Newcastle-based Full Circle Brew Co is coming of age and is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Shirley Kumar takes a trip to the brewery in Byker to find out what it takes to create award-winning beers such as the IPA Looper and how it plans to be ‘locally loved and internationally respected.’
‘Byker Grove…Byker, Byker, Byker Grove.’
A VISIT to the HQ of Full Circle Brew Co. in Hoults Yard, jolted memories of the BBC teen ‘coming of age’’ drama set around a youth club in the middle of the Byker Wall estate (circ. 1989-2006). It was one of those unforgettable jingles.
“The end of the ‘wall’ is just there,” says Full Circle Brew Co. founder Ben Cleary, a born and bred northeastern lad who aspired to bring a new lease of life to the craft brewing industry.
Coming from a family of wine importers, Cleary ran The Pip Stop bottle shop, selling beers, wines, and spirits.
“We started selling a lot more craft beer, and it became a passion and something I wanted to pursue,” he says.
It was at The Pip Stop that he met his future head brewer, Alex Redpath. Redpath was studying at Brewlab and breezing through every home brewing competition going including the Newcastle BrewDog Homebrew competition.
“Alex would bring his beers in, and they were arguably better than anything I had on the shelves,” says Cleary.
The pair utilised their 100-litre kit and began experimenting with brewing in a cold warehouse up in Annfield Plain, Stanley, County Durham.
The Full Circle range began to evolve. After many iterations sampled and scrutinised by The Pip Stop customers, the core range was finalised – Repeater Session IPA, Hoop American Pale Ale, Rotator DDH Pale and Looper IPA.
Feeling confident they had designed beers to stand up to the market leaders, Cleary invested in an 18.5-barrel, 3,000 litre SSV kit and rented a disused former railyard building in Hoults Yard. The yard claims to have been home to the oldest pottery in the world, Tyneside Pottery Mallings.
Full Circle went ahead with its plan to launch on its target date in December 2019. What it didn’t foresee was the impending global Covid lockdown!
“We didn’t have any casks, or kegs packaged because we were so new. That was a huge problem for other brewers who had hundreds of kegs sitting redundant in a warehouse.
“But this allowed for us to be agile. We built an online store overnight for small pack,” he says.
Cleary launched an initiative on the Full Circle online retail store, similar to Amazon Prime under the name, FCBC NOW, offering same-day delivery. The brewery also pivoted to export to the EU in which Full Circle sold 75% of its beers in the first year of trading.
Unintentionally, Covid and the same-day home delivery concept actually allowed an unknown brand to flourish.
The gamble and sheer perseverance paid off. Repeater, Session IPA, is its best-seller but the champion of the pale ales is its flagship Looper, a 6.4% IPA.
The beers have since been recognised nationally and internationally with Looper crowned the winner of the Keg IPA of the Year at the 2022 and 2024 SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) awards and Gold at both the Asia Beer Awards 2023 and the FHA Beer Awards 2024.
In 2023 the brewery produced nearly 6000-hectolitres compared to 3,000-hectolitres in 2022, a 98% increase. It produces around 70% keg, 30% can and, only last year, started producing traditional casks.
Birds eye view of the brewery.
The brewery is on a split level, with the main entrance and The Snug Private Hire bar on the basement floor, which provides a more relaxed space where customers can also watch Newcastle United football games.
A taproom dominates the first floor connected by an industrial metal staircase. In the middle of the building, a second room provides an additional private hire space with a view overlooking the fermentation vessels and packaging line.
The venue has proven popular for weddings and parties. Guests can watch the brewing process via a glass wall with a bird’s eye view of the industrial working beating heart of the brewery.
The taproom also serves over 12 different varieties of artisan hand-made Neapolitan-style pizzas made fresh on site in the stone-baked pizza oven. It was here the brewery held its first Full Circle Fest in September 2024. “It was a roaring success.”
The second fest will take place on 12-13 September 2025 and will include 14 handpicked breweries from around the UK, alongside Newcastle food vendors, serving up some delicious ‘scran.’
