Cheers to Swindon's Old Town Brewery

“I’M not much of beer drinker as you can see,” says Clare Bugg apologetically, tipping a small bottle awkwardly into her glass, frothy foam bubbling up to the rim.

Not what you’d expect from one half of the husband and wife team behind Swindon’s new purveyor of fine ales, Old Town Brewery.

“We started off with fruit wines and we still do an Elderflower champagne – that’s more my sort of thing,” she laughs. “But the brewery has definitely given me much more of an appreciation of beer. I don’t mind a light wheat beer now.”

An amateur she may not be, but a connoisseur she has certainly become. She has learned more than she ever bargained about the inner workings of the craft beer trade since her husband David took a fancy to winemaking five years ago, eventually turning his sights to home-brewing, using their kitchen as his improvised lab.

This was only intended as a hobby to impress party guests and a nifty Christmas gift stash for friends and family. Soon though they caught the bug, and experimented with more complex and inventive flavours, foraging for berries to add a little zing to their fruit wines and artisan ales.

Before long they had up and left their lives in Lancashire, moved to Swindon, and filled their garage with fermentation vessels. Three years ago Old Town Brewery was born. While Clare looks after the marketing, admin and foraging sides of the operation, Dave who works as a full-time project manager concocts the recipes and deals with production in the evenings and at the weekends.

“Of all the careers I’ve had I didn’t think brewing would be one of them,” says the 36-year-old former university research assistant. “You have to be a bit crazy to start a microbrewery in your own garage. But if you’re in a position to do what you want you have to go for it. It’s a bit weird at first telling people you make your own brew. They imagine a big dustbin full of cider in the kitchen. They’re not really convinced.”

By the time they set up tanks in the back of their garden in Old Town, they had fine-tuned their methods and firmly put behind them beginners’ froth-related accidents and occasional explosions.

“In the early days we used to make things in a tiny plastic barrel in the kitchen,” she recalls. “We moved it to the garage but we had a few disasters - bottles exploding for example. We never had problems with the taste but sometimes it was too fizzy or not fizzy enough. And sometimes we realised it was a bit too alcoholic.”

In Swindon, they initially focused on brewing on-off uniquely infused batches – mainly thanks to the ad hoc “throwing” of freshly picked berries in the tank.

“They’re not fruit beers,” Clare insists. “But the berries add colour and richness, a little bit of extra bitterness and complement the flavour.”

The growing number of repeat customers clamouring for more of this or that limited-edition ale prompted them to concentrate on producing a more permanent range of signature beers.

They recently released their first core beer, Bushcraft Porter and are working on three more: a pale ale, wheat beer and Belgian-style saison.

“We liked throwing in a few foraged blackberries, hedgerow fruit, so every batch we made couldn’t be replicated,” adds Clare who juggles running the brewery with raising their three-year-old daughter Liana. “We love to experiment; that’s why we enjoy doing it. But the problem in terms of a business plan is that it doesn’t work so well if people say, ‘Do you have more of your Number 10?’ and you have to say, ‘No sorry, it’s long gone’.”

But Clare and David, 35, have not abandoned their limited collection altogether. In fact Clare found an astute way to pursue the one-of-a-kind brews as a community sideline through the Old Town Brewery CoHoperative. As part of the initiative, she donated hops to customers and friends to plant in their own garden. Once harvested they were duly returned to the microbrewery to be fermented into a unique golden ale. Each of the kind volunteers was rewarded for his or her efforts with a couple of bottles of CoHoperative special brew.

So far Clare and David have recruited an army of 30 hop farmers.

“People think it’s complicated but hops are easy to grow along a garden wall. You don’t need any gardening knowledge. It grows like weeds,” she explains. “We thought it would be a nice idea. They get two bottles and if there’s anything left over we sell it. Community projects like Incredible Edible have taken some hops to grow at the Secret Garden and someone from Penhill Haven has taken one of our hops to grow too. The community has been so supportive of our attempt to grow the business.”

Though she insists David has first and final say when it comes to ingredients, the reluctant ale drinker’s input and fruity touches have gone some way to create a more subtle draft, easy on the palates of both discerning enthusiasts and chary amateurs like herself.

“I think a different kind of people are drinking beer now. It’s moved away from the image of older men in pubs. People who are younger might want a craft beer that easier to drink, out with friends or in the sunshine. But we definitely do beers for the people who are not necessarily keen on it.”

Prompted by growing demand for their new dark ale and community beer, the pair have upped their production from 100 to 300 bottles per batch recently. They are now looking to sell casks and start catering to local pubs. And they have every intention to resume production of their seasonal elderflower champagne and festive mulled wine.

While moving the brewery out of their garage is on the cards, unfettered expansion is out of the question. This would go against their artisan ethos and would seriously compromise their “berry- throwing” methods.

“We’re constantly playing around with flavours - we tried a spiced Chai beer but people either hated it or loved it so we didn’t do it again,” she smiles. “Our ethos is to be small and local and different and it would not work as well if we weren’t artisan. We want to keep trying different things, that people haven’t had before and the feedback we’re received shows us it’s all been worthwhile.”

330ml bottles start at £2.50. 500ml bottles start at £3.25. To place an order or join the CoHoperative community project visit old-town-brewery.com, The Old Town Brewery Facebook page or email contact@old-town-brewery.com.