Welcome Back Brewers!

On Tuesday 21 September, after eighteen long months, we were able to welcome our members to a Brewers’ Company event and once again fulfil, in-person, our objective to provide a forum to foster social contact within the brewing industry and associate organisations.

Tuesday’s Court Luncheon was preceded by an extraordinary Court meeting during which twelve new Liverymen were admitted – another first since the pandemic began, as we have not been conducting admissions virtually. The Court, and then the wider Livery at the Lunch, were delighted to welcome: Toby Bartholomew from Wadworth, Richard Bradbury from T&R Theakston, Emma Gilleland from Carlsberg Marstons Brewing Company, Paula Kerrigan, Maria Sebastian and Matt Starbuck from Greene King, Hayleigh Lupino and William Rucker from Marstons, Anna MacDonald and Neil Shah from Diageo GB, Ed Mason from Five Points Brewing Company, and Stephen Watt from Heineken UK.

The Lunch also celebrated the re-election of Richard Fuller as Master. Richard was installed as Master in the Company’s first ever virtual ceremony in July 2020 and, at the request of the Court, agreed to remain in post for a second year to July 2022. This was his first in-person event open to the whole Livery and was an opportunity to, belatedly, welcome him as Master. As he noted during his speech at the Lunch, a Master serving for a second term doesn’t happen very often, in fact in the last 160 years, other than during the world wars, the only other time was during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1919-20.

While addressing the assembled members of the Livery, the Master was delighted to have the opportunity to present the Brewers’ Company Awards for the highest mark in the Institute of Brewing and Distilling’s General Certificate in Brewing and General Certificate in Packaging 2020. David Munn of Molson Coors (Brewing) and Danny Clayton of Heineken (Packaging) were both worthy winners of the awards and heartily congratulated by all those present.

Finally, and by no means least, the lunch was an opportunity to thank Simon Theakston for his service as Master between July 2019 and July 2020. Simon faced a unique series of challenges during his year in post and sadly missed out on many of the opportunities the role usually affords. However, he led the Company brilliantly through the early and most challenging stages of the pandemic; as Richard Fuller noted during his speech, Simon was “…always calm, always thoughtful, always wise. [His] chairing of Court and other meetings was exemplary and everyone felt involved and part of the decision making process at a time when clear thinking was most definitely needed.” Simon looked back fondly on his unorthodox year as Master and all those present expressed the gratitude of the Livery as a whole for his service.