A decade ago Jaega Wise and her partner William moved from Nottingham to London and started up a brewery in Walthamstow. And, since launching in 2012, Wild Card Brewery has continued to grow at pace. Jaega returns home this month for Nottingham Craft Beer Week, and talks us through her journey, TV presenting and some of the interesting new collaborations she has up her sleeve...
You grew up in Notts. What are your favourite pubs here?
A lot of my early years were spent either drinking tinnies outside on a golf course or in the Stratford Haven in Bridgford. Harvest Pale was definitely something I discovered at an early age. Then when I moved around I frequented the Willowbrook and the Swan in the Rushes. Basically lots of Castle Rock pubs. They’re just proper pubs and I still love them to this day.
You started Wild Card in 2012. What were those early days like?
It started with my partner, William, who is also from Nottingham, and his mate Andrew. They were both struggling for work in a recession and were starting to think about taking the brewing more seriously. I began a job in chemical trading, which was as boring as it sounds. I eventually quit my job with no plan and decided I wanted to help them out. I got a part-time role at a pub, the Chequers in Walthamstow, and started working with them. Then that was it. We started to build.
How have the last eighteen months been, navigating your way through a pandemic?
It's been a massive challenge and obviously sad to see the bars and pubs closed for so long. I think we have done as well as we can, given the circumstances. Like most craft breweries we had to be innovative to survive. Our company mantra was to be like a spider - when one leg falls off you still have another seven to keep you going.
We launched a webshop, which was created in about 24 hours, to sell our beers directly to the public. That was something we always wanted to do, but before COVID it was something we’d put off because we were busy supplying beer to pubs. We then managed to get an advert on TV and I basically did any media piece I could to help promote it. The brewing sector as a whole has seen a big rise in selling beers directly to the public and it’s now becoming a big part of all of our businesses. It’s a game changer, really.
Approximately how many venues are Wild Card beers stocked in now that everything has re-opened?
I would say about 500 at any one time, but it’s growing. We’re in an interesting position where we think a lot of people have heard of Wild Card, but not actually tried our products. Our beers are banging at the moment too, they’re at the highest quality they’ve ever been - even if I do say so myself. We’re particularly well-stocked around London because it’s where we are based, but we are always looking to get out to more areas.
Why are you called Wild Card?
We always felt like the wild cards in our industry. We didn't come to it with loads of money - everything we've achieved has come through hard work and by fighting for it. We are a group of people from Nottingham, making beer in London, who didn't grow up with rich or privileged parents. We’re competing with breweries who are the opposite of that and so we had to do things differently to hold our own.
For a number of years we really leant on the playing cards theme for our branding too. But we are now moving away from that and doing more designs and imagery inspired by tarot cards. We’ve actually started to put our name a bit more prominently on the cans too, which is something it took us eight years to realise was actually quite important.
We are a group of people from Nottingham, making beer in London, who didn't grow up with rich or privileged parents. We’re competing with breweries who are the opposite of that and so we had to do things differently to hold our own
You do quite a lot of TV and radio too. How's that going?
It's going really well. It started because I was picking up a lot of press by just being a young brown woman in London who was really into beer. I then started being asked if I wanted to try out for pilots and it turned out that I didn’t totally suck at it. My mantra was to just be myself and pretend the camera wasn’t there. It worked.
After I became a guest on the BBC Food Programme I started getting offered more, including a regular presenting role on that show. I'm just really lucky now that I get to travel the country, taste the best drinks the UK has to offer and talk about it on the radio. It’s literally my dream job!
I’ll be coming back to Notts (for the event at Liquid Light), on the back of spending the morning with Black Cow Vodka down in Dorset. I can’t think of a better way to spend a day.
I’m also in the process of agreeing a contract for a major new TV show on a well-known streaming network that starts filming in August. I have a celebrity co-host on that, who I think you will have heard of. I’m not sure that I'm allowed to say much about it at this stage, but what I will say is he’s ‘beautiful’.
Back in 2018 you were named as a Director of the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA). Are you still doing that? Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve achieved?
Yes, I became a Director of the SIBA South East Region which is one of the most active in the country. I spent a lot of time in lockdown having video meetings with the committee. However, the term for Directors at SIBA is three years and I've decided not to run for another term because, as you can see, I'm quite busy. A lot of the work we do is about overcoming red tape, which will be boring to the general public, but we’ve made some changes which I am really proud of. Most prominently we’ve managed to change the structure of the SIBA competitions, which has always been done regionally. This will mean that more breweries, big and small, across the country can win an award, regardless of how much competition there is in their local area.
We’ve been told you have some interesting collaboration beers up your sleeve for Nottingham Craft Beer Week...
We love Nottingham and are currently putting the finishing touches to a range of four new beers. We’ve been working with Castle Rock, Black Iris, Neon Raptor and Liquid Light - all breweries we love, are inspired by and who we know make really great beer. They’ve been down here to see us in London and we’ve been brewing together.
The beers are all conspiracy theory themed as well. We will be launching these in both can and keg as part of Nottingham Craft Beer Week. I’m really excited!
There’s been a lot of talk this year about misogyny in the craft beer industry. What can we do to make it a better place?
I don’t have all the answers, but the fact is that any woman working for any length of time in any industry is likely to have experienced misogyny. That carries through to the beer, drinks and general hospitality sector. The long-term answer is that we need more women in a position of power in the beer industry. If I think of the environment I work in then it does help having a female who is high up in the team and there are lots of scenarios that might have gone differently if I wasn’t in the room. I also just think it’s important to have an open and honest dialogue about these things and that it’s about bringing people along with us to make that positive change together.
Jaega Wise is appearing at the Smash The Pint-riarchy event at Liquid Light Tap Room on Thursday 19 August. Wild Card Brewery will be pouring beers at Nottingham Craft Beer Festival on Fri 20 and Sat 21 August. Tickets for both events from nottinghamcraftbeer.co.uk
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