TWO failed jobs and a spot of sibling rivalry turned Nick Stafford into a brewer. And that's why today he can be found running his own brewery at the end of a tiny, twisting mud-decorated lane in what seems like the middle of nowhere when you've come from York, but probably not to the locals of Holme-on-Swale.
This small village is near to Thirsk, but only in the sense that it has to be near to somewhere, so Thirsk it is. Besides, describing yourself as "a bit to the right of the A1" does not sound so romantic. And there is romance in beer, or at least in the possibly foolish notion of setting up your own micro brewery in a prettily tucked-away sort of North Yorkshire village.
Nick Stafford is Hambleton Ales, so much so that the brewery's logo has his name at the top, above the rearing horse. He came to brewing via a career as a primary school teacher, working in the private sector. He was, briefly, the head teacher of a prep school in Surrey. He lasted a year, discovering himself to be a wrong-shaped peg, and hints at an explosive parting. "I burnt my bridges," he says, sitting in his small office, with an assistant typing in the background. This is a compact, busy business and Nick is often interrupted as we talk. "I don't like hanging around waiting for things to happen so I decided to re-think," he adds briskly.
For a while, seven months to be exact, he re-thought himself into selling computer software for a Leeds company that serviced financial houses, even though he knew nothing about computers or high finance.
Recession hit and he found himself without a job - a teacher turned salesman with nothing to sell and "pretty unemployable because of my experience with employers". Then came the brotherly shove, the sibling spur that put Hambleton Ales in motion, or if you prefer, the yeast that set the first bubble rising in the bottle.
"In July 1990, I was tasting the beer that my brother makes," says Nick. That's big brother Martin Stafford, three years older than 43-year-old Nick, who runs Dent Brewery in Cumbria. "It was very good. But I thought that if he can produce beer that good, I can make something ten times better."
Not having any Dent beer to hand, I can't enter into that beery family spat. But Hambleton Ales, five draught beers and two regular bottled beers, plus assorted bottled specials, are certainly very fine. This is craft beer produced on a smallish scale to a demanding standard. The beers take their equine theme from the White Horse carved into the Hambleton Hills. Alongside the original Hambleton Bitter, the other main beers are Stallion, Stud, Goldfield and the much-acclaimed Nightmare. The special brews include Thoroughbred, a bottle of which, bought over Christmas, sent me off to somewhere not very near to Thirsk in search of the story behind the ale.
Nick started brewing in 1991, working from outbuildings at Holme, behind where his wife Sally's parents lived. He'd done his research and found 24 pubs willing to take his Hambleton Bitter. So he produced the beer using traditional methods, drawing water from a nearby bore-hole and employing local malted barley, English hops and his own three-pronged strain of yeast, which is maintained for him by the Brew Lab at Sunderland University.
When his first batch was brewed, only eight of the 24 pubs agreed to find space for his new beer. A lot of phoning, pushing and agitation followed and the beer was sold. The business-like Nick, you sense, has it in him to be a dynamo of irritation. "If I could be I'd be diplomatic and nice, but I'm not," he says with a shrug and half a smile.
More than ten years later, Nick is producing 2,500 gallons a week, and plans to double output within the month, following the introduction of new brewery equipment.
He sells beer throughout Yorkshire and the North East. York pubs stocking Hambleton Ales include the Tap And Spile on Monkgate; The Ackhorne, St Martin's Lane, off Micklegate, and The Minster Inn in Marygate. The bottled beers can be bought at the York Beer And Wine Shop, in Sandringham Street, and Beer Ritz, newly relocated to Goodramgate.
In 1994, Nick moved from his in-laws to an old barn nearby and the brewery now stands as gatehouse to the village. It's the first thing you see when rounding the last twist in the lane.
All the way along, Nick Stafford has been keen to produce what he sees as traditional, quality ale. It's a craft procedure, with the beer taking seven or eight days to brew, as it passes through assorted large but unremarkable-looking tanks in which the magic slowly takes place. The beer is produced through cold filtration and is not pasteurised. The bottled variety is best drunk within 28 days to appreciate its freshness.
"We don't mess with anything. We never compromise with quality. I have used that phrase so many times over the years. We will not consciously accept second best," he says.
Nick employs six full-time staff at the brewery, which also does freelance bottling for other small brewers. He also runs a pub consultancy business, and is chairman of the Society of Independent Brewers, a role that sees him campaigning for the small brewer in a big market.
He works hard, occasionally long days - "in at six, till seven or eight". It's a slog but a cheerful slog and Nick Stafford loves it. It's his own job with a good foaming head on top.
Hambleton Ales, Holme-on-Swale, Thirsk. Tel: 01845 567460; online at www.hambletonales.co.uk
Updated: 12:17 Saturday, March 16, 2002
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