Tin Head Brewery

Back in May 2021, as I was gazing out of the passenger window in an unfamilar town, I spotted a sign for Tin Head Brewery. As it happened it was just across the road from my destination for that particular shopping trip - so of course I went over to investigate, once I had completed my birthday present buying duties. 

I took a taster of Can't Catch Me, a gingerbread porter, and decided to make it a pint. As I did so, I wondered if a whole pint might be a bit much. Thankfully, the spicy warmth of the ginger didn't become overwhelming; in fact I had a second before it was time to go. 

It was three months before I was back in Lancashire but I knew I wanted to go back and find out more about the brewery.

On that return visit I was lucky to be able to sit down with Nick Walton, brewery founder and co-owner, to find out all about the business. 

Nick took his first steps into professional brewing in 2017. In his own words - "I bought the brewery in March 2017 on a whim. We'd had a new kitchen fitted and my wife kicked me out of brewing at home."

Nick found an industrial unit on the Bradley Fold Trading Estate - just between Bolton and Bury - and so he would brew there after he had finished work for the day at his part time job. At around the same time his friend, Warren Stanley, had bought a canning line and asked if he could put that and a tank in the loading bay at Nick's industrial unit. A third friend, Anthony Lyons, also had an interest in the beer industry as he was making electrical control panels for breweries such as Northern Monkey and Tiny Rebel. Between the three of them they decided to set up a brewery.

Nick explains that the original plan was to buy a 1 barrel system, but when they looked at prices they realised that there wasn't much difference between a 1 barrel kit and a 2 barrel kit. Before they knew it Nick had decided that a 5 barrel kit wasn't much more expensive than a 2 barrel kit -  and that a 10 barrel kit wasn't that much more than a 5 barrel kit! So a 10 barrel kit was what they ordered. This was installed in March 2017 but it wasn't until October that they had their first brew.

As Nick was chatting, in between serving customers in the tap room, I couldn't help warming to him, but I was also thinking that there was a certain naivety in diving straight into buying a 10 barrel system. That feeling was only confirmed when I asked Nick about what he had been home-brewing before buying the Tin Head brew kit. I was amazed when Nick said he had been brewing extract kits. 

Thinking back to my first small batch all grain brew I really can't imagine what it must have been like to brew all grain for the first time on a 10 barrel kit!

Nick freely admits that they had some real problems with diacetyl and bacterial infection on that first brew. In fact Nick says, "It was probably January 2018 that we were starting to get it right." Up to that point they had several brews that were destroyed while Nick gradually refined his processes and recipes.

Knowing how little experience Nick had before starting Tin Head, it is all the more remarkable that the brewery produces a range of really good beers. I was also interested in how Tin Head came to brew hazy pale ales and IPAs, a saison and adjunct porters. Nick explains that Anthony persuaded him and Warren that there was a market for beers like these.

The fist beer that Tin Head released was Junk Yard Dog, a 4.7% American Pale Ale. Right from the outset they put it into cans as they had that facility in the shape of Warren's mobile canning business. Unusually, the original business plan was based on the idea of canning the vast majority of their beer and selling through shops rather than selling to the on trade.

 

 

Quite quickly Tin Head attracted a number of loyal, local customers, who would regularly come to the brewery to buy cans. Some of those customers suggested the brewery should have an open day and so Tin Head opened a bar for just one day during the lat May Bank Holiday weekend of 2018. According to Nick, "There was a real buzz. People said we should do it every week but it took a day and half to prepare for one day of opening."

The experiment was repeated the following month and was, again, a great success. Nick then decided it was a good idea to open the bar permanently, partly because they could make a lot more profit selling their beer over the bar than they could selling it to other outlets. It wasn't until October 2018 that the bar was finally opened after a thorough redesign of the space. 

It was at around this time that Warren and Anthony both decided they wanted to concentrate on their other businesses, and so Nick bought them out of Tin Head and brought in his son and daughter as co-owners.  

According to Nick, "2019 was a really good year for us but then obviously 2020, that was it, shutdown. We've probably been shut now for as long as we've been open."

Going into the first lockdown Tin Head, like many breweries, had quite a bit of stock and no idea of what to do with it. At first they were filling 5 litre mini kegs from the bar taps and managed to shift quite a lot of beer in this way. Before long though delivery times on mini kegs stretched out to more than 8 weeks as they were in such high demand. At this stage Nick decided to start canning Tin Head beer himself. 

 

Previously they had been contract canning with Warren's company but, "When you're sat there doing nothing there's no point paying someone else to do your canning". As it happened, Warren's original prototype canning machine was still in the Tin Head unit, not being used, and so Tin Head bought this and put it to good use.

Before Covid they were canning just about 5% of their output. Now can sales are close to half of total sales, which are happily slightly higher than they were pre-pandemic.

The vast majority of Tin Head's output is sold through the Tap Room, although they also sell through a limited number of local bottle shops and independent craft beer bars.

The taproom has a quirky style - part rustic wood panelling - part steam punkish pipework and guages. With ten keg taps and no cask beer at all,  its industrial estate location, and the range of styles available, Tin Head is almost a stereotypical craft taproom. And yet in many ways it has more of a feel of a street corner local boozer.

The regulars range in age from 30's to 60's plus and I feel much more welcome than I have in a number of better known brewery taprooms and bars in London - maybe that's just a London thing though? As well as the bar itself, there is a room at the back with a view into the brewhouse itself which hosts regular live music events.

Tin Head is very much a family affair. Nick runs the bar, while his son, Neil, is now the head brewer, but his wife, and his son and daughter's partners are all involved in various ways. 

All six family members have other jobs. Nick says, "I have got loads of aspirations. I just haven't got the staff. If we didn't have other jobs we could triple the size of the businees. It works as it is. The next step would need to employ staff and then have to get involved with pensions, holidays, sick pay." This isn't a route that Nick is keen to go down.

Tin Head isn't on a mission to conquer the world - just to provide a decent income to Nick and his family, and to supply good beer to local people who appreciate what they brew. It seems to me that they have a loyal local fan base, which is no more than they deserve. I'm certainly looking forward to my next chance to to get to the taproom and enjoy some more Tin Head beer.

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Note: Various day to day life issues have kept me from completing this post for about 6 months. I paid for all the beer that I drank on both my visits and the cans that I bought to take home when I first discovered Tin Head. Nick kindly gave me a discount on some cans that I bought on my second visit but this has not influenced the content of this post.