When Michael Green took over his parents’ forgotten Norfolk microbrewery he never envisaged his beers would one day be sold across Italy. ADAM BARKER visits the microbrewery which is the region's first to export to Europe since Brexit
For years it was Norfolk’s forgotten brewery, tucked away in the countryside, hidden behind locked gates.
But in 2018, after being closed for more than a decade, Tindall Brewery in Seething was taken over by Michael Green, the son of its founder, Allan Green.
Michael, now 26, has built the brewery up ever since, with it recently becoming the region’s first microbrewery to export its ales to Europe since Brexit.
It all came after a chance meeting at a food and beer exhibition in Rimini, Italy.
“I got chatting to a fellow from an Italian distributor and when I mentioned that I was from Norfolk he said his granddad used to live in Norfolk,” Michael said.
“That was my in. It was the Norfolk connection that got them interested.”
After a successful first meeting, Michael sent samples of Tindall’s beers to Italian distributor Dibirra, based near Venice.
The Italians liked the beer and ordered 70 barrels in February this year - the Norfolk brewery’s biggest deal to date.
“It’s quite the achievement for a brewery of our size,” Michael said.
“I think that’s what makes it so special. We were told by everyone that it wasn’t possible.”
DAD'S DREAM
Allan Green first opened Tindall Brewery at his Ditchingham home in 1998, before relocating to the brewery’s current home in Seething four years later.
Based off Toad Lane, the brewery is situated opposite Seething airfield inside converted stables which once belonged to the 448th Bombing Group, which was based there in the Second Word War.
However, after running the brewery with wife Angela until 2007, the couple were forced to close when the country fell into recession and people's drinking habits changed.
“People were not as interested in what they were drinking but more interested in how cheaply they could drink,” Michael said.
“It blew my folks out of the market, so they decided to move on to other things.”
BREWERY TAKEOVER
After two years of running the brewery at weekends and after work, Michael quit his desk job in 2018 to run the brewery full time, aged just 20.
“I grew up around the brewery and some of my earliest memories are from there,” Michael said.
“I always knew I wanted to be involved. At school when we made our own businesses, everyone else would be selling sweets, but I’d be working out how to run the brewery.
"When I was 18, my parents got so fed up of me saying ‘I’m old enough now, teach me how to brew' that they agreed to let me have a go and teach me the ropes.
“For about two years all my evenings, weekends and days off were spent at the brewery. On my way to work I would deliver beer.
"Eventually, in 2018, I decided I was fed up of having a normal job and wanted to give the brewery a go.”
FORGOTTEN BREWERY
After being closed for more than a decade, Tindall had become a forgotten brewery.
"All our old customers had forgotten about Tindall, so it was like starting the brand again," Michael said.
"The brewery needed cleaning, updating and changing. We did all that, got some beers out there and started to find our feet...but then Covid happened.
“All that I had built up completely changed overnight.
"But lockdown was one of the most pivotal moments for us. I went from just brewing my parents’ old recipes to having the freedom to brew whatever I wanted to.
"I started to experiment with different ingredients. It gave me the freedom to play around with the beer.
"It opened my mind to the fact that there’s more to brewing than my parents’ old recipes. Since then there’s only one beer we brew that was their old recipe, the rest have completely changed."
A NEW APPROACH TO BREWING
Michael has assembled a young team at Tindall and plans to continue doing things differently.
"Most breweries will say consistency is key - making each batch of beer taste exactly the same as the one before," he said.
"I think that’s a rubbish way to work. You haven’t got to be consistent, you’ve got to be consistently good.
"Hops that came out five years ago aren’t going to be the best to ever exist. We’re always looking at ways to improve our beers with new ingredients and tactics to make our beer better.
"We want each batch to taste better than the one before. There’s so much competition, so if you want to stand out you have to make sure you’re nailing your beers and staying ahead of the trends, making sure you’re the first not the last to find out about the latest marvellous ingredient.
"We like to think we’ve got the flavour and excitement of craft beer, with the quality and drinkability of a traditional beer. We’re a young team operating on quite old kit, but we like to produce modern beers.
"We’re all naïve to the limitations of business. The sky is the limit in our minds - we feel can achieve anything.
"We all feel like we’ve got something to prove."
LASTING LEGACY
"When I first started doing it I would ring pubs and say I was from Tindall Brewery and they would all say they had never heard of us," Michael added.
"I always imagined my parents’ reputation would be there and they would still remember us, but they had all moved on from that time.
"I feel we hit a real turning point when we would phone up a pub and they had heard of us through their customers.
"It’s nice to know that my parents' legacy is living on, rather than it being ‘Tindall Brewery, who’s that?’
"I feel I’ve resurrected the brewery so people now remember us."
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