no. 041 | Sureshot

We’re not sure you’ll find a better brewing pedigree anywhere else in the UK. batch no. 041’s Sureshot are doing incredible things in the belly of Manchester.

We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the UK is home to some of the world’s best breweries, and it’s pretty fair to say that Manchester is home to a good chunk of them. The co-founder of January’s feature brewery, Sureshot, passed through several of them before choosing to go it alone in 2022. James Campbell made a name for himself at Marble brewery, where he was head brewer for 13 years and developed a reputation for exciting and impactful IPAs. From there, he co-founded craft beer institution Cloudwater, and has also helped the likes of Verdant and DEYA get off the ground.all of this before finally setting up Sureshot with his business partner, Michael Forde. 

Campbell and Forde describe their beer as being brewed “in the belly of Manchester” — a facetious play on their location, which is underneath Piccadilly station. As with almost every facet of Sureshot, there’s a story and trail of brewing breadcrumbs within the walls. The place they now call home is Track’s (batch no. 005) former brewing site. 

A continued focus on quality remains the order of the day for Sureshot’s beers, but so too does irreverence. As James rightly points out, “beer facilitates good times, celebrations and also the enjoyment of the product itself”. Beer names are a collection of quotes and references taken from comedies, songs, cartoons and TV shows some might  recognise — some are deep cuts, like their popular Pale Ale, Small Man’s Wetsuit, which takes its name from Flight of the Conchords parody rap song ‘Hurt Feelings’. Others are a little more obvious, like ‘To Shreds You Say’. References to Dr. Zoidberg will take drinkers back to evenings of Futurama on Sky One in the early 2000s. Even the brewery’s name is a direct reference to a Beastie Boys track of the same name. The song’s hook, “you can’t, you won’t and you don’t stop”, could be about Campbell himself given his unbelievable track record and decades of experience. 

The process of brewing the beers is James’ strong suit. “I’m not sure I know how to do anything else”, he quips. That’s not at all surprising given he’s been doing it in some capacity for more than a quarter of a century. Despite his deep knowledge, he’s wonderfully paired back and unpretentious in how he describes his process. What’s the secret to creating the hop-forward beers Campbell has become known for? “Put a lot of hops in it”, he says half-jokingly but in full sincerity. But above and beyond everything else, he credits his yeast for Sureshot’s consistently delicious beers. “If you have happy yeast”, he confides, “everything else should fall into place”. 

With such a lauded history, we’d be missing a tick if we didn’t ask where Sureshot sits in James’ pantheon of breweries; is this the best one yet? ““I’d like to think so, but really it’s the people that are drinking the beer that are better placed to tell me that”. Best crack them open then...