Meet Our Brewer –  

Meet Jayson Smart – Senior Brewer at the Fox Hat & Vale Brewery. Jayse grew up in SA, with an impressive repertoire of brewery experience, Jayse is an outstanding addition to the brewery team.

Give us some background about yourself..

I started my career in the live music industry and toured the country as a live sound engineer for many years before my passion for beer lead me to brewing it professionally for the last 12 years.

What got you in to brewing?

The love of beer and fascination at how it is made.

What is your favourite beer and why? (outside of our range)

Not many days go by I don’t hear this question and its so hard to nail down one beer, its all about the moment where you are and who your with, and even the standard lager the locals are drinking can be almost as magic as the latest crazy over the top modern creation. Pale ale is my favourite style with such a broad range of what that can be with my favourites being our Fox Hat heavy handed and Vale Tropic Ale.

What is your favourite style within our range?

We debate whether XPA really is an actual, however our heavy handed is my favourite, we took the X as meaning a pale ale extra light in colour and extra hops than what most craft brewed pale ales might be. Ultimately it is pale ale.

And beers you’re most excited to brew and why?

Those where the end goal is always drinkability, there is little point in brewing beer everyone just tries once, goes wow but struggles to drink more than one can.

What do you enjoy the most about the Vale Brewery?

Our team and being provided the means to brew the very best beer I can day in and day out.