Renegade Master

Ian Rogers, the Managing Director of newly launched Renegade Brewery, is something of an industry legend having over 30 years ago, at the age of only 27, founded Wychwood Brewery, and created the now iconic Hobgoblin beer brand. More recently he has been called out of retirement to launch a new business, Renegade Brewery, from the ashes of the failed West Berkshire Brewery (WBB) operation which fell into administration in 2021. Ian’s journey in beer began at the tender age of 14 when he started homebrewing in the family bathroom, before eventually turning down a place at Loughborough University in favour of going straight to work. After stints at Bass and Allied, working for the managed division of Halls of Oxford, he ended up selling his house to fund the purchase of a small local brewery, then called Glenny Brewery, which he relaunched in 1990 as Wychwood, a pioneering and fiercely independent brewery. Wychwood’s flagship ale Hobgoblin broke new ground at the time as an independent premium bottled ale in a part of the market dominated until then by beers from larger breweries. After he sold Wychwood, Ian went on to head up Randalls Brewery in Guernsey which he did until retiring in 2020. That retirement was short-lived, and in late 2021 be was enticed back into the sector by the Yattendon Group, which successfully bid for the assets of the failed WBB operation and asked Ian to head up a new brewery operation on the same rural site. The WBB plant, estimated to have cost £12M, was picked up with other business assets for a rumoured price of just over £3M, and in September last year Renegade Brewery was launched on the same site. Independent Brewer’s Caroline Nodder caught up with Ian in early January to find out how it feels to be back in the industry and how he’s gone about turning the business around…