Luke Roberts

Having seemed destined for a career with an F1 team, he now runs a motoring-themed brewery at Bicester Heritage

SUSANANDIhave just had our second child, Winifred,soanysemblanceofroutinehasgone out of the window, though there is still a vague structure to my day. I tend to get up at about 6.45am and get our eldest Mikey ready for nursery. If I have time I’ll walk Marmalade, our Jack Russell, before taking Michael to school in the next village and then driving 15 minutes to the brewery at Bicester Heritage. I get there at about 8.30am, grab a bowl of porridge, go through the agenda with the team and then push on with the admin – checking orders, putting them on the system. I’m less involved in the day-to-day brewing process now, which is indicative of how far we have come.

I grew up in the West Midlands and did mechanical engineering at Bath, including a placement at Williams F1 and working at Ian Nuthall Racing. Instead of joining Williams, I became a management consultant for Newton Europe, which did everything – within a week of joining I was up in Barrow-in-Furness standing on top of a nuclear submarine.

Vintage cars have been ever-present in my life as a spannerman and a racer, however. When my dad couldn’t get me insured on his Frazer Nash Le Mans rep, he got a TT rep with a hot-rod 328 engine and 170bhp that I could be covered on It used to be street-parked when I had it down in Bath I even met Susan at a Frazer Nash Christmas party and it was when we were driving down to Rome in the TT with a tent on the back that we got engaged

About five years ago we decided we needed a change from London and I needed a change of job because I was just knackered I’ve always said the Frazer Nash Car Club and the VSCC are drinking clubs with a car problem, so I’d been harbouring this idea of starting a brewery aspartofamasterplantoownmyownbusiness and make my motorsport tax deductible! So I thought ‘sod it’, and started raising the sizeable amounttogetWrigglyMonkeyupandrunning

I’d been home brewing with my own scale version of a big brewery when we secured the site at Bicester Heritage in 2018 and launched properly with an Oktoberfest-themed party. At that stage it was just me producing six barrels a week of only one beer – Full Tilt, named after my S1 Land Rover. Even the name Wriggly Monkey came from a chaindrive Nash; it’s a part that sits on top of the transmission.

Each year since launching we have doubled turnover and now have five full-time staff, plus three consultants and have refitted to multiply production tenfold. There’s a range of six core beers and in summer we were burning through 120 barrels a week Even in lockdown we pivoted to a home delivery model and that was flatout,employingallthelocalkidsforbottling

Along the way we ’ ve picked up a 1956 Armstrong Siddeley special that holds six barrels of beer and was built by my late fatherin-law We do a lot of work with the Heritage Skills Academy and we ’ ve put a four-on-thefloor in the Siddeley with a Polo 1.2 TFSI linkage It’s a proper weapon; I’ve dropped an XK150 down the back straight at Silverstone with the roof-rack on and barrels in the back It carries up to 1000 pints and goes everywhere we can sell beer and build the brand, which means being at up to six events a weekend in summer We also use a 1930 Ford AA truck, which is much slower, but carries twice the beer It must be one of the oldest still-working commercial vehicles in the UK My dream is a fleet of hot-rodded A35 vans as works hacks

We do mail order and I’d like to do a lot more, but we also love people coming to visit us atBicesterand are open three days a week all year round, as well as screening F1 and other things to draw the crowds in

However, the brewery really lives or dies on thepubtradeandwe’reusuallyin20-30locally, though that can rise to 80. Most afternoons I’ll be assigned a set of deliveries and I’ll set off to a load of pubs, dropping off beer, picking up empties and visiting potential new sites I am hugely ambitious and want us to be part of the fabric of car culture in the UK I joke about it, but it’s also not a joke: why shouldn’t it be the Wriggly Monkey British GP in ten years; why shouldn’t our beer be at Silverstone, the Ace Café and the Royal Automobile Club?

I head back to base for about 4pm and leave at 5.30 sharp to pick up Michael from nursery I’ll watch a couple of hours of car- or tractorrelated TV with him, then we’ll feed him and get him to bed before Susan and I eat. After dinner, I tend to turn my attention back to work because there are still investors to engage with, strategising to be done, plus launches to be planned: such as Black Tractor, a new Irish stout coming on stream early in 2023. I always try to get to bed that day rather than the next, but it’s often not the case.

If ever there’s a day off, it’s usually taken up with vintage cars. I still race dad’s, such as his Edwardian Bianchi, but next year is the tenth anniversary of my last competitive race in the TT (which I won!), so I want to recreate that. It’sachallengetofitinanymotorsport,though. If I am prepping a car, it means getting Michael to bed at about 8pm, driving across to dad’s wherethecarsarekept,havingcoffeewithhim, starting work, finishing up and heading home at 1am-ish, so getting in about half-two, then up again at 6.45am for another ‘normal’ day.