Hiring your first head brewer

Know what you are hiring for

In a small Indian brewery the head brewer is rarely only a brewer. On a typical week they write the brew schedule, brew, manage fermentation, clean, keep excise and batch records, order malt and hops, train the assistant, talk to guests and fix the chiller at 11 PM. Some also run the bar's draught system.

Write a job description that lists the real work, not a polished version. Decide which tasks the head brewer owns, which they share and which belong to someone else. A candidate who has only brewed on a large automated plant may struggle with a hands-on 5 or 10 hl brewhouse. The reverse is also true.

Decide whether you need a full-time brewer yet

Some founders start with a consultant brewmaster to commission the brewhouse, write recipes and train a local brewer, then hire full-time once volumes justify it. Others hire a head brewer from day one. Our guides on consultant or full-time head brewer and when to hire a consultant brewmaster set out the trade-offs.

Where to find candidates

• Assistant brewers at established brewpubs who are ready to step up.
• Graduates of brewing and food technology programmes, in India or abroad, with real brewery experience.
• Brewers returning from abroad.
• Equipment suppliers and consultants, who often know who is looking.
• Brewing communities, homebrew clubs and industry groups, where you can see a person's beer and reputation.

A strong homebrewer can become a good professional, but the jump to commercial volumes, cleaning regimes and excise paperwork is large. Pair them with experienced support if you go that way.

Look at more than the CV. Ask candidates to bring beer they have brewed, or to tell you where you can taste it. Ask how they kept records at their last job and request a sample batch sheet with the confidential details removed. A brewer who records gravities, temperatures and pH on every batch will usually brew more consistent beer than one who works from memory.

Test them properly

An interview tells you how someone talks about beer. A test tells you how they brew. We suggest four steps:

1. A technical conversation. Ask how they would respond to a fermentation that stalls at a high gravity, or to diacetyl in a lager at packaging. Listen for a process, not a buzzword.
2. A tasting. Pour some of your beers or commercial examples, ideally with one sample spiked with a known off flavour. A head brewer should be able to name faults and say what caused them.
3. A paid trial brew day on your kit or one you can borrow. Watch how they clean, measure and record, not only how they mash.
4. References from people they have brewed for. Ask about consistency, cleanliness and how they handled a bad batch.

If you cannot judge the answers yourself, bring in someone who can for the technical round. Founders without a brewing background often hire on enthusiasm and only find out months later what they missed.

Agree the terms upfront

Put these in writing before the start date:

• Role, responsibilities and who they report to.
• Salary, any bonus linked to measurable goals such as batch consistency or loss. Agree working hours that include weekend brews.
• Recipe ownership. Recipes developed for the business should belong to the business.
• Notice period and a handover obligation, so the brewery is not left mid-batch.
• Training budget, because a brewer who keeps learning brews better beer.

Use an employment lawyer or HR adviser for the contract. Do not invent a pay figure from rumour. Ask around the industry and benchmark against what similar breweries in your city pay.

Set them up to succeed

A new head brewer needs a working brewhouse, a realistic schedule, a budget for raw materials and testing kit. They also need the authority to stop a bad batch from being sold. Give them that authority in writing. Review quality and costs together monthly. The brewery staffing guide covers how the rest of the team fits around them.

Plan the first 90 days together. Month one is learning the kit, the water and the existing beers. Month two is tightening the cleaning and record keeping. Month three is the first recipe changes, made one variable at a time so you can tell what worked. A head brewer who rewrites every recipe in week two, before they know how the brewhouse behaves, is a warning sign.