Rachel was also incredibly fortunate to get a job at Blue Monkey Brewery just six months after they opened. Their founder John Hickling was incredibly supportive and the hands on experience and help she gained there was invaluable.
So finally after 3 years of market research, planning, test brewing, business plan writing, capital raising, premises finding, kit designing and waiting for kit to be built Dancing Duck’s inaugural brew happened in December 2010. Ian was there to lend a hand on that first brew day but after that for the first 6 months it was just Rachel, some shiny stainless steel vessels, a few casks, Lizzie the dog, an old van, a fairly sparse industrial unit and an awful lot of hard work.
Dancing Duck launched with 3 beers Ay Up, 22 and Gold they hit the pubs just in time for Christmas and were all well received, over the next year Rachel developed more recipes Nice Weather 4 Ducks, Abduction and our famous Dark Drake which has won “Best stout in Britain” in both CAMRA and SIBA competition as well as taking overall bronze medal in the Champion beer of Britain at GBBF
Since Dancing Duck has slowly grown to where we are today, lots more beers, lots more awards, a great team of 9 people brewing 6 days a week producing almost a million pints a year!