Let’s take you back to where our journey began…

In 2008, our co-founder Russell Bisset entered a young entrepreneurs competition with a dream: Northern Monk. The competition went well but not well enough to quit the day job.

Tired of a beer scene was either very British and brilliant in many ways but tired and outdated in others or new and exciting but with no real sense of place or it felt like it was American. The dream of Northern Monk, a craft brewery fresh from the North continued to burn bright.

The dream was given life in 2013 when Granny Bisset sold her house and downsized, gifting £5K to all of her grandchildren with the proceeds.

Russ also met our head brewer Brian Dickson at a beer festival and, fuelled by the frivolities of a beer fest, realised they had a shared dream of a proper Northern brewery.

The pair set up shop in a parents cellar in Bradford, using other breweries’ kits to produce their beer and sold it at local farmers markets. After three months of selling IPAs between gazebos laden with cheese and handmade soaps, they attracted an initial investment, a small loan from a friends dad.

In 2014, Northern Monk was truly born. We found our home and our own brewery was set up in a Grade II listed abandoned mill building in Leeds, The Old Flax Store. It’s still our home today.

And as Northern Monk grew, so did our reputation.

In 2015 we launched Faith, which is now the fastest growing hazy beer in the country, and was one of the first in the New England style to launch in the UK. Faith is still our shining light.

In 2016, we became the first English brewery to win a medal in the IPA category at the World Beer Cup with Eternal, which we still make today. Later that same year, we were to take a trip that would leave its mark on the approach we took to brewing forever. We spent a week travelling around New England and Vermont, solidifying a love of the Hazy IPA and crystallising a vision of Northern Monk being the number one Hazy IPA brewer in the UK - led by Faith.

Since then we have continued to grow in scale and ambition while never compromising on quality or our values.

Since then, we have:

• Launched our pioneering Patrons Projects, which sees us collaborating with artists and creatives on a series of seven beers, where we also get to collaborate with some of the best breweries on earth. We release around three Patrons Projects every month, each with a unique peel-and-reveal label.
• We opened two Refectory bars; one upstairs at The Old Flax Store and one in Manchester
• We launched our Patrons subscription service, where people can receive a monthly box featuring all of our special releases
• We moved our main brewing site to a larger one in Holbeck, Leeds
• We launched two beer festivals; Hop City, where hop-forward beers are the theme, and Dark & Wild, a heavy metal beer fest where stouts, porters and sours are the stars. Both festivals have a reputation for being two of the best in the country and we’re lucky to welcome dozens of the world’s best breweries to each festival.
• We launch our Faith in Futures Foundation, where we support community focussed charities.
• We opened our third venue, The Northern Market, in Leeds.
• We launched Fresh Fest – a street art and graffiti festival, hosted at our brewery site.
• We achieved listings in every major supermarket and export to more than 20 countries around the world.

More than just beer, our brand is built on the northern values of community and collaboration. These values have led to a unique roster of creatives, influencers and ambassadors to draw upon, a team with a passion for what we do, and an army of brethren supporters.

With our Northern roots underpinning everything we do, we are able to flex the brand to create a diverse world of product experiences. We want to give people the best beer experiences in the world. That is something that will never change, and hasn’t changed since day one.