This week on the Local Heroes Podcast, Chris and Dan sit down with Full Circle Brew Co founder Ben Cleary for a conversation about beer, business, community and the fine art of having a ridiculous idea and working out the consequences later.

Ben charts the journey from a career in wine and opening Pipstop to falling in love with craft beer and eventually creating Full Circle at Hoults Yard – only to release its first beers on the very day the country went into lockdown. What followed was six years of adapting.

From selling 80% of their beer into Europe during their first year to Brexit, rising costs, the impact of the war in Ukraine and the continuing pressures facing pubs, breweries and hospitality, Ben talks candidly about what it actually takes to keep an independent business moving forward when the ground beneath it keeps shifting. There’s also a fascinating conversation about how drinking culture itself is changing. Full Circle’s answer has been to think beyond the pint, building community through its Balance initiative, run clubs, sea dips, hikes and events – while exploring what a modern brewery can become as younger generations drink differently.

Ben also reveals the next chapter: Full Circle’s first city-centre venue at Fenwick, bringing together beer, fried chicken, burgers and some potentially dangerous ideas involving champagne, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. Alongside the business conversation, things wander wonderfully off course: bald heads and factor 50, foot peelings, luxury camping, travelling circuses, beer made using tights, experimental mead, the tragedy of an inaccessible tin of corned beef and a forensic examination of exactly how a burger should be constructed.

And, naturally, we finish with the question that really matters: Ben’s Greggs order. A funny, candid conversation about creativity, community and keeping an independent business moving forward – even when the original plan has long since gone out the window.