The William Wilberforce Freedom Ale is a mellow best bitter with a long, hoppy finish. It is a light mahogany colour and is a fairtrade ale, as the ingredients include raw- cane Demerara sugar from Malawi. That made it expensive to brew, but we felt it was important. Ten per cent of all sales will go to the charity Stop the Traffik.
Wilberforce would have loved this ale. In the film I saw about him he and his future wife disagreed on a lot of things. But they did agree on one thing: that the working class would be more likely to stop drinking gin if they could have subsidised beer. There was no evidence that Wilberforce did not drink — I am sure he would have had a pint.
The idea first came to me at Spring Harvest last year, when Steve Chalke was giving a talk on Stop the Traffik. I got thinking about it, as there are such close ties between Westerham, where I live, and Wilberforce.
In the spring of 1787, Wilberforce had a meeting with his close friend the Prime Minister, William Pitt, at Pitt’s Holwood estate near Westerham. They talked under an oak tree, now called the Wilberforce Oak, and Wilberforce made the crucial decision to take up the fight against slavery.
Westerham Brewery has been here for just over three years. I was an investment banker before that in the City, but I wanted to do something completely different. I have been interested in brewing beer since I was eight. My godfather, Dick Theakston, was a great inspiration in my life — he was from the famous brewing family in Yorkshire. He was churchwarden at Hutton-le-Hole in North Yorkshire.
We have done three brews so far, which equates to about 10,000 pints, and it is selling well. I think it is the first fairtrade draught beer, but it also comes in bottles. Initially, the beer will be available in pubs, clubs, and restaurants in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and south London; or you can buy the bottles by mail order.
As a family we support fair trade and eat organic foods wherever we can; we have a garden where we grow our own organic veg. It is wrong to say: “Whatever I do does not make a difference.” Of course it does. Everyone can have an impact on fair trade.
I feel very strongly about Stop the Traffik and what it does. As a country, we have been caught up in the slave trade, and it still exists in different forms today. The UK is the hub of modern-day slavery in Europe — people-trafficking.
We are celebrating the actual anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act with an open evening at the brewery. We will show them some short videos about the whole issue, and hope that some are inspired.
We have just been visited by a group of people, including one of the descendants of the anti-slave campaigner Thomas Clarkson. They are holding a big event at his childhood home in Wisbech, in Cambridgeshire, and they want to serve our Freedom Ale.
Every year, we brew a seasonal ale at Christmas called God’s Wallop, and we give ten per cent of all sales to different Christian charities.
I tend to read religious books, particularly anything by Philip Yancey. I am currently reading Reaching for the Invisible God. The last novel I read was by Alexander McCall Smith.
The biggest choice I have made was to spend more time with my family. I now drive my children to school each day, and we all have supper together. That is one of the benefits of this job, but, despite not being in London, I am working harder than ever. I don’t work at the weekend, however, and never on Sundays.
I have no regrets, yet.
As a child, I wanted to be a concert flautist. I was very musical and was a chorister at King’s College. I do not play or sing now. But at our old church I played bass guitar in the music group. The chaplain at King’s when I was there, Martin Shaw, now the Bishop of Argyll & The Isles, was a very influential figure in my life.
I don’t have a favourite or least-liked part of the Bible: it is all good, although I do often come back to the Great Commission at the end of Matthew. And there is a verse in Timothy about all scripture being God-breathed. It certainly speaks to me.
I was very angry when I heard about the opposition leader in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, being badly beaten by police. When I read about what is going on in Zimbabwe and Darfur, I get very angry that no one does anything about it.
I am probably happiest when I am fly-fishing. The riverbank is my favourite spiritual retreat. I am a mountain person when it comes to holidays; I used to be a competitive skier.
I would like to get locked in a church with the boy in the Bible who gave Jesus the loaves and fishes. I would love to know what really happened.
Robert Wicks was talking to Rachel Harden.
www.stopthetraffik.org
www.westerhambrewery.co.uk
