MEET THE BOSS

There are few figures in brewing or distilling with the kudos and intellectual heft of Sir Geoff Palmer, a titan of the industry and a man with a fascinating back story

Written by Richard Bath

Sir Geoff Palmer’s rags to riches story is one of outrageous fate, of unlikely turning points, of unforgettable mentors who changed the course of his life. It’s not all highlights though, he has experienced some toe-curling racism and its bedfellow, rejection.

But at its heart, his story is of a little boy called Godfrey who grew up in a tough district of Jamaica’s capital Kingston and then in straitened circumstances in North London but would go on to morph into Sir Geoff, one of the most infl uential fi gures in the history of distilling and brewing in this country.

His list of achievements is awe-inspiring. He started the world-leading International Centre for Brewing and Distilling at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, and saved the industry many millions by his discovery of the revolutionary process of abrasion, which at one stage was used in the production of 60% of beer made in the UK. He also made signifi cant advances in the production of sake, and while in Africa pioneered producing Guinness from sorghum, an innovation with far-reaching ramifi cations for the continent’s farmers and brewers.

As if that wasn’t enough, he launched and ran the infl uential Chivas Regal Academy for twenty years, is an honorary member of the Keepers of the Quaich, and in 1998 became the fi rst European (and fourth person overall) to be honoured with the American Society of Brewing Chemists’ Award of Distinction, considered the Nobel Prize of Brewing. And partly for his contribution to brewing, but also for his work as a prominent anti-racism campaigner, he was knighted in the 2014 New Years Honours.

‘It might look as if I had a plan,’ says the genial 82-yearold, ‘but I didn’t. I let things happen, but somehow I always had direction. I see life in terms of purpose.’

Yet his is a life of decisive moments. The fi rst came in March 1955, when his mother, who had left her son in the care of his eight aunts in Jamaica seven years earlier while she went to work in London as a dressmaker, had sent her 14-year-old son £86 for a one-way plane ticket to the UK.

Cask strength: Sir Geoff at Holyrood Distillery in Edinburgh Photo: Phil Wilkinson.

DRINK IS PART OF OUR CULTURE IT HAS I BEEN GOOD TO ME

One minute he was in St Elizabeth, the next he was arriving on his own at the airport in rainy Liverpool.

‘I have no idea how I got to Paddington from there, which is where my mother met me,’ he laughs, which he does a lot. ‘She took me home and the next morning she was taking me to work, but as we left the house a man was standing there and said “is that Godfrey Palmer?”, which was my name. And he said to my mother, “you can go to work but he can’t, he’s not 15”. My birthday was in April, so if I’d have been a month older my life would have been very different.’

That turned out to be a transformational moment in his life, even if it didn’t feel like it. He was designated educationally sub-normal but taken by a local secondary modern school and allowed to stay on to the end of that school year. That was crucial because it turned out that he was such a talented cricketer, playing for London, that he was ‘poached’ by the headmaster of Highbury Grammar School, where he went on to get six ‘O’ levels and ‘A’ levels in botany and zoology.

If that unnamed man who stopped him being taken to

work as a 14-year-old was the fi rst key meeting of his young life, the second was with Professor Garth Chapman at London University’s Queen Elizabeth College where he got a job when he left school. ‘What’s your name young man?’ asked Chapman. ‘Godfrey Henry Oliver Palmer,’ replied the youngster. ‘We can’t have a junior lab technician with four names so I’m going to call you Geoff, is that ok?’ said Chapman. ‘I said yes,’ he replied, ‘and I’ve been Geoff ever since.’ I ALWAYS HAD Chapman soon saw something in his young protégé, and sent him off to DIRECTION I SEE I a local poly one day a week. Despite gaining the requisite qualifi cations, LIFE IN TERMS racism was rife in 1960s Britain and

OF PURPOSE Geoff was rejected by every university in the country – ‘no-one wanted me’ – before Chapman got him into Leicester University to do a degree in botany. Six months as an absurdly over-qualifi ed potato peeler in a London restaurant followed (‘that gave me the gift of humility and allowed me to help my mother’). ‘I had no expectations,’ he said. ‘When you are brought up with privileges you have expectations, but I didn’t. I was just getting by. But I still wanted to do a slightly higher

Man o’ pairts: Sir Geoff at this year’s Keepers of the Quaich Banquet with Charles MacLean; Supping from the quaich; Sir Geoff made his name as a scientist studying grain. Images (l-r): Shannon Tofts, Phil Wilkinson. degree, and worked at the restaurant until I saw an advert for Nottingham University to do a masters sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture.

‘I was interviewed by the country’s second most powerful politician, Sir Keith Joseph, but as soon as I entered the room he said I should go back to where I came from and grow bananas. I told him it’d be diffi cult to grow bananas in Haringey, which he didn’t fi nd funny. I was brought up to respond to this sort of thing with dignity. I had no fear of him.’

