Turning ideas into successful ventures
One of Stu Brew’s key focus areas is to equip students with practical skills and knowledge. The project aims to help students gain important employability skills through running a small start-up business, and 12 students so far have completed Career Development Modules through the project in areas such as procurement, marketing, and sustainability.
Stu Brew members gain experience and knowledge of any aspect of the brewery business which is of most interest to them, or in which they have most interest. By providing access to real-life team management situations, sales and marketing experience, process management and communication with government departments and local industry partners, Stu Brew provides on-the-job learning and practical experience alongside sustainable business management.
The students have conducted their own market research, secured trademarks, and designed the labels themselves. OverDraught, the first beer produced by Stu Brew, was launched following focus groups and taster sessions with students, which helped refine OverDraught’s recipe.
In addition to helping students develop entrepreneurial and event management skills, Stu Brew has acted as a catalyst for career development. After the first 24 months of operation, a growing number of students from Stu Brew have gone on to jobs in the brewing industry, including positions within Brew Dog, Camerons, and Heineken – alongside several regional breweries. Following their collaborations with Allendale Brewery, Northern Alchemy, Three Kings Brewery and others, some postgraduate students become Brewmasters and are training their undergraduate colleagues.
The student brewers received guidance and support from START UP, Newcastle University Careers Service’s support programme for student and graduate entrepreneurs, while creators of the #StartedatNCL social media campaign highlighted the entrepreneurial achievements of those associated with the University.
Gareth Trainer, Assistant Director (Enterprise and Entrepreneurship), Newcastle University Careers Service, said: “This is a thoroughly well-deserved award that is testament to the creativity, innovation and leadership shown by the students involved. It is not just an incredibly powerful example of consumer-focussed social enterprise, but a stunning example of immersive enterprise education. Learning technical skills and knowledge in this way is very effective, but adding the commercial, business enterprise context in this sustainable, resourceful, and repeatable way boosts the development of employability and self-efficacy almost immeasurably.
“To have the idea and make it happen is challenging enough; to have scaled it into such an impactful, inclusive and enterprising educational experience is truly inspirational.”
What’s on tap for Stu Brew?
Stu Brew recently started its first fully-funded PhD research project, focusing on reducing the environmental impact of brewery cleaning processes.
Red explains: “The project will help build on our research into sustainability at a small scale and hopefully permeate the craft beer industry. It will analyse how this could lead to a positive impact for businesses and the environment.”
Student brewers are collaborating with ‘Toast Ale’, an award-winning craft beer company brewing with fresh surplus bread that would otherwise be wasted, with the aim to establish Stu Brew as a national brand.
Stu Brew is developing a new collaboration beer that uses bread to replace part of the malt bill and also coffee beans which would also otherwise have unnecessarily ended up as food waste. Its new beer is called ‘Beans on Toast’. This again plays on the student-relevant branding which sets Stu Brew apart, while also widening the horizons of the enterprise, reaching towards new ways of reducing its environmental impact, and educating the masses about sustainable choices – albeit through the medium of beer.