Fuller's To Lose Its First Female Head Brewer

Georgina Young is relocating to Bristol to take up a job at St Austell brewery

Georgina Young, Fuller's first woman head brewer, is moving to the West Country to take over Bath Ales’ brewing operations at St Austell.

She will be based at the Hare Brewery in Warmley, which is located on the outskirts of Bristol, where she grew up and first learned her trade. The move comes just weeks after Chiswick-based Fuller’s sold its beer division to Asahi in a £250 million deal.

"I'm delighted to be heading back to my home town of Bristol,” she said. “It’s where my parents and sister still live and it’s something I’ve been mulling over for some time, so when a great brewer like St Austell offered me such a fantastic opportunity, I just couldn’t say no.”

Georgina began her career at Fuller’s back in 1999, under the tutelage of legendary brewer John Keeling. In 2017, he stepped down as head brewer and she became the company's first female head brewer in its 172 history.

Before joining Fuller’s, she worked at Smiles Brewery in her hometown of Bristol, alongside Richard Dempster, one of the founders of Bath Ales, along with a stint at the Brewing Research Institute before joining Fuller’s as a Production Brewer in 1999. Cornish brewery St Austell purchased Bath Ales for an undisclosed sum in 2016, taking on its portfolio of brands and an 11-strong pub estate.

Since St Austell purchased Bath Ales it has doubled in capacity and it now has the ability to produce 14.5 million pints per year. Newer brews include Lansdown West Coast IPA and Sulis, its first lager. It moved into Hare Brewery in 2018 and this new brewhouse also has a taproom.

In an interview after she was appointed at Fuller's Georgina spoke of how she was inspired to take up a career in the brewing industry as she developed a love of beer while at university in London while studying biotechnology.

"After my degree I decided to do a Masters in Brewing and Distilling at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. After that I got a job in a small brewery in Bristol called Smiles. I was digging out mash tuns, it was physically exhausting, but very valuable experience."

From there it was onto Redhill, Surrey, to Brewing Research International, where she ran a pilot brewery, experimenting with varieties of hops and various flavours for the brewing industry.

George joined Fuller's in 1999 as a Production Brewer and after some years, she took some time out from the company, when she had her two daughters, during which time she worked as a science teacher in Christ's School, Richmond.

During her time at Fuller’s, she created a diverse range of brands, including Frontier, Honey Dew and Jack Frost. She also supervised a high-profile collaboration project called Fuller’s and Friends that saw it team up with craft counterparts Fourpure, Cloudwater, Moor, Marble, Thornbridge and Hardknott to make limited-edition brews.

March 15, 2019