Known and cherished for their excellent beers, and equally brilliant spaces to enjoy them in, Left Handed Giant are one of the UK’s most regarded outfits. Not bad going for an outfit the founders consider something of an “accidental” brewery. Here Jack Granger and Rich Poole, two of that founding trio, talk us through their whirlwind journey to date.

“We got to the point with Finzels Reach where Bruce said ‘if we don’t get it, someone else will’ and we’ll have to walk past it every day for the next 20 years wishing we’d taken the f*cking risk and done so.”

Bristol is of the UK’s great beer cities. Blessed with brilliant breweries such as Arbor Ales, Bristol Beer Factory, Lost and Grounded, Moor Beer Co and Wiper and True to name but a few, along with its pubs and bars, there’s a reason so many people love living there and so many others make regular pilgrimages to soak up all it has to offer.

And for the last 10 years, an ever-present suggestion would be Small Bar on Bristol’s famed King Street. Namely ‘You have to go to Small Bar!’ or ‘How was Small Bar?’.

But for the last five years, there has been another name on that list – Left Handed Giant’s Brewpub in Finzels Reach. 

A mixed use development site located in central Bristol, the floating harbour was formerly an industrial site that once housed a sugar refinery while Georges Bristol Brewery, which was founded in 1788, would grow to occupy most of the site by the mid 20th century, when it was the largest brewery in southwest England before going on to be known as the Courage Brewery, which operated until 1999.

And thanks to the determination of Bruce Gray, alongside his business partners Jack Granger, Rich Poole and some 1500 shareholders, brewing would once again commence on that revered site. So if you’ve been to Bristol, you’ve probably paid Left Handed Giant’s Brewpub a visit. Failing that, you’ve probably admired it from afar, even if you weren’t aware of the wonders that await inside.

However the irony of running a massively successful brewpub, alongside their production brewery at St Philips, is not lost on the trio that – initially at least – had no real intentions to be brewery owners. 

“To be honest, we didn’t really mean to be a brewery,” laughs Jack Granger. “When Bruce started Small Bar at the end of 2013, the idea was essentially to be a showcase venue for the best small independent producers in the UK and beyond.

“So we’d be working with breweries like Magic Rock, Beavertown, Buxton, The Kernel, and Thornbridge.”

Small Bar had been trading for around a year and to utilise the space in one of its rooms, they’d install a small 200l brew kit. “The plan was for me to learn how to use this kit and then hopefully collab with breweries that would come down for tap takeovers,” recalls Granger. “But I brewed a couple of times on it and swiftly realised that I’m completely sh*t at brewing!”

All was not lost however. Enter Rich Poole….

“I was probably homebrewing for around 20 years so I like to think I got pretty good at it, I think,” says Poole. “I set up a very small brewery in my garage which I called Rocket Science Craft Ales and ran that for something like a year and a half.”

Around the same time Granger was trying his hand in making a Saison on the new 200l Small Bar kit and had turned to Michael Wiper, co-founder of Wiper and True, for guidance. “He told me Rich was the man to talk to!” he recalls.

Poole had some of his beers to sell and in Granger and Small Bar, he found a willing customer. “I remember Jack talking me through how pricing works and I realised I didn’t know nor care. I had so little beer that I’d be happy with any price he suggested,” he says.

“Through Jack I’d meet Bruce and pretty much all of the beers I’d make over the next year or so would go through Small Bar. In effect I had a year-long interview with my beers.”

Granger adds: “I think at that point Rich was putting his beers into corny kegs for us. So we were buying beer that he was brewing in his garage on his homemade kit and we were listing them next to beers like Gamma Ray and stuff from The Kernel, and it was absolutely great.

“Bruce and I knew a thing or two about running bars and distribution but not about making beer so that’s where Rich came in. It just took us a while to convince him!”

“Well, I had a pretty good job in pharmaceutical drug development,” he smiles. “But when it came to the beer world, I knew I could make the beer but I wasn’t very good at the business and selling side of it. So it’s a good partnership, really.”

Granger adds: “Rich ticked all the boxes we didn’t have and we ticked all the boxes he didn’t, so it all fit together quite nicely.”

Through Rocket Science Craft Ales and then later as part of the team at Left Handed Giant, Poole’s beers would adorn the hallowed board at Small Bar, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last December.

Listed alongside established names, it gave Poole a platform. But in running Small Bar, Granger had his own platform and freedom to promote a wealth of excellent beers. “Our only really brief was to support small, independent companies,” he says. “I’m really proud of the role we’ve been able to play in giving these breweries visibility in Bristol. 