His search for the next step on his journey brought him to Professor Anna Macleod at Heriot-Watt University with a view to doing a PhD in grain science and technology. She, it turned out, would be the next great mentor in his life. But after arriving in cold, wet Edinburgh in December 1964, their fi rst meeting in Chambers Street was a curious event.

‘I’d never been to Scotland although I knew about Robert Burns. Scotland was all around me in Jamaica, but I never knew it. The next street along from me was Elgin Street, the next parish was St Andrews, and my church was started by Scottish people. My family still live on what was Earl Balcarres’ slave plantation.

‘Anna was an iconic fi gure in both brewing and distilling. All the brewers and distillers around the world knew her, whether it’s China, Nigeria or wherever. I called her Tweedy because when I fi rst met her, there she was in her tweed suit smoking Senior Service packets of fi fty. My interview lasted ten minutes as she went on about distilling and I looked out the window. Then she said “I’m going to take you” and I said “really, why?” She said “because you won’t bother me – I hate keen people”. The truth was, Anna took me as part of her belief in wider education access for all. She was ahead of her time.’

To his surprise, he found grain deeply fascinating, and during the course of his PhD made a revolutionary discovery. Contrary to accepted wisdom, in the malting of barley it’s not the germ that produces the enzymes which digest the grain through malting, it’s the bran. By using a hormone, the grain will process itself from both ends, rather than just one, cutting the malting time from ten days to seven. In the stuffy world of brewing, Geoff’s ‘abrasion’ technique was huge news, although the big breweries were initially sceptical that a PhD student could identify a major advance that their well-funded research units had missed. But it was not long before the majority of beer brewed in Britain was produced using his abrasion technique.

After nine years with the elite Brewing Research Foundation in Surrey from 1968, Geoff returned to Heriot-Watt as a lecturer in 1977. It was part research, part mentoring, which he loved. ‘Maximising human potential has given me a lot of pleasure. I didn’t know what my potential was so it’s been a privilege to be able to discover what other young people are capable of doing.’

His reverie was, however, ruined when in 1980 he got a letter saying that the brewing department may be shut down. ‘I completely panicked,’ he laughs. ‘I didn’t know what to do so I

WHISKY IN YOUR POCKETWHISKY IN YOUR POCKET

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got in my car and I went to Ellersley Road where Ronnie Martin, who was production director of United Distillers, was based. I went to the HQ and asked “which one of those guys is Ronnie Martin”, and they pointed him out so I said “Mr Martin, may I have a word with you?”

‘Ronnie was very Scottish and when I told him they were going to close down the department he said “go away and write me a page of what you need, and what you think will save the department”. A month later Ronnie rang me and said “Geoff, I’ve got you some money”. He made it sound like fi fty pounds, but it was a million pounds, which was a huge sum in the 1980s. The Principal was over the moon.’

When the brewing and distilling industries donated a further £400,000, the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling, the industry gold standard, was born. Students from all over the world came to do its honours degree, and as its director Geoff was in high demand around the world. Coors asked him to Colorado to do some research on barley and malt, while Suntory and Kirin asked him to Japan, where he produced signifi cant fi ndings on the koji rice used in sake. Guinness heard that he’d been investigating sorghum and invited him to Nigeria where the government had banned the import of European grain and malt (Geoff joked with the company that ‘I left Nigeria two hundred years ago under very diffi cult circumstances’). His subsequent discovery of how to make Guinness using sorghum, but tasting exactly like the original, was game-changing.

Like his beloved mentor Anna Macleod, Geoff has been at the centre of the country’s brewing and distilling community. He became a research Doctor of Science (DSc) in 1985 before producing the book Cereal Science and Technology, and was also awarded several Honorary Degrees from different universities. As the president of the Scottish section of the Institute of Brewing, he attended industry dinners, many of which were raucous affairs (he is apparently a talented boat racer – as pint racing is known – and has catholic tastes when it comes to alcohol: ‘People always ask what my favourite drink is, and I say the one that I get free. The drink you should drink is the one you like most.’) These days he still lives in Penicuik, near Edinburgh, and is approaching a half-century

SCOTLAND WAS ALL with his educational psychologist wife Margaret. He remains a sprightly but insanely AROUND ME IN JAMAICA busy octogenarian who is still deeply involved BUT I NEVER KNEW IT with Heriot-Watt University, where he was appointed Chancellor for a fi ve-year term in April 2021, and has a multitude of directorships and positions with schools and charities. He is also deeply involved in human rights advocacy, writing a book on the history of the slave trade and serving as the Honorary President of Edinburgh and Lothians Regional Equality Council. In 2020, he was named as one of the ‘100 Greatest Black Britons’. But booze also continues to play a large part in his life. ‘Drink is part of our culture,’ he said. ‘It’s how we relax, how we socialise. It’s been good to me.’ Drink could say the same of Geoff.