Newport is a gritty city. It has a gritty, industrial past with coal, steel and Wales’ largest dock making the city rich – both literally and culturally. And it is this urban grittiness which local brewery Tiny Rebel has embraced – in its beers and its brand.

Just step inside its city centre pub or its new brewery in Rogerstone and you’ll see exactly what we mean.

I met Brad over a drink at the Rogerstone base. Sitting in the newly-opened restaurant space – all concrete, steel industrial chic with huge windows onto the brewery area – he told me that the success of the venture he started five years ago at the kitchen table with his work partner Gazz Williams has been ‘overwhelming’.

The success has seen beer brewed in Newport now available in 33 countries around the world including Asia and South America with Tiny Rebel all set to break into the USA market.

It has seen Tiny Rebel win numerous awards and shortlisted for plenty of others.

It’s seen the Tiny Rebel team joining Welsh Government trade missions to shout about the food and drink available from Wales.

It has seen the company grow out of its first brewery at Maesglas into the purpose-built unit in Rogerstone and has also resulted in Tiny Rebel buying a building across the road so it can ‘future proof’ its base in the area.

It has also created more than 100 jobs, from brewers to bar staff, and everyone in between needed to make a business a success.

“I am a Newport boy. I went to school just down the road from here. It’s important that we stay in this area,” says Brad.

He admits that when Tiny Rebel knew it was growing too big for its original brewery, other cities, including Bristol, tried to lure it away.

“We had offers to go to Bristol and other places away from Newport, but we decided to wait until we found the right place to move to locally. When we first started looking, there was nowhere suitable for us in Newport but we waited it out. Rogerstone is a great area and this is a good place for us to be based.”

Since officially opening the new brewery, with its bar, restaurant, entertainment space and tours, in the summer it has already welcomed visitors from Uruguay and Italy keen to sample everything it has to offer.

Both Brad and Gazz have come from an engineering background and spent two years researching, drawing up a business plan and coming up with recipes for brews before finally taking the plunge and launching Tiny Rebel.

Brad says: “Gazz learned to brew with his grandfather. He got me interested and after a couple of years of homebrewing, the people we would give beer to would ask for more, and we realised we’d rather drink the beers we’d brewed than some of the stuff we found in pubs. So we wrote a business plan and decided to make to leap.

“I think it has been a success because of a combination of a few factors – our branding being one, but first and foremost it is the flavour of our beers. We brew beers to taste great. 

“We wanted our branding to reflect our urban roots, our rebellious streak and our sense of humour. So a teddy bear tagging a cityscape stood out from our first ideas.” 

JB: Why do you think craft beer has become so popular over recent years?
BC: It goes back to flavour. That’s the all important factor. The beer world is full of flavours across a vast range, from light and floral, to dark and roasty, sour to smoky, bitter to sweet. Having a beer that actually tastes of something is a refreshing change from the bland boring beers most of us are used to. But there’s such an enormous range that there’s something for everyone. 

JB: If you’re not drinking Tiny Rebel, what would you be drinking?
BC: When it comes to beer it all depends what mood you’re in, this then dictates what style of beer you drink. But at the moment there are so many good UK breweries out there we’re usually drinking something British rather than American. 

JB: You are constantly coming up with new beers – where do you get the inspiration from and how difficult is it to come up with something new?
BC: The whole team, including the staff at our bars, contribute to the ideas process. Whether it’s a flavour they’d like to build a beer around, an interesting ingredient, or just a cool name or design, everyone has something to offer. Our inspiration is popular culture for the most part, with lots of ideas coming from music, films and games. 

JB: If you weren’t a brewer, what would you be?
BC: Probably still engineers.

And what next for Tiny Rebel?
It recently bought an empty building across the road from the new Rogerstone brewery to help with capacity as the business continues to grow. No firm plans have been put in place with what to do with the new building. 
But as they say, watch this space…