Women of WoT
JAEGA WISE
WILD CARD BREWERY
“I just feel like beer chose me”
Could tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the beer world.
My name is Jaega Wise. I'm the head Brewer of a brewery in East London called Wild Card Brewery.
What inspired you to get into brewing initially and then how did that lead you to find yourself in broadcasting?
What inspired me to get into beer? I wasn't really that inspired to get into beer, to be honest with you. I was someone who just really liked to drink beer, and then I was home brewing and then I kind of fell into it a little bit. I got a job in a pub and I just feel like beer chose me. Like I was suddenly surrounded by beer 24/7.
Photo Credit: Miles Willis
What got me broadcasting? People kept asking me to speak on stuff on the tele and I kept saying, yes! That is it. And it turned out I wasn't completely terrible at it, so they paid me for it and I was like, yes, please, I'll do that again. That was it really. So that I definitely fell into, for sure.
Once you do one job, all of a sudden you're kind of a professional at it and then the doors keep opening.
Your works included the BBC Food Programme, The Wine Show, and then most recently, Beer Masters. Do you think this more mainstream display of beer and its varieties is helping its popularity and the general public perception?
In terms of popularity in mainstream media helping beers perception generally, yeah, of course. The old phrase of you can't be it, if you can't see it, I think applies here. I think that the spotlight on beer history, the spotlight on brewing beer, beer being interesting, how we’re now treating beer in a similar way to wine, trying to get that information across to the public is important. I think it's something that other sectors of the industry have done for a very long time. When you look at wine and you look at all these shows that are on the tele, shows like Saturday Kitchen, Sunday Brunch, there's typically a wine expert on them and it wasn't normal before to even entertain having a beer person on shows like these. So I think it's chipping away at the mainstream and chipping away at the public's consciousness. I think that does help overall. I'd be lying however, if I said I did it for some altruistic reason. That's not true. It's just really fun to be on the tele!
I've actually also done a lot more than those shows, but I don't think it's often stuff that's very visible to the beer industry. So I've done stuff on a Tudor Christmas, with Lucy Wosley, I did loads of science shows and all this stuff butI think those three shows are the only ones that people took notice of, in the beer industry.
Over the past few years, you've hosted some of the most attended IWCBD brew days in the UK. What made you want to get involved in these events and how did you find this year's in particular, post-covid?
In the UK, slash the world, I think! I don't think anyone is as busy as us. As for post-Covid, last year we did it, it was just me, Ellie and Thea, and the three of us just brewed a beer together. So its was an interesting change, but this year it was really nice to go all guns blazing. From my perspective, it's always been the purpose of the whole project to educate and promote through collaboration. So I think it's really important to promote and just highlight women. It’s a day when women all over the world are highlighted for their achievements and I think it should be no different in the beer world, but also I think the education side is really important so we spend a lot of time working on workshops and stuff to do throughout the day. It's a very, very large group now so it can be a lot to keep people entertained, but I know that when I go to other people's brew houses the worst thing in the world is just being stood there all day twiddling your thumbs. So we work really hard to make it entertaining as well as educational.
So it's just amazing people coming together and thinking, you know what, we have a group of women together and we can actually do something more than the individual parts of this.
Photo Credit: Miles Willis
This year we ran two workshops. One of them was called Know your Hops which was basically a hop rubbing and the other one was called Know your Flavours which was off-flavour training. It was really nice because we had people like Cara from Cara Technologies who came down and she donated all of the offloader spikes.
“It’s a day when women all over the world are highlighted for their achievements & I think it should be no different in the beer world”
We also had Charlotte Cook, and Lottie Peplow who hosted the off-flavour training with Cara, which was just amazing. A friend, Katie, and myself did the hop rubbing training with everybody. She spoke about it from a sales perspective about just how important, having this kind of knowledge is. You don’t have to go in and say a beer has this hop, or you don’t have to know, Bru-1 smells like this, this and this (Although that is helpful), but just knowing the financial value that adds to your beer when you use a certain hop combination, that was really interesting.
All the while we're trying to make a beere. It's always fun. In fact, we've just finished packaging it this morning. It is gorgeous. It's 6.6% Apricot saison, and in the end we made it with strata hops and with a little bit of lemon for balance. But it's tasting really amazing and I’m really pleased with it.
Could you tell us about someone in the industry that inspires you or just deserves a shout out?
There's so many people in the industry that inspire me. I tell you who does inspire me? And just for her badassery. Georgina Young from St. Austell's. Just because she's an example of what you can do when you get to the top of your game. I had the pleasure to brew a beer with her recently. She came and visited me, we went out for dinner and and I got to know her a little bit. But she' just really switched on. She knows what she's doing, business wise. She knows what she's doing brewing wise. She really just knows what she's doing.
What's Your Favourite Beer You've Made So Far? And What Is Your Favourite Beer To Drink Right Now?
Oh, favourite beer I've made in my career so far. So we've got a little something going on at the minute called the Cuvee Saison, which is a soured saison and it's part of our Barrel Ageing Project that we’re going to be releasing. It’s a 6.5% saison, and It's absolutely gorgeous and I can't wait for everybody to try it. I've come across a technique that makes it really consistently, and I'm not going to tell anybody! I'll take it to my grave how we're doing it, but It's just absolutely stunning and I'm just really pleased with it. So that's called Cuvee Saison.
To drink right now? Okay, so I'm really loving a West Coast IPA I Made With with Charlotte Cook at Coalition brewery. We released some beers on International Women's Day and one of them was that beer and she's gorgeous. It's such a lovely beer, I've not had a West Coast In ages, but It's pretty gorgeous. It's Called From Tiny Acorns To Mighty Oaks.