“And even now, while we have some representation of Left Handed Giant here, the beers have to be of the highest quality to secure that place otherwise they won’t be stocked.”

As volumes scaled up, the team would enlist the help of various partner breweries to produce beers for cask and keg such as a 5% Porter, a 4.1% Pale Ale, a 5.5% US Pale and a 5% hoppy red release. “Those beers are probably indicative of how style preferences have changed a bit in that time,” says Granger.  

With several units already in their possession in Bristol’s Wadehurst Industrial Park, the team already had a location a possible bigger brewery could be housed. That would prove to be the case until they took on an additional spot in the same industrial park, which is where the St Philips Brewery and taproom resides to this day. 

“We were brewing in the other units until COVID but with this newer premises available, and the inability to maintain safe social distancing, it accelerated our move,” says Granger. “Essentially during those COVID years we built a new brewery up here.”

The St Philips facility produces approximately 70% of all Left Handed Giant beer, with the rest brewed at the Finzels Reach Brewpub. Both operate 25HL brewhouses with St Philips boasting a larger cellar capacity.

“Across both sites we did 5200HL last year, and we’ll do about 6600HL this year. But with new venues opening up all the extra volume goes towards supplying and supporting those,” he explains.

While Small Bar and St Philips continue to satiate consumers with fresh Left Handed Giant beer, the opening of their Finzels Reach Brewpub continues to transform the business, just as it has altered the hospitality landscape of central Bristol.

It was a site that the team had considered countless times over the course of a year, each time concluding it was too big for their needs. “We’re a small group,” says Granger. “But when Bruce knew we’d regret not taking the plunge there was no going back.”

A visit to Newcastle to see Dave Stone and the team at Wylam during the brewery build at their stunning Palace of the Arts home was “the kick up the ass” the team needed when it came to taking the risk. “These opportunities don’t come about often. We were originally looking to rent the building but the goalposts moved and we had to purchase it instead, says Granger.

“We don’t come from money but thanks to investment from the local community we could make it happen.” 

And since then, they haven’t looked back. It’s a premises that is frequently “phenomenally busy” proving a hit with locals and visitors alike.

“I think our beer gets into the hands of a load of people who maybe wouldn’t have been exposed to our beer otherwise. We’re also brewing beer on-site, with it going from an FV into a serving tank that’s two metres from someone’s glass,” Granger explains. “So the beers are fresh, and they will taste as good there as they’re going to taste anywhere on the planet.”

At Finzels Reach a significant amount of the beer produced are lagers as well as their popular Dark Mild on cask, which is a permanent fixture. St Philips, on the other hand, will output a lot of punchier IPAs and sours, among others. 

These beers reach consumers across the UK and further afield but Bristol is very much at the brewery’s heart, with more than 80% of their 1500 shareholders having BS postcodes.

“We’ve always had a focus on getting beer, certainly, our keg beer drank as close as possible to the brewery as we can. Our bars sell about 55% of our beer and Bristol, which includes our bars sells a touch over 70% of our output,” says Granger.

He adds: “Richard is from just outside Bristol, Bruce is Scottish and I’m Australian but Bristol loves people who are willing to put their time and effort into Bristol and they respond with a great deal of support for independent businesses like ours. We are all hugely connected to Bristol and its people.”

Another commitment made by the team is that to environment and those in it. As a B Corp, they are externally audited and certified by the B Lab as operating to the highest standards of environmental and social responsibility. 

“To us,” says Granger, “It shows our commitment to prioritise our people and our planet ahead of our profit. Our ethics are now written into the fabric of our business, ensuring that every decision we make, from the boardroom, to the brewery, to the bars, is led by our desire for our business to be a force for positive change.  

“While we are newly certified as a B Corp, the process and certification speaks to our founding ethics. We set out to create a company which challenged the traditional approach to operating a brewery and a business. 

“Our ethics inform every decision we make. It commits us to being the change we seek, within our business, our community and our environment. Our B Corp certification places us amongst a global community working towards a more inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy.”

And looking ahead, the team don’t expect the brewery to grow much more when it comes to volumes it  produces, instead opening up more venues in and around Bristol. 

“The plan has always been to stay small. And rather than measuring our growth on volume produced, we measure our growth based on the quality of the product, the quality of life that the people who work in the company have and the impact we can have in our community,” he says.

“Bristol is, and always has been our focus. We are committed and we are in this for the long run.”