Andy Hepworth on Tradition, Trade-offs and Brewing the Sussex Way

Hepworth & Co inherited its Sussex pedigree from King and Barnes, a two hundred year old Horsham brewery, and has spent the years since holding fast to methods that predate refrigeration while quietly leading the industry on sustainability. We sat down with Andy Hepworth to talk floor malting, Sussex grown hops voted best in the country, and the wastewater to energy system now powering the brewery. He also reflects on the award that means the most to him, and why balance beats trend chasing every time a new pint is brewed.

Horsham has had breweries since 1880. Were Hepworth’s one of the original Sussex breweries, or did you begin a new chapter in that story?

Hepworth & co was founded by the production team from King and Barnes, a 200 year old brewery, when that shut down.

The system of brewing you use today is largely unchanged from methods used five hundred years ago. Why stick with tradition in an age of automation? 

Brewers centuries ago did not have the science and technology that we have today but learnt from experience and devised a very efficient system.

I have been involved with automating breweries. Some is good, for example cleaning and packaging, and some is just to reduce cost and has consequences for the quality. It is a trade off.

Hepworth’s beer is often described as Sussex through and through. What does that really mean in practice?

We use Sussex grown barley and hops in nearly all our beer, we have a local purchasing policy.

A example of that is that our new brewery buildings were put up by a company 2 miles from us and most of the pipework by a company by a company 1 mile, and we are in the middle of the countryside.

Hepworth’s is often held up as a pioneer in Sussex brewing, having led by example for years and helped set what some would call the Sussex standard. How does that reputation sit with you, and what do you think you have done differently?

We will always strive for the best quality, even if it costs a little more.

We like to take the most wholesome route first, so most of our beers would conform to the German beer purity laws.

We frequently look back, we have the Institute of Brewing Journals from 1898-1911, to see if ideas have been tried before and they usually have so you can learn from them. Sometimes we have solved the problems that blighted certain styles, such as bottled conditioned beers, we are much cleaner now so they will last without pasteurisation.

Your hops come from Bodiam, which sits practically on the Kent border. Why source from there rather than further afield?

I have known the farmer for 30 years, and because he cannot put KENT on his hops he has to be that much better.

His hops were voted the Best in the UK this year.

You use a traditional floor malting process. Can you explain what that involves and why it is worth the extra effort?

It is quite a simple system, first the grain is soaked to encourage it to germinate. The it is spread out thinly on a flat floor to germinate for ⅚ days and turned regularly to stop the rootlets matting together. Once the enzymes are formed to convert the starch in the grain to sugar it is dried gently to stop that process from happening until we mash the malt in the brewery. 

Hepworth’s became the first UK brewery to install a full-scale wastewater-to-energy system. What prompted that leap?

We weren’t the first but we are the first to have a new type of anaerobic digester that not only cleans our waste water but produces electricity and hot water for the brewery.

What tangible difference has the WASE partnership made?

There are direct benefits, it cuts our carbon footprint, cuts our costs and has given us useful information on how our brewery is producing the waste water enabling us to control our water usage better.

Over the years Hepworth’s has picked up a real haul of awards. Which mean the most to you?

To win SIBA’s Supreme Champion Craft beer with a stout when the trend was for American Hopped IPAs.

Is there a particular reputation you are proud of?

Hopefully reliably high quality for whatever style we brew.

If you had to pick, what are your top three best-selling beers, and what do you think makes each one so popular?

Sussex, a traditional pale ale at 3.5% and our two lagers Blonde Organic at 5% and Saxon Lager at 4%. Although taste is individual I believe that in any style of beer if you can balance the malt and hops the beer will be enjoyable. 

For readers who want to see all this in person, the floor malting, the wastewater plant, the beers themselves, what can they expect from a visit?

We run drop in brewery tours on the first Saturday of every month, and put on special tours for groups of ten or more.

The roadmap starts in 2022 with all LED lighting, on-site solar panels and thermal insulation across the site. How much of a difference did those first practical changes make to your numbers?

We don’t have to heat any of our buildings from bought in energy

2025 was the year you aim to stop burning fossil fuels altogether. How close are you to that milestone?

Sadly we have not achieved that yet due to two main factors, firstly the development of both the anaerobic digester (Wase unit ) and the high temperature heat pump have taken much longer than envisaged. The second is that since Covid our industry has suffered badly and the level of investment we can afford was not as we would have hoped. We will get there.