Wobbly Brew Co

Once the dream business of a well-known local welder, Wobbly Brewery is now the venture of Jason Hughes, a beer entrepreneur. Let’s call him a “entrebeerneur”, shall we? To get to know Wobbly better, it’s best to start from the beginning. To introduce the brewery, if you’ve not met its range of well-crafted classics with a modern twist on pump at your favourite Hereford bar before, here’s a short history of this not-as-small-as-you-thought brewery nestled in the heart of Herefordshire. 

Wobbly beginnings

When the original owner grew tired of wielding his arc welder and creating brewing vessels for the likes of Heineken, he started brewing his own beer. His modest dream was to create brews his friends and local beer drinkers would enjoy, with a focus on malt complexity for the darker beers in his range and hoppy brightness for those lighter, fresher brews. His focus on quality ingredients, local where possible, quickly made Wobbly Brewery’s core range a south western success story.

Wobbly winners

Wobbly Brewery’s IPA3 is its most popular beer. It’s a bravely aromatic IPA full of zingy citrus and tropical fruit and a base of satisfying bitterness with a 6% ABV kick. Despite taking a departure from the brewery’s more traditional core range, it won SIBA Gold in 2016, an accolade Wobbly is extremely proud of. Since then the brewery has developed a cult following in its homelands and IPA3 remains the top-seller. Experimental beers like Welder, with its loganberry and blackberry notes, keep Wobbly pushing further out from tradition and into the modern beer scene.

The Wobbly Empire

In December 2017, Wobbly Brewery was taken over by new owners. Enter Jason Hughes. The successful small brewery had built a strong name for itself, and Jason saw potential in taking its involvement with national breweries as a highly-regarded contract brewer further. With the involvement of WeCan Solutions, one of Jason’s main business interests, he decided to install a state-of-the art canning line next door to the brewery, enabling brewing, canning and distribution straight from Wobbly HQ in Hereford.

Even if you’ve never heard the name before, there’s a good chance you may have tried Wobbly’s beers without even realising it. The silent partners at the heart of the commercial brewing industry in the South West, Wobbly brews, packages and ships beer to all corners of the country, for a range of clients. Those clients? Hotel and restaurant chains after branded cans of their own beer, event organisers and wedding parties hoping for cans with their own imagery on, even breweries looking for extra capacity to meet demand. All are welcome here, and Wobbly is more than happy to help.

This one-stop beer-producing marvel isn’t just a business venture though. Over the past year, it’s crafted its own cider (it is based in Hereford after all) and has a lager on the way due to popular demand. Jason says its core beer and cider’s popularity is in part due to the area’s loyal “drink local” mentality, and windfallen casks in neighbouring counties are gathering Wobbly fans from further afield. 

It’s also opened a brand new tap house back home at Wobbly HQ, run by a crack team of beer fanatics who also head up its festivals and events. Busy weekends at the bar show that locals are keen to drink Wobbly beer from the source, and it’s set to get busier still in the coming year, with plans to host festivals featuring local independent breweries that’ll get the whole area buzzing about beer. Expansion, collaboration and experimentation. Cheers to that.