans per hour on a good day, that’ll go to anywhere between 6,000 and 12,000 when the new kit is up and running.

The aforementioned Patrons Project beers primarily reach their adoring fans in this format, with most produced at the smaller brewing facility on the ground floor at The Old Flax Store. Some IPAs in this series, warrant housing in one of the 100hl tanks at the main site though, such is the demand.

“That’s the beauty of having two sites,” says Dickson. “We’re in a position where we can offer a core and offer specials, too. Hopefully we’ll always be in a position where we can offer both and I think you need to. You can’t guarantee the success of specials forever, so you need a consistent core. And equally, tastes towards your core can change so you need to be able to offer something new and fresh.”

Expansion with the addition of the new FVs will free up some tank space at The Old Flax Store, which means more Lagers and greater experimentation within its Imperial Stout offering. Consumer reaction to its latest release, the 12% Death, will see variants released in the future.

“We want to sit this beer on coffee beans, sour cherries, cacao nibs. I think it’ll give it an extra dimension and something different to the addition of, say, cold brew coffee in the tank or fruit puree,” says Dickson. “Not like there’s anything wrong with those, of course”

Dickson would know. It’s 10% Strannik Imperial Stout has taken on a life of its own at Northern Monk. Sticky Toffee, Black Forest and Campfire Marshmallow are also versions that have gone down well with the paying public and, according to Dickson, cater for the demand for the on-trend ‘pastry stouts’.

Russell Bisset speaking at the Brewers Congress in November, 2017.

And it’s from speaking to Bisset (above), you get the impression that he’s happy with the variety of beers Northern Monk put out, but its nailing quality that it his ultimate goal, and one he has for the collective industry at large.

“I do think the UK has ground to make up with consistency across range of styles. But I will temper that by saying beer is also all about experience, too. So I’ve been blown away with something in the US when you’re in the middle of NYC or in country road in Vermont,” he explains. “Still, nobody can come close to somewhere like Hill Farmstead when it comes to consistency of styles. Here in the UK we tend to be doing certain styles very, very well. But not all.”

He adds: “I think that has something to do with the maturity, too. The scene is more mature there and many breweries stemmed from strong home brewing backgrounds. They often enjoy the best direct sales opportunities, too. Which makes it a lot easier to feed back into QA and QC sooner rather than later.”

“We’ve drained five or six beers in the last year, and that has a big impact on the bottom line but you need to do it. However I truly believe a positive driver for the bottom line is looking at that US approach to taprooms and direct sales. You speak to successful breweries. They don’t want to replicate their brewery. They want to replicate their taprooms on a regional basis. So if you can do it, do it.”

And in recent years Northern Monk have adopted that can-do attitude. Last year saw the addition of Colin Stronge, formerly of Buxton Brewery to its ranks. A coup for any brewery and one that Blisset feels shows that people of all experiences are buying-in to their vision.

“We are passionate about beer but we needed more experience. He gives us 15 years experience.

When we set out in the early days it was Brian and I. We had little experience but we set out to make some of the best beer in the UK,” he says. “Call us naive, but that’s been at the core of what we wanted to do and I think we are getting recognised now.”

He adds: “We don’t want to look back now. We’ve talked internally about the pride of growing and each step in the business has been met by an increase in quality, which seems quite rare. We’ve gone through 1000% growth since the early days but the beer has only got better. We will continue as we are. We won’t look down and we won’t look back. We set out to be a progressive Northern brewery and want to ensure we remain that. And that means being honest to ourselves and honest to everyone else. Let the beer, and the story behind it, do the talking.”