“Beer brings good people together”

What Steven asked Calvin Gear, chef and head brewer at Moot Brew Co Brewery & Taproom in Halling

As we approach Christmas, we wanted to give you some tips for Christmas dinner, so Steven met with chef and head brewer of Moot Brew Co Brewery & Taproom in Halling, Calvin Gear. They met at the taproom, discussing microbrewing, whether Calvin knows who the Prime Minister is, and what he recommends cooking for Christmas dinner.

Calvin Gear at Moot Brew Co Brewery & Taproom

What is Moot?
Moot is a microbrewery and taproom based in Upper Halling near Rochester. We supply to trade businesses around Kent and southeast London, and sometimes we sell kegs across the country. We are spreading out slowly, but we've grown organically. Started the business in 2021. I then started working as a brewer part-time as I was still teaching at MidKent College, and eventually started working full-time for the brewery and then building this place at the same time.

Why is it called Moot?
Moot is an old English word for a gathering of people under an oak tree. It also comes from Lord of the Rings, for the Entmoot, where the trees gather in the jungle for a meeting. It stems from the fact that myself and the other directors of the business, Tom, Ian, and Patrick, used to meet every Thursday night for a beer in the pub that Ian worked as a chef. He used to be my sous chef at the Black Horse in Thurnham, and that's where we used to meet because he was then the head chef. We'd go for a beer every Thursday night regardless of what was happening in our lives. We would be there for a beer on a Thursday just to catch up for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. That was our moot, and the brewery was formed at that moot, so that's where it stemmed from.

Why is it out in Halling?
Patrick moved to Upper Halling just a few hundred meters from here a few years ago, and he was walking his dog along the field here and bumped into the farmer, Andrew, who has had planning permission for a brewery on this site since 2012. It was just a completely coincidental meeting. We then set up a meeting with Andrew at his farmhouse, had a little chat about it, and that was kind of it. The ball started rolling. We talked about renting this place out. We then had to apply for all our licenses and our AWRS, which is Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme, which allows us to sell alcohol. And we started producing in Brixton at the brewery that I was working at, and that's how we kind of got ourselves on the map, making beer, selling beer in the local community, starting a big kind of social media marketing programme, which Patrick did for about a year before we actually opened the taproom. It meant that when we opened this place, we were known in the local community and on social media, and it just kind of kicked off very easily when we opened the taproom. Our opening day was ridiculous. There was a queue from the bar to the end of the car park for the whole day. We had a lot of momentum before this place actually opened.

What is your role at Moot?
I am the head brewer and director, co-owner with Patrick. We've self-funded all of this. We have no outstanding business loans or anything like that. It means that we can kind of do what we want. We're growing organically because we don't have the funds, finances to make this big or grow too big too quickly, which we don't want to do because a lot of breweries do that, and they fail. We're just letting it grow. We're doing a bit more marketing at the moment just to push ourselves out there in the local community because there's so many people who walk into our tap and go, ‘didn't know you were here.’ We're trying to spread that a bit more to Snodland, Rochester.

Why should people travel out to Halling to visit the taproom? What do you offer here?
We offer an experience. It's not just going to the pub and having a beer. You come in, we'll talk you through the beers, you can have a look around the brewery. You can book a tour and a tasting here if you want to. We're soon going to be offering brewing sessions as well, so eventually, you'll be able to come and brew with us. We have food trucks every weekend. We offer food every day, but we have food trucks specifically on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. We do pizzas on a Thursday, which is a £12 pizza and a pint with a friend of ours who's just started his own pizza business. We have local art in the tap room for people to come and look at, which people really love. We have a great local following and a great vibe in the taproom, and it's just a really cool, chill place to come and hang out.