Head of Production

Name: James Stephenson

Position: Head of Production

How long have you worked here? Just over 21 years!

What’s your favourite part of your job? My favourite part of the job is to walk round the brewery each morning, see how everyone is and then check that all the previous day's cask beer looks, smells and tastes as good as it should.

What’s the working environment like? Wells and Young’s is a friendly place to work, but there's always plenty to do mixing the technical aspects of being a Master Brewer with the management tasks of running a busy Production Department.

Describe your day to day responsibilities: As Head of Production I head up a team of about seventy five people involved with the brewing and processing all of our beers and racking of cask beer. My responsibilities start with brewing raw materials, which we check are delivered to our specifications, right the way through to the end product. We work as a series of teams to ensure our internal and external customers receive the beer they want, when they want it and to the highest possible standards. I have specific responsibilities as Kirin Brewmaster for the production of Kirin Ichiban here and liaison with the technical and sales teams in Dusseldorf and Tokyo.