Master Brewer Joins Belvoir Brewery

Belvoir Brewery are delighted to welcome Derek Orford to the team. Derek started with us on Tuesday 1st March and brings a vast amount of brewing experience with him. It’s fantastic for us to have somebody of Derek’s calibre on board, and all of us will only benefit from having him around. Below are Derek’s early thoughts on life in and around the Vale…

The (New) Life of a Master Brewer

Hi, I’m Derek Orford, the newest member of the team at the brewery. Colin Brown, our owner and founder has asked me to come in as Head Brewer & General Manager. I’m coming to the end of my first week and have learned a lot already about my new surroundings.

The whole team here wants to get Belvoir Brewery beer into the hands of more drinkers in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, and this will give Colin more time for business development.

In the last couple of years I’ve been helping out a micro-brewery in Gloucestershire, but if I’m honest the vast majority of my 33 years as a brewer has been spent in much bigger breweries. So I’m bringing a lot to the table in terms of my brewing experience, but I still have a lot to learn about brewing on a smaller scale. As brewers, we never stop learning, there is literally something new every day, so I’m used to that!

What’s not going to change are the recipes, the way we brew our beer, and the team members that do the brewing. Having seen a couple of them in action this week, our drinkers are in good hands. We’ve already got a great range of beers that you can see elsewhere on the website, and we’re always looking at what we’re going to create for the next special brew.

I’m in the process of moving from Herefordshire to my new base in West Bridgford. My first impressions of my new home town are really positive, although our beers are under-represented there, so we’ll have to do something about that before too long. I’ll be checking out as many of the local pubs and bars as I can over the next few weeks (doing my duty!).

I’ve worked in a few different places in the UK, but never in this part of the world, so that’s another attraction for me. A few of the brewery team are keen walkers so I’ll be joining in with a couple of the local walks too. I’ll update this blog on a regular basis, with more about beer, brewing, and my new life at Belvoir. Thanks for reading!