With hindsight, it sounds crazy, but when my partner and I moved to south west London in 2001, we didn’t really think about schools. But competition in our area is fierce, so when Belleville Primary School offered our son a place at the last minute, we vowed we’d do as much as possible for the PTA to express our gratitude.
I began by helping with cooking and managing the bar. One day I heard about a school that had held a beer festival and I was inspired to organise one myself. The success of the event sparked a real passion for brewing, and I started making beer at home. By the time we held our second beer festival, I felt confident enough to enter my own brews. Hearing so much positive feedback from people who enjoyed them was a delight.
By 2012, my career producing music for films wasn’t as fulfilling as it had once been and I had just missed out on a big project. I took my family on holiday to the United States where we travelled from Florida to Maine, visiting a lot of breweries along the way. I decided it was time for a change.
Once I had committed to the brewery, things happened quickly: an industrial unit became available just 200 yards from where we were living, and I started to find investors by talking to other parents in the school playground. One of the initial investors, Mark McGuinness-Smith, became a director and has held my hand throughout the whole voyage. The Belleville Brewing Co launched its first two brews the following year.
When my eldest moved on to Dulwich College, we were invited to set up a bar at their annual Founder’s Day event. We donated the profits to the sports department so they could take boys on scholarships or bursaries on school trips. At Dulwich we were also able to make new connections with other parents, which enabled us to grow. Thanks to a second investment round, we were able to buy the brewery and packaging equipment we have today.
Belleville Brewing Co continues to support schools in south west London by supplying beer for their PTA events. We give them trade prices, and we deliver and set up for them. Our taproom has become a popular venue for PTA meetings and dads’ evenings. Some of the children who were at Belleville when we started have grown up now and we have a group of university students who are always delighted to help out in the taproom during the holidays.
Adrian Thomas is a director of the Belleville Brewing Co, London and a former parent at Belleville Primary School, London
