Loxley Brewery is one of the sponsors of our popular Eats, Treats & Beats festival village. We had a quick chat with their general manager, Craig Dodd, to find out more about who they are and their involvement in this year’s festival.
Can you tell us about you and your role at Loxley Brewery?
I have a quite a lot of different roles within Loxley Brewery. I am responsible for general day-to-day management of the brewery, our marketing strategy, sales and logistics, event planning and management, and making sure our brewer is fuelled with tea!
I’m a big sport lover and currently, football and golf are the biggest attractions for me. I also enjoy travelling to (hopefully) warm countries (and of course, sampling the beer there).
What is Loxley Brewery about?
We are a forward-thinking microbrewery with a deep root in our community. We want people to enjoy our ales as much as we do making them. We take pride in our approach and we focus on quality over quantity. All our beers are hand crafted on site with a focus on making premium, top quality real ales that really symbolise who we are.
We are in this business for the love of what we can create, being able to be innovative with our approach to push ourselves to create some of the best beer, not in Sheffield, but the UK, and then being able bring our community together through the social power of our beer.
Why did you choose to be a sponsor of the Sheffield Food Festival?
Being the biggest food festival in Sheffield, we were extremely excited to have the opportunity to work alongside Stancil Brewery and SMOKE Barbecue to sponsor the Eats, Beats and Treats village. With an event like this that has the power to bring so many people together and drive the economy of Sheffield, it falls perfectly into who we are, so when we were approached to get involved, it was a no- brainer for us.
What excites you about this year’s festival?
I love trying new and interesting food (especially street food) so definitely looking forward to trying some of the fine food that will be on offer. Also, the chance to engage with the public about our beer. Being a relatively new brewery, it can be tricky sometimes to get ourselves noticed amongst some of the more established breweries that Sheffield has to offer. (if you REALLY like us, come visit our bottle stall). Finally, I’m just looking forward to having a good time in general.