no. 031 | Phantom Brewing

The co-founders of Phantom Brewing aren’t just a perfectly named duo – Dane and Dom rolls off the tongue – they’re also prolific. They’ve brewed 100s of beers since their inception in 2019.

Back in 2017 Dane White left his career to return to Academia, whilst Dom Gemski had just taken a sabbatical. Their change in career coincided with home brewing. “We caught the bug instantly”, says Dane. “Before I knew it I was brewing a minimum of once a week out of my garage trying to get everyone to taste the latest brew so I could get on with my next recipe, so it very quickly turned into an industry where Dom and I wanted to have a career in”. It was actually during the first home brew that the pair ever made that planted the seed that grew into Phantom’s name.

Two years later that pipe dream was realised as the pair collected the keys to their warehouse in 2019, which they quickly started filling with kit. The first beer rolled off the canning line in January 2020. As for the name, that came off the back their first ever homebrew. “Dom wanted to name the beer Phantom Of The Hopera, so we made a label and applied it to all of the bottles”. Months later when it came time to give their ‘proper’ brewery a name, the bottle rolled back into focus and the original name was shortened to the two syllable moniker.

You can tell it’s the process rather than the end result that really get Dane and Dom excited and keep them interested in what they do. “We both came from very corporate jobs previously and left them specifically as they didn’t give us joy”, Dane tells us. It’s clear that from the moment he tried some of his first hop forward beer, he’s never looked back: “we’re now taking multiple trips over to America to visit specific breweries and beer districts, continually searching out the new and exciting. The first time I walked into Treehouse in Massachusetts was a particular ‘wow’ moment. I remember thinking ‘this is how beer can taste and this is how a place can look selling this world class product’”.

Phantom are producing their beers a little closer to us. The full-time team of 14 are based in Reading, where the two co-founders have spent much of their lives. Here they are relentlessly brewing to make better beers. “We generally release 3 to 5 brand new beers a week that are never to be seen again. We use them to try out new processes and ingredients with a view to create something new and interesting”. When pushed on their non-negotiables when it comes to brewing though, the answer is profoundly simple: “great yeast and great hops”. It’s hard to disagree. Another inarguable fact is that Phantom is prolific. In 2023 they released 118 new beers. At an average of more than 2 a week, that’s the 4th most of any brewery in the world. The only person that might be working as hard as them is their label designer, Thomas Gutteridge, who is responsible for the artwork on every can