When it comes to making beer, we think it’s as much about the ingredients and brewing as it is the grey matter and hard graft behind it. Last week we introduced you to new start Tom Cadden who will be hitting London with BrewDog like the angry fist of a Norse god (his words not ours!)

This week it’s the turn of our Operations Manager Narayanan, AKA Nara, who has quickly become part of the fixtures and fittings at BrewDog HQ.

Nara gave us five minutes of his time in-between modelling BrewDog’s new line of t-shirts, making sure the brewery is ticking over and singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star – keep reading and all will become apparent.

Can you start off by telling us a bit about yourself for the folks who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you before?

Of course! Well my name is Narayanan – Nara for short – and I’ve been part of BrewDog for the past two and a half years. As the name Narayanan might suggest, I’m originally from India but have lived all over the place, mainly working at different breweries. Before coming to BrewDog HQ, I was working for SONA brewery based in Nigeria.  James gave me a job at BrewDog on the basis of one phone-call so I packed my bags and headed to Scotland. I was really impressed with the BrewDog beers and the company’s approach and I wanted to be part of the team!

When did your interest in beer begin?

Well I’ve been working in the brewing industry for more than 15 years so I think it’s fair to say quite a while ago. I’ve worked in places that operate from 60hl – 500hl brew strength and with too many different  ingredients to list. When it comes to making beer I’d like to think I can fit in anywhere. At BrewDog I actually started off doing brewing, bottling and packing, specialising in filtration and introducing new filtration equipment, before being elevated to the role of Operations Manager. 

Rumour has it you’ve got more strings to your bow than just brewing. In fact we’ve heard you’re BrewDog’s resident singing talent, being able to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in different styles. Is this true?

Of course it’s true! At university I was a gold medallist in mimicry. I also led a dance group and did lots of adverts.  If you watch this video there is a short clip of me singing in it http://www.vimeo.com/9717713

Given that your probably BrewDog’s only hope of winning Britain’s Got Talent, how do you add the X Factor to their brews?

In all honesty, entire credits go to James and Martin for their innovative and revolutionary beer and sometimes crazy ideas. I’m proud to be part of their team. We have all been working really hard on our beers and working to ensure the beers reach our international customers in perfect condition.

Aside from brewing and singing we’ve also seen photographic evidence of you modelling some of BrewDog’s new t-shirts. Tell us more!

Looking at the photograph in question I think I’ve got to admit that the Emperor Penguin (Mr. James) edges ahead as the better model (althought only slightly!). One of the things I love about working for BrewDog though is the fact that this is a brewery with vision. Things like the t-shirts are just another tiny part of the bigger BrewDog mission that knows exactly what direction it’s going in. 

Buy the t-shirt here: http://www.brewdog.com/product.php?id=50 

Threads aside, what do you think is the most important part of BrewDog’s mission?

We want to make world class craft beer. In addition we want to introduce as many people as we can to our full flavour craft ales! For me it’s that central idea of taking from the soil whilst giving back to the soil which is the driving force behind the new eco brewery. I don’t think many other breweries take that same level of care when it comes to producing their beers.

Finally, what do you think BrewDog need to do to keep shaking up the UK craft beer industry?

I think BrewDog have already started the revolution within the craft beer sector and a lot of it comes to down to how closely people like James and Martin interact with the supporters of their beers.  We like to take the beer drinkers on a journey with us! This combined with a dose of good old BrewDog innovation will keep the revolution going.

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