Full Circle.
The name Full Circle is a nod to the Cleary family’s wine and hospitality heritage, and the family ethos surrounding sustainability. Ben’s parents founded The Lanchester Group, a collection of businesses spanning wine, gifting and confectionery. The group has its headquarters at the Greencroft Estate in County Durham where its installed three wind turbines and 3MegaWatts of solar, making it predominantly powered by renewable energy.
“My grandparents both ran pubs, my parents are in the wine business and I worked in the wine business, and I’ve moved back to beer and the on-trade. So, we’ve gone ‘full circle,’ says Cleary.
“The other part of the name promises a drive to become fully sustainable. “Not easy in a rented building but we are working towards becoming as carbon neutral as possible within what we can control.”
Full Circle have linked up with decarbonisation software company Zevero, to measure carbon usage and have invested in a nitrogen generator, reducing CO2 usage by 88% as well as offsetting ‘through the roof” CO2 market prices last December.
A new Microcan counter pressure CP10 and keg and cask washer packaging operation allow it to efficiently produce 440ml and 330ml cans, 30 and 50-litre steel kegs, 9-gallon casks and finally, 30 and 20 litre plastic kegs for the global market.
Tour of the brewing process.
Great beer ‘cannot be cometh without all hail the hops and yeast’, as the saying goes. Cleary is clearly passionate about hop selection and Full Circle has an incredibly impressive hop fridge. “It’s actually very, technical.” All the learning happens on the annual trip to Belgium where he and Alex choose their main hops for the year.
I am told it is a rigorous process to choose the nose, texture, lupulin levels, copious flavour profiles and many more criteria needed for their beers. Hops, Full Circle picks, are mainly from Yakima Valley in Washington state in America, which produces around 75% of the world’s hops consumed in beer.
A mixture of Citra, Mosaic and Cashmere hops (Looper), Centennial, Amarillo, and Mosaic hops (Repeater), Cascade and Chinook (Hoop), Idaho 7 hops and Citra (Rotator) and Callista single hopped Pilsner (Meridian).
They have begun re-pitching yeast to reduce total cost/batch through using an Oculyzer to analyse the yeast health to optimise the re-pitching process and ensure the flavour of the beers is not affected.
Innovation.
Ben points out substantial investment in the brewing process. Including in a grains’ crusher. “This allows Full Circle to control and understand their overall yields as pre-crushed grain has different crush levels meaning we can’t get true numbers when it comes to working on our efficiencies which is a real drive for me and the brewing team” he says.
Very few complete a brewing/distilling degree straight from school with brewers almost always coming from a science or chemical background. Most of the Full Circle brewers have degrees from Newcastle University.
I’ve got a cracking brewing team,” says Cleary. “Everyone’s very busy, but very happy at the same time, which is really important to me.”
Between them, they produce the core range, plus six to eight seasonal releases per quarter and push the boundaries of flavours to introduce consumers to a variety of styles from traditional ales, fruited sours, imperial stouts, classic lagers and an annual wild card.
The latest wild card is ‘Water Sucks,’ which is a reference to Happy Gilmore (1996 American sports comedy film starring Adam Sandler). It’s a raspberry Witbier (white beer) at 4.3% – Witbier is big in Europe and America, and steadily growing in popularity in the UK.
Another area in which the brewers have fun is with barrel-aged beers, which they do once a year using maple syrup, rum and bourbon barrels in 2023. Last year’s creation was an Imperial American brown ale with maple syrup in 2023, a nod to the famous Newcastle Brown Ale, albeit with its own Full Circle stamp on it.
“In our rum barrel release, we dusted off the burners and scorched molasses on a load of pineapple, creating a caramelised pineapple flavour which we then recirculated through barrel-aged beer. That beer was released in November and sold out in record time.
Community.
‘Locally loved and internationally respected’ is the Full Circle motto. Community involvement is important to Cleary, and Full Circle has been recognised for its efforts, winning the SIBA Business Awards community engagement award in 2022 and 2023.
Initiatives have included a collaboration with Northumbria University design departments commissioning students to create labels and be paid for it.
“If there’s 100 designs and we like all 100, we’ll take them all and pay them for it. If we only like five, then they’re the ones who get through. We tag the designer on the cans, which are distributed globally”.
Other projects include the Golden Dooper launch. A limited edition of Dooper, a double Looper, is created once a year on its birthday. And it always creates a buzz, says Cleary.
Two years ago, they launched the 20 golden cans concept. Whoever finds the Golden Dooper gets to visit the brewery for a big Dooper Day, with tonnes of prizes.
Other initiatives have included donations to both the Newcastle Street Watch, for women to feel safer on the streets and Medical Aid Ukraine toward individual first aid kits for the ongoing war in Ukraine.
To mark Testicular Cancer Awareness, April 2024, Full Circle created Hippy Jungle, a 4% Tropical Pale Ale with The Oddballs Foundation, where a QR code on the back of the can leads to their check yourself guide.
The pale ale is light with its tropical notes of passionfruit and mango with a hint of sherbet on the tongue, it is currently available nationally in Mitchell and Butler pubs until the end of March 2025 with a percentage of the proceeds going back to the foundation.
“We’ve just won a listing for Stonegate pubs. It’s a national pub group, which means we can deliver to 100 plus pubs, who now have access to our Hippy Jungle beer and allows us to promote this great cause on a national scale.”
Health-conscious trend.
They are planning to release their first non-alcoholic beer. “It is hard to produce a non-alcoholic beer without using expensive equipment, but I think we have found a way to do it and maintain quality. It’s something we have wanted to do for a long time.”
Cleary wants to take advantage of the beauty of this Northeastern corner of the world with a focus on connecting with the outdoorsy lifestyle, whether that be camping, trekking, hiking, cycling. Full Circle already has a weekly running club with over 60 people taking part. The no to low-alcohol category fits with this concept.
With Northumberland having some of the best beaches in the country (ssh!) Full Circle is collaborating with numerous local businesses and influencers in 2025 to release Full Circle Balance. “We believe in a balanced lifestyle at Full Circle, beer can go hand in hand with a healthy lifestyle in moderation and we’re promoting and running numerous different external events to enjoy what the area has to offer in a healthy way. The first being in January with a dip in the sea which launches alongside our first wildcard of the year, a Cold DIPA aptly named, Dip Club.”
“It’s really important to me because the oceans and seas are in such a bad place. And we can do something on a local level with beach cleanups, but we can also help raise awareness nationally.”
The brewery is also collaborating with Hoi Polloi barbers and Deep North doughnut makers. Both are expanding and the latter now has a presence in Newcastle Airport alongside Full Circle, who won a contract to pour at the airport in Feb 2024, the first independent brewery to do so. All three businesses’ have successful running clubs, and share the same ethos around a balanced lifestyle
Birthday beers.
Along with its annual Dooper launch, Full Circle collaborates with national/international breweries. The latest is with Langley Mill-based Bang the Elephant brewery, a neo-Victorian, steampunk-inspired, six-barrel brewery that makes banging imperial stouts. The brewers created a 12.5% Imperial sticky toffee pudding barrel-aged stout.
“Next year we will be releasing a traditional cask range. Until last year, we had not done casks before. The cask trade is still big in Northeast England, specifically in Newcastle. We will have four, including a stout and session pale ale,” says Cleary.
Christmas and New Year Gifts.
Full Circle has a number of gift ideas perfect for the festive season. Treat someone special to a brewery tour including an immersive craft beer experience in its taproom.
Or a Christmas/New Year selection box of three to six different beers, or a hand-packed craft beer gift box and Full Circle glassware to match.
“We’ve also just released our much-anticipated mini keg range. Repeater and Looper in a 5L keg to take home and drink with your loved ones this festive period”
Full Circle Brew Co
Unit 167 Hoults Yard
Walker Road
Newcastle
NE6 2BS
www.fullcirclebrew.co.uk
Info@fullcirclebrewing.co.uk
0191 481 4114